Cycle C - Year I:

26 May 2013 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

(Liturgical color: White)

John 16:12-15

The Trinity: One God in Three Persons!
 
This Sunday is the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinity is the most important Truth in our Catholic faith: three Divine Persons equal in majesty, yet one Lord, one God. Can the human mind comprehend that?

There is the story of the great St. Augustine of Hippo. He was trying to grasp the mystery of the Trinity while walking on a beach. Then he came across a little boy digging a small hole in the sand and transferring the water from the sea into his little hole. So St. Augustine asked what the boy was trying to do. "I am putting all the sea water inside my little hole," the boy told him. And St. Augustine replied, "But that's impossible, to contain the vast ocean into your little hole." The boy answered him, "And so with you. How can you grasp the vastness of God with your little mind?" For indeed, if we can explain God, then we must be greater than God.

The teaching on the Trinity is most difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to fully communicate with human words. We always end up acknowledging that the Trinitarian character of God is a mystery and will always be so for our limited mind.

Yet it is important to know that the Church did not invent or make up the teaching on the Trinity. Jesus Himself revealed it to the first disciples. In today's Gospel from John, for example, Jesus tells his disciples about the Trinity: "But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth... Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you."

We believe in the Holy Trinity: one God in three distinct Persons, from whom everything in the world and in history comes, and to whom everything will return at the end of time. In other words, the Trinity is our final destiny as children of God, when we behold finally the face of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In our human experience, what do we make of the teaching on the Trinity in our day-to-day living? What is its relevance to us, here and now?

Well, the Church teaches that the Trinity is a communion of three divine Persons in one God, "in an eternal gaze toward each other, an endless and omnipotent exchange of divine love." In the center of this Trinitarian communion is Love. As followers of Jesus, we, too, can live the Trinity within us in a relationship of love with each other, as the New Church, the People of God, in journey to the Father's house. Jesus Himself commands all his followers: "Love one another as I have loved you." Thus, by loving one another we become witnesses of the truth about the Trinity in our lives.

A blessed Sunday to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Deo Optimo Maximo!