Recently we celebrated the Feast of Saint Hilary of Poitiers, an early bishop who was a leader in the Trinitarian debates of the fourth century AD. Specifically, Hilary challenged the teachings of Arius, a priest who insisted that Christ was not "of one being with the Father", as we confess in the Creed each week. Indeed, according to Arius, "there was a time when the Son was not." The First Council of Nicaea (AD 325) condemned the doctrines of Arius and gave us the first form of the Nicene Creed.

Aside from saying the "right thing" when we confess our faith at Mass, what is the significance of all this for day-to-day life in the Ecumenical Catholic Communion? Our ecclesiology - our understanding of the nature of the Church - is very much shaped by our understanding of the Trinity. The eternal, communal relationship of the divine persons with each other becomes the model and the ground of our communion with one another as Christian people. We are invited to participate in the divine life. We enjoy the communion of God and humanity which has been restored through Christ. Created, male and female, in the image of God, we live into our created nature by being in communion with God and one another, just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in eternal communion with one another.