Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (God is Love)
In recent years, you may have heard the expression “love is love”. I suspect that expression has different meanings for different people, but one of the things it seems to say is that love is whatever you define it to be. Instead, as Christians, we say that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). Rather than regarding love as a subjective reality in which it's anything you want it to be, saying that God is love is to declare it as an objective reality and therefore as an objective truth that applies equally to all God’s sons and daughters.
In other words, despite the many ways we speak about love and of the variety of things we say we love, perhaps it’s most accurate to say that the truest and most meaningful reality of love is personified in God, and furthermore, that wherever genuine love is expressed, it is a reflection of God Himself—for those who study philosophy, it’s a bit like Plato’s theory of Forms, in which anything we encounter in this physical world, is an imitation of a non-physical source of reality that exists somewhere in eternity. But to say it another way, love is not so much an attribute of God or even simply what He wills for us; instead, love is His nature. When we love authentically, we come to share in His nature.
How do we come to experience God as love? For one, by the way He makes Himself known to us. Even as we bear in mind that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, it's so hard to wrap our minds around and can seem like such an abstract reality, the Judeo-Christian articulation of the creator speaks of one who has altogether personal and tangible.
In the first reading, we are told, “the LORD stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name, ‘LORD.’" You may have noticed that sometimes in the Old Testament the word Lord is spelled, with only the first letter capitalized. That’s the word Adonai. It’s not so much a name, but instead a title. But other times, as in the case of this encounter with Moses, we see the same word spelled with all capital letters: LORD. Spelled like this it is the divine name which sometimes we see spelled as YHWH. This is not a title, but instead a name. In other words, God gave us His name, even if that sounds arbitrary. It's one more way that God opens Himself up to humanity with the desire to be known.
And of course, this love became so powerfully manifest in God making Himself known to us, not just in name, but coming to us in human flesh. Making himself known to us in this way, he ultimately suffered and died, in order to save us.
Yes, God is love, but as I once heard it said: “’God is not ‘nice’. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.’ But this earthquake is also a kiss. It is a kiss that is bloody and saving. He gave us his eternal son's very life-blood to take away our sins. This earthquake, this fire, this infinite volcano of power, has made the ultimate sacrifice just for us” (Dr. Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Cycle A., p 766).
God has revealed Himself to be three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He has shown us that in those three Divine Persons there is dynamic communion, a life-giving and selfless love. He has spoken to us. He has come to us. He has shown us love. For us then, love is only love when it comes to emulate the life of God, and thus gives way to our sharing in His nature.