Along with the Chiesa Nuova, San Girolamo della Carità and San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, one of the Roman churches of special interest to anyone with an Oratorian connection is the beautiful Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini. In the heart of the historical centre, this church was built to serve a confraternity that was co-founded by our holy father St Philip while still a layman, to care for pilgrims attending the Holy Year celebrations of 1550.
The first thing you will notice on entering the Church of Santissima Trinità is the magnificent painting over the High Altar. A masterpiece by the great baroque artist Guido Reni, it depicts the Blessed Trinity. Our Lord hangs on the Cross, with a dove hovering over His head, while God the Father opens wide His arms in a gesture of acceptance of His Beloved Son’s perfect Sacrifice.
I once took a Protestant friend to visit this church and he remarked that seeing a picture of the Trinity made him feel uneasy. Painting the Son, he said, was one thing; but surely the Father and the Holy Ghost transcend depiction?
Reading Holy Scripture, however, we find that the prototype for all Christian images of the Trinity is to be found in the Gospel. At the beginning of His ministry, when our Lord is baptized by St John, the Holy Ghost appears over His head in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father announces from Heaven: “This is my Son, the Beloved, in Whom I am well pleased.” (Mtt 3.17) This scene is like an icon of the Blessed Trinity. The fact is that God and His Church often use signs and images to draw us into the mysteries of our Faith. The visible gives us an entrée into those invisible realities which “pass all understanding”. (Phil 4.7)
The revelation of the Blessed Trinity is one of those earth-shattering moments in the history of God’s relationship with man. And it is significant for us that it occurs within the context of Baptism. In the Christian Sacrament of Baptism, we unite ourselves with the death of God the Son and with His Resurrection. God the Holy Ghost takes up residence within us, so that we become living temples of His Presence. God the Father recognises us as His beloved children. Baptism is a truly Trinitarian event.
Saint John the Evangelist tells us that “God is love.” (1 Jn 4.8;16) This is a popular idea today. But what does it mean? One thing it doesn’t mean is that God is a warm feeling inside us. This might sound obvious. But there are a lot of people today who confuse love with sentiment. This is one reason why many marriages fail. When the initial thrill of courtship and romance fades, then what the young couple thought was love dissolves; and we are too often left with the tragedy of divorce and a broken family.
If we meditate on the Blessed Trinity, we should come to understand that love is not a sentiment at all. It is an act. The life of God is characterized by an eternal and infinite procession of love between the Three Persons of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And the more we contemplate this outpouring of self, the better we come to realize that this sort of love which is marked by self-giving is the very essence of the Christian life into which we enter through Baptism.
The Blessed Trinity was a very fitting dedication for the Church of the Pilgrims in Rome precisely because the love of the Triune God is so perfectly disinterested and selfless. God has nothing to gain for Himself through the act of Creation. The eternal flow of perfect love between the Three Divine Persons means that God has no need of us – He finds complete fulfilment within His own Life. His act of Creation must therefore be a work of purely gratuitous generosity. He brought us, and the angels, into being so that we might participate in His divine life.
Those pilgrims who needed looking after at the church of the Most Holy Trinity when they arrived in Rome were usually poor and often lame. Most of them had nothing to give in recompense for the care that was lavished on them. It was self-giving overflowing love that moved St Philip and his companions to perform this beautiful act of charity, exposing themselves to contagion and infestation as they bathed and bound the feet of their guests and fed them. This ministry to the poor was a way of living to the full that life of the Blessed Trinity that had been infused into them in Baptism.
If we want to imitate the love that characterizes the life of the Trinity, we must seek to show charity to those who have nothing to give in return. It is always easy to love attractive people who enhance our lives. To love with the charity of the Trinity, however, we have to include the disadvantaged, the needy and the lonely in our lives.
If ever the razor wire is lifted and you are able to make a pilgrimage to Rome, please visit that church that was built for pilgrims. Gaze on the wonderful painting over the High Altar, and meditate on what the Divine Love means for us – that Almighty God allowed His Majesty to be outraged on the Cross, so that we might be able to participate in the Life of the Blessed Trinity. At Holy Mass, when the Sacred Host is raised, and then the Chalice, during the Consecration, picture in your mind our Lord on His Cross, with the Father opening His arms to receive His Son’s oblation, and the Holy Ghost hovering, like the personification of the Love that flows between Father and Son. That is the reality of what we happens on the Altar.
Father Julian Large