"Gott ist keine einsame Macht" – Predigt von Domkapitular Christoph Ohly

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:01]Dear sisters and brothers, let me begin this sermon for today's solemn Trinity Sunday consciously with the sign of the cross in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

[00:00:17]For the sign of the cross, which we repeatedly make over ourselves in the liturgy, in our prayer, is the most expressive sign of our faith. to the Father who created us, to the Son who came down to us and redeemed us through his death and resurrection, and to the Holy Spirit who, so to speak, introduces us from all sides into the full truth and strengthens, carries, and accompanies us. Yes, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

[00:00:59]Dear sisters and brothers, we celebrate the one God in the three persons with this confession of our faith, which shapes and defines not only today's Trinity Sunday, but every day; however, we are not celebrating a mathematical puzzle or a complicated theological formula. We celebrate the heart of our faith. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God in three persons.

[00:01:34]A God who is relationship, a God who is love.

[00:01:41]Dear sisters and brothers, so many people say, " I don't understand this Trinity."

[00:01:50]And that's true; if we could fully understand God, he wouldn't be God. The Church Father Augustine once put this into a famous formula. If you had grasped him, then he would not be God.

[00:02:11]Thus, an unfathomable secret of faith, a mystery that invites worship and ultimately, dear sisters and brothers, leaves one speechless.

[00:02:23]And yet the Church has repeatedly tried to give us a glimpse of this mystery.

[00:02:32]Saint Thomas Aquinas, who is also connected to us here in Cologne in a special way as a great medieval theologian, once wrote in his major work: "In God, everything is one, except where there is an opposition of relationships.

[00:02:56]In God, everything is one, except where there is an opposition of relationships. I admit, a difficult sentence, but a wonderful truth, because Thomas wants to say, with the Church, that God is perfectly one, but within this unity there is relationship. The Father gives himself to the Son. The Son receives everything from the Father and gives himself back to him completely. And the Holy Spirit is, as it were, the bond of love between Father and Son.

[00:03:30]God is therefore not a solitary power somewhere in what we call heaven.

[00:03:36]God is communion within himself.

[00:03:39]God lives relationship. God lives love.

[00:03:43]And that is why the Evangelist John does not say God loves, but God is love. Deus Caritas is.

[00:03:55]Dear sisters and brothers, perhaps one of the most important messages of our feast day lies precisely here. If God is relationship within himself, then humanity, then we too, can be in relationship."

[00:04:11]Finding ourselves.

[00:04:13]Today we are experiencing a time of great interconnectedness, especially in the digital realm, with possibilities that seemed impossible just a few years or decades ago.

[00:04:27]And at the same time, we live in a time of great loneliness. People communicate constantly, but often they hardly ever truly encounter one another anymore. Many have hundreds of digital contacts, but only a few real friends.

[00:04:46]Pope Leo XIV said in his Trinity Sunday sermon last year: God is not immobile and closed in on himself, but God is activity, God is communion, a dynamic relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that opens itself to humanity, that opens itself to us. And that is indeed a remarkable thought.

[00:05:10]God himself is not a closed reality. His love flows outward. It wants to reach us and, above all, it wants to draw us into this divine communion.

[00:05:24]Therefore, dear sisters and brothers, the Christian faith does not primarily consist of fulfilling rules or performing religious feats. To be a Christian means to be drawn into this communion of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[00:05:42]At our baptism, the words spoken about each of us were: "I baptize you in the name of the "Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

[00:05:53]Not in the name of an idea, not in the name of a philosophy, no, in the name of the three one God.

[00:06:03]And that means our whole life is under this mystery, and our life should therefore also be relationship, should be communication. And every time we make the sign of the cross, we remember that we have gained a share in the communion in God and that this communion should shape our relationships, our communication.

[00:06:31]Every sign of the cross is thus something like a profession of faith. I profess my faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[00:06:42]Dear sisters and brothers, this faith in the triune God is not only a statement about God himself, it is also a commission for us, perhaps even more so today in these forms of loneliness, despite the most sophisticated forms of communication, but a commission that if God lives in relationship, we humans cannot do otherwise than live in relationship. Where people forgive one another, something of the Father's love becomes visible. Where people give themselves and serve one another, it becomes visible through Christ. Where people make peace and unite, the Father is at work.

[00:07:29]Holy Spirit.

[00:07:32]In other words, dear sisters and brothers, life in God should take shape in our prayer life as well as in our daily lives—in the family, in the Church, at work, in our society. [snorting] And I believe that we need this message especially today in a world defined by contradictions, by division, mistrust, and selfishness.

[00:07:58]The Triune God is calling us.

[00:08:03]If there is no selfish clinging to oneself in God, but only relationship, then in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit live for one another.

[00:08:16]And therefore, we too must live for one another. We just heard this so wonderfully in the Gospel, for God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but to save the world through him. A constant giving and receiving, an eternal exchange of love.

[00:08:38]Dear sisters and brothers, perhaps, despite the fragility of these words, we can discover a reflection in them for our own lives, that a person—that they, that I, that we—will not be happy if we constantly put ourselves at the center of everything.

[00:09:01]We, when we love like God, when we give ourselves like God, when we open ourselves like God, and when we give each other space like God.

[00:09:17]Or as the famous proverb says: Shared sorrow is half sorrow. Shared joy is double joy. And I believe the saints understood this. They were n't people who constantly pondered the Trinity. No, they lived from it.

[00:09:39]And so this feast leads us to a very simple, yet profound realization: that the origin of our lives is relational love, and that the goal of our lives is relational love in the communion of saints. Let us express it once more in the sign of the cross. The Father created us out of love. The Son redeemed us out of love. The Holy Spirit fills us with love.

[00:10:15]Therefore, let us ask the Triune God today that we may grow ever deeper into this mystery of our faith, that we may not only believe in the Trinity, but live from it, from it which has taken up residence in us through baptism, and that our lives themselves may become a testimony to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[00:10:37]Holy Spirit. Amen.