I was at Mass yesterday at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manchester, and heard the priest speaking of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity and I was struck by the brilliance of a religion that recognizes that it doesn't know everything.

Of course we've all heard of the Mystery of the Trinity, but in the use of the word 'Mystery', there is an acknowledgment that we do not, nor will we ever, fully understand what the Trinity is. As such, we will never fully understand God. We can know He exists, respect Him, and even love Him, while not really having the full knowledge of what He wholly is.

I contrast this to a conversation I had a few weeks ago with some friends who recently began attending a new church. There, the pastor claims to be all-knowing of God and His ways. This man absolutely believes what he's saying, and probably has a good heart. However, my friends were sharing that some of the things he said went against their own beliefs and that his blatant disrespect was hurtful, uncaring, and self-serving.

I was proud to be in the presence of a priest who fully admitted that God is a mystery. He didn't claim to know everything about God. But he did know that by faith (belief in that which we cannot see or prove, yet recognize as truth) we could live a better life and serve each other better. By living a better life (the works we do), we can bring meaning to our lives and bring glory to God.

Recently I was reading about the sin of pride. Pride in itself is not necessarily a sin, but pride without humility (and gratitude for the source of our gifts) is. I hope my friends can realize that nobody truly and entirely knows God. We all strive to do so, in our own ways.

I pray that everyone who has ever lived, everyone alive today, and everyone who will ever live, can grow to know God just a little bit more every day. Not the God that someone else says they need to know, but the God that is patiently and persistently calling at their heart to tell them that He loves them and that they are a miracle in His eyes.