Today’s main theme, which places us within the unfathomable and essential mystery of Christianity, the Holy Trinity, inevitably leads us to link this mystery to the other visible community created by Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and who bestowed upon the same the Holy Ghost so that it might express within its sacramental unity the profoundness of the mystery in which it originates.

With precise reference to the main speaker of this video-conference on the Trinity, Monsignor Bruno Forte, I intend to explain briefly his proposal concerning the relationship between the Trinity and the Church. Forte in fact asks himself: where does the Church come from, how is it constituted and in which direction is it going? The Church is the "icon" of the Trinity, not only as the figure representing it, but as its effective expression. The Church is formed by the people elected by God the Father through the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Church was not created simply by the convergence of purely mundane interests, or the good intentions of a few, but like the Lord it comes from above and is situated in time by the admirable Trinitarian love.

It is the Church of the Father, Who, with liberalism and with the arcane design of His knowledge and His benignity beckoned the church to Christ, prefiguring it within the history of the Alliance and the "kahal" – known as - of Israel. It is the Church of the Son, Who through the Incarnation and Easter inaugurated on earth the Kingdom of Heaven in the form of the contrasting designs of human history, constituting the Church as His body and – within the mystery – crucified in time. It is the Church of the Holy Ghost, Who, living within the Church and in the hearts of the believers as if in a temple, vivifying the Church, guides it towards the full truth, unites it in communion and in the service supplying it with gifts and enrichening it with its fruits (see Lumen gentium, 2-4). Hence the Church comes from the Father, for the Son, and in the Spirit, it is the environment for the encounter between heaven and earth, it is the place in which the history of the Trinity, thanks to the totally free initiative of divine love, becomes incarnate in the history of mankind and mankind hence enters the life of God.

Remembering St. Paul’s biblical idea which considers the mystery as God’s plan that come about temporarily, likened to Glory hidden by the mark of history, the Second Vatican Council wished to present the Church in its Trinitarian profoundness, showing how, because of its origins, it is converted to an ineffable reality as regards to all mundane understanding and hence as a gift, a grace that must be welcomed with wonder and in a state of grace, translating this attitude into a service to mankind, as done by He who gave the Church its origins, Jesus Christ.

Where does it come from? From above. Let us now observe how the image of the Trinity is constituted, an image that is one within its diversity, in the communion of charismas and the various ministries that come from the same Spirit; The Church lives thanks to the circulation of Love, for which Trinitarian life is an incomparable model and a never ending source. As within the ambit of the divine, love is the distinction between people and at the same time, the overcoming of this distinction in the unity of the mystery; and this also applies to the Church, maintaining the infinite distance between heaven and earth; however, in virtue of the infinite communion established by divine initiative in the missions of the Son and the Spirit, love is both distinction and the overcoming of all that is distinct.

In the Church, the variety of gifts and services, as well as the richness of local churches, must converge in unity and express this reciprocal communion. It is for this reason that the church must be capable of combining the originality and the richness of its charismatic gifts without falling into uniformity, however at the same time it must avoid any contrast that cannot dissolve, in communion with the Crucifix, the tension between the diversity of ministries and charismas, the fertile acceptance of the people and the communities in the unity of faith, of hope and of love.

Finally, the Trinity is the destination of the Church, born from the Trinity it must return to the Father in the Spirit for the Son, until the day in which all is assigned and He consigns it all over to the Father and "God may be all in all" (1 Cor 15, 28). The Trinity is therefore the source in the past and the promise for the future of the Church. This final destination in glory constitutes the foundation of the eschatological and pilgrim-like character of the Church until the Lord shall return, when in Him all shall return. Hence there is need for the Church, if it is continuously evolving, for both constant reformanda, and forever in the need of a permanent purification and everlasting renewal of the Spirit until the promises made by God take place within it. Based on this capacity for self-criticism, the Church offers itself therefore as a form of contrast when facing society and will bring about a relativization, or it will denounce the shortsightedness of all human creations in the comparison with the plenitude of hope for the Kingdom that is already among us. The Church, in time, will move forward in its invocation, in its praise and service, bearing the weight of the Cross, but enrichened by hope for the fullness it already possesses in its Lord and Master.

Thank you!

Silvio Cajiao, S.I.

Cfr. FORTE, Bruno, La Chiesa icona della Trinità, Brief ecclesiology, Queriniana, Brescia, 1986.

FORTE, Bruno, Trinidad como historia - Ensayo sobre el Dios Cristiano, Sigueme, Salamanca, 1988.

FORTE, Bruno, Creer y pensar la Trinidad. A partir de la estructura trinitaria de la "Revelatio", in: "Pensar en Dios", Secretariado Trinitario, Salamanca, 1997, pages. 229-252.