By Brenda Hopf
Connecting Creed and Life
Editor’s Note: For 2025, the weekly Connecting Faith and Life column will be renamed Connecting Creed and Life. To celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year and the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the columns will consist of reflections on the Nicene Creed.
After spending the night with my husband in the ICU, I headed home to shower and pick up a few things to bring back to the hospital. As I walked out to the icy, snow-covered parking lot, I spotted an old friend whose mother I heard had passed away just a couple of hours prior. Our eyes met as I walked toward her. We embraced in a big, heartfelt hug. I told her how sorry I was about her sweet mom, and she asked about my husband. We chatted for a while and even though it was bitterly cold, I felt a warmth and love that I cannot describe with words.
Upon returning to that same parking lot a couple of hours later, I noticed an elderly man getting out of his vehicle in almost the exact spot where I had spoken to my friend a couple of hours earlier. I saw that he was struggling to get something out of the back seat of his vehicle. When I looked back, he had a backpack in one hand and a cane in the other. As I reached the entrance to the hospital, I looked back again and he was ever so cautiously trying to navigate the snow and big chunks of ice beside his vehicle, making very little progress. Without another thought, I bee-lined it back to the parking lot to help him. I told him to grab onto me and I helped him get to where it was clear and level. He told me that his wife was in the hospital and he was bringing her some things. He thanked me several times. It made my heart ache that he was there by himself and I just wanted to give him a big hug. Similar to what I had felt when I had talked with my friend a couple of hours earlier, I felt a kind of love and warmth that I do not know how to put into words.
For me, there is only one logical explanation for what I experienced during these two encounters — the warm, loving touch of God — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
As I reflected, I slowly began to see the movement of the three persons of the one true God. I felt the loving embrace of the Father. I saw in the human interaction that took place an imitation of the Son. I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to act.
The Holy Trinity is a mystery of our faith, something we cannot fully grasp as human beings, but there is no doubt in my mind that this tenet of faith, while invisible, is very real, because I experienced it in a very concrete and profound way on that day.
While most of us do not remember our baptism, it was at that moment the three persons in one God — the Most Holy Trinity — took up residence in each one of our souls. “Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their names, for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: Most Holy Trinity” (CCC 233).
Having been baptized, as we strive to live out our faith each day, we are called to continually awaken and rededicate ourselves to the Most Holy Trinity. Everything we do as individuals and as Church flows from and is centered upon this teaching of the Creed. “The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234).
After these heartfelt encounters, I am challenging myself to be more aware of the presence and movement of God — the Most Holy Trinity. The three persons in one God always work in tandem and that was ever so clear in the two encounters I have just shared. I thank God for this experience of his warm, loving touch and I pray that we may all be more aware of the presence and movement of God — the Most Holy Trinity — in our lives each and every day.
Brenda Hopf is a member of Divine Mercy Parish.