By reading the following words, you are not meeting me alone. You are entering, however quietly, into communion with all that has led me to this very moment in which I write to you.
In God the Trinity there is genuine diversity as well as true unity. God is not a single person, loving Himself alone. He is Trinity; three equal persons, each one dwelling in the other two by virtue of an unceasing movement of mutual love.Kallistos Ware
Every person I have met, every prayer I have received, every act of kindness that has shaped me, every wound that has humbled me, is in some way present here.
None of us arrive anywhere alone.
Even the screen on which you read this is not a solitary object. Behind it are designers, engineers, miners, factory workers, transporters, shop assistants, programmers, and countless others whose names we will likely never know. Their labour has made this moment possible.
But this hidden dependence is not yet communion. It may even conceal injustice, exhaustion, exploitation, or indifference. To notice that we are connected is only the beginning. The Christian task is to allow connection to become gratitude, responsibility, prayer, and love.
As Kallistos Ware writes:
Our faith in the Trinity puts us under an obligation to struggle at every level, from the strictly personal to the highly organized, against all forms of oppression, injustice and exploitation. In our combat for social righteousness and ‘human rights’, we are acting specifically in the name of the Holy Trinity.Kallistos Ware
This is why putting a face behind the things we consume matters. It is not simply an exercise in imagination or sentiment. It is a spiritual and moral discipline. If the Trinity reveals that being itself is communion, then every form of exploitation is an assault upon the truth of the human person. To confess the Trinity is to confess that no person exists merely as a tool, a resource, a consumer, or a hidden unit of labour.
In a world where loneliness is one of the great diseases of our time, Christianity proclaims that communion is not an accessory to life. It is the truth of reality itself.
God is not loneliness. God is not a solitary will gazing eternally upon Himself. God is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, eternally distinct and eternally one. At the heart of all things is not isolation, but love.
This is why the Church is called the Body of Christ. We do not belong to Christ as scattered individuals who happen to share similar beliefs. We are made members of one another in Him. In baptism, in the Eucharist, in prayer, in forgiveness, in suffering, and in love, we are drawn into a life that is deeper than mere association. We are drawn into communion.
The creation of this website is itself a small witness to that truth. One friend had an idea, another offered encouragement, another brought technical expertise, another gave wisdom and experience. It is not simply a project made by individuals. It is a work made through relationship.
In that sense, even this small act of shared creation can become a sign of the Resurrection. Christ is risen not as an idea, but as life restored, communion renewed, and love made victorious over separation.
But where is the distinctly Christian message? What does the Trinity actually tell us to do?
It tells us to become holy.
And to become holy is not to become less ourselves. It is to become more fully ourselves in Christ.
C. S. Lewis wrote:
There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most ‘natural’ men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.C. S. Lewis
This is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life. The more we cling to ourselves, the smaller and more repetitive we become. The more we surrender ourselves to God, the more truly personal, distinct, and alive we become.
Sin makes us less ourselves. Holiness makes us unmistakably ourselves.
When Charles Williams died, Lewis thought he might now have “more” of Tolkien, since the two of them no longer had to share him with Williams. But the opposite was true. With Williams gone, Lewis had less of Tolkien, because the parts of Tolkien that came alive only in conversation with Williams were now dormant.
We only fully see one another in communion. There are parts of us that can only be awakened by love, friendship, prayer, service, and sacrifice. To withdraw from others is not to preserve the self, but to diminish it.
This is why the Christian life must become concrete. The Trinity is not an abstract doctrine to be admired from a distance. It is a call to forgive, to worship, to receive the Eucharist, to honour hidden labour, to welcome the lonely, to resist exploitation, to bear one another’s burdens, to pray for the dead and the living, and to become attentive to the people placed before us.
As Frederica Mathewes-Green writes:
The one light of Christ shines through millions of lanterns. But each lantern is made of different coloured glass. You are the only person God made who is exactly like you; and if you fail to be filled with the light of Christ, you will eternally deprive the Kingdom of God of one particular shade of radiance.Frederica Mathewes-Green
This is the mystery of the Body of Christ. Communion does not erase difference. It redeems it. The saints are not copies of one another. They are each uniquely transparent to the same divine light.
To become a saint is therefore not to disappear. It is to become, at last, the person God created you to be — not alone, but in Christ, and with all those whom Christ has joined to you.
As Léon Bloy wrote:
There is only one tragedy: to fail to become a saint.Léon Bloy