Fr. Michael Williams

St Augustine said if we had to reduce the Bible to three words, it would be the three words found in the first letter of Saint John where it says, ‘God is love’. The feast of the Holy Trinity helps us to understand that ‘God is love’ as a communion of Persons- the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This communion of divine love has always existed and will always exist. It existed before anything was created by God, yet because love is creative and self-giving God’s love brought into existence the whole of Creation.

‘We believe in God the Father, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth’. The Father, the origin of all things, creates all beings as an act of love. He did not need to create anyone or anything. He did not need to bring into existence you or me, yet He has done so as a gift to us, so that we can contemplate His glory through the gift of our consciousness. He also gave us humans the gift of freedom; the freedom to love god and one another, rather than to be automatons. Yet by its very nature giving freedom to a creature brings risks. For example, taking someone’s life is an abuse of freedom. God created the universe and all it contains as a gift to rational creatures. Yet the rational creatures did not appreciate the gift and abused it and continue to abuse it.

Yet God the Father did not abandon His creation when it was spoilt by the irrationality of angels and humans. ‘We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ…who for our salvation came down from Heaven’.

‘We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life’.