Today's feast – the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity - is a timely corrective to the I-centred world in which we live. Much of Christianity today has become an affair between Jesus and me.

Some writers have referred to it as “buffet Christianity” – take what appeals to you and leave the rest. In this “taking” we have thrown out important truths that are central to Christian faith, like those concerning community.

To believe in God who is a Trinity of Persons means that God is not only involved with me but with the human community and the world as well.

Historians of religion have often pointed out the uniqueness of Judaism. It was the first time in the history of religion that God was understood as intervening in the history of a people and calling them into a particular relationship with him.

We see this in today's first reading: “ Has any God ever ventured to take to himself one nation from the midst of another by ordeals, signs, wonders, war with mighty hand and outstretched arm, by fearsome terrors - all this that the Lord your God did for you before your eyes in Egypt? ”

This “taking to himself one nation” was only a sign of what God wanted to do with all peoples. In Jesus, God did not condemn the world “but that through him the world might be saved” (today's gospel).

The Church is sacrament of this: through the Church God's offer of salvation in Jesus is constantly proclaimed and sustained by the Spirit. This tells us that the Church is deeply dialogical: Jesus made God's offer of salvation in dialogue with his disciples not in hostile confrontation with them.

CONVICTION AND CHARITY

This teaching has important implications for life within and outside the Church. Sometimes there are problems between the Magisterium and theologians and between bishops and priests.

At times these problems have been “solved” with too many hierarchical directives and too little patience and dialogue. It is refreshing to hear at the start of any papacy a pope committing himself to reconciliation and dialogue, as Benedict XVI has pledged to do.

Cardinal Karl Lehman, President of the German's Bishops Conference, recently said that Christianity can no longer determine the future of Europe but it could still be “the greatest power – but no longer in combination with power and force, rather spiritual conviction and charity.”

Cardinal Lehman was referring to Europe in its growing secularism and with its increasing populations of immigrants who bring with them their religion and culture.

The Cardinal did not see this as a reason to become afraid; on the contrary - a golden moment of dialogue and mutual enrichment.

Young people, the future of our world, must not be forgotten in this Trinitarian mission of dialogue. This insight was not lost on John Paul II who insisted in inaugurating the World Youth Day forum.

There are many negative things we can say about today's youth but amidst their confusion and restlessness John Paul saw their search for God, and so must we.

We must challenge them as we walk side by side with them so that they will become the architects of a globalization of peace and solidarity.

As we celebrate Trinity Sunday, let us not see it as some abstract doctrine but one that calls us to communion and dialogue in the Church and world.