An important quality of our Trinitarian God is community. For Christians the Trinity is the primary symbol and model of community life. God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a community which mirrors unity and diversity. 

The Holy Trinity shows us that God isn’t alone. God lives in community, a community which, in Greek, is called perichoresis – where the circular dance of love proceeds from one to another and therefore permeates the whole community. The community is a dance of love, a celebration of life and enhancing and deepening of relationships.

The people of God, the Christian community, is invited to imitate the Trinity. We are invited, in our diversity, to live together in harmony where each person’s gifts and contribution is respected. Each of us have a role to play in building community so that we too can celebrate life and ever-deepening relationships with others. To live as such a community means that we live at the heart of the Trinity, always formed by and living the qualities of peace, unity, harmony, mercy, humility and mutual love.

We live in a fractured, wounded and divided human family. Sadly, some acrimonious divisions are found with the Christian community itself. The Christian community should witness communitarian life at its best, the life of the Trinity, to the human family. This is often not the case. Our dance can be one of divisions and power struggles.

As we reflect this week on the Trinity we are invited to reflect on the quality of our communities – those in which we live, our families, neighbourhoods and our local Church community. We are invited to notice how we live in a dance of love – or not. If our community life does not imitate that of the Trinity then, as always, God invites us to a metanoia – a ‘change of heart’ – individually and together so that we begin living the community life God desires for us. We were made for community and so when we live community well we too are filled with a deep joy and sense of purpose.

We are invited to pause today and ask if our ‘living-together’ reveals a dance of love to the world? What positions or attitudes might I need to let go of so that I can embrace, live and participate more intentionally in building community? Speak to the Lord about your commitment to community life with all its joys and challenges.