I remember a priest who once delivered his homily on the solemn feast of the Holy Trinity this way: “My brothers and sisters, the Trinity is a mystery. If I preach about this doctrine, it will no longer be a mystery. So today, I will not deliver a sermon.” Most of his parishioners responded with a collective sigh of relief: “Thanks be to God.”

Rather than delve into the theological complexities of this central article of faith, I would like to draw from it a few practical lessons for our daily Christian life.

In our Catechism, we were taught that there is one God in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—whom we invoke every time we make the sign of the cross. In doing so, we proclaim that all our prayers are offered in the name of the Holy Trinity.

Our belief in the Holy Trinity flows from God’s self-revelation as Love. Love, by its very nature, is both unitive and diffusive. As a unitive force, love has the power not only to unite, but also to transform the lover into the beloved. St. Thomas Aquinas expressed this beautifully: “We become what we love.”

This teaches us a lesson on human love. Because love transforms us into what we love, we must choose carefully whom or what we give our hearts to. If you love God, you grow in His likeness. If you love your dog above others, you may start to resemble it. If you love money too much, people will call you “mukhang pera.” What we love gradually shapes our image and personality.

But love is not only unitive, it also naturally overflows and reaches out to others. So, if God is love, then within the one God there must be a dynamic communion of Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), eternally giving and receiving love. This does not mean we worship three Gods. The doctrine of the Trinity is our way of understanding God as both one and relational. Love requires relationships, and relationships require distinct persons who give and receive love freely.

Yet in the Trinity, each Person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—remains distinct without being absorbed by the other. They are united in essence but remain unique and distinct personalities. This is because their love is balanced by reverence.

One lesson from this is that our love for others must be tempered by respect. As a unifying force, love abolishes the space that separates us from others because of bias, discrimination, and prejudice. But respect creates the necessary distance so we recognize the other person not merely as an extension of ourselves, but as a distinct individual, subject of rights that we must not violate.

When we look at the Ten Commandments, the foundation from which all moral laws are derived, we realize that their core can be summed up in respect or reverence.

The first commandment enjoins us to revere God above all; the second to revere his name, the third to revere the Lord’s day, the fourth obliges us to respect our parents; the fifth, to respect life and the environment that sustains it; the sixth,to revere our body and the sanctity of marriage; the seventh, to respect the property of others, the eighth, to respect the good name of another; and the ninth and the tenth, to revere our selves by resisting covetous desires.

Reverence or respect is the bedrock of all moral law and the cornerstone of authentic love. We cannot truly love someone we do not first honor and respect.

Today’s feast of the Holy Trinity invites us to make our families, society, and our world reflect the harmony of the Triune God, in whom love and respect, or charity and justice, are not separate ideals, but one eternal reality.