Wednesday, May 13, 2026

 Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

 (Acts 7:15.22-18.1; John 16:12-15)

 No doctrine of the Church is harder to grasp than the Holy Trinity.  How the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are both three and one almost defies explanation.  They are not three individuals making up a collective like a three-person volleyball team.  The three persons have but one mind and one will.  The Son, of course, has taken on a human nature, which involves his body in his heavenly presence.  But this extrinsic quality does not explain the real difference among the three.  They differ only by their relationships – one is Father; one is Son; and one is the life or Spirit among them.  In today’s gospel Jesus reassures his disciples with reference to the unique triad and unity of the Holy Trinity.

Jesus underscores the unity of the Trinity when he says that the Spirit will teach only what it receives from him.  In turn Jesus passes on only what he has received from the Father.  One might ask whether only the Spirit would be present to Jesus’ disciples or to Christians today.  No, Jesus has said in this same discourse that all three are present to his disciples.  The Church would formulate the Trinity’s presence in this way: “The Father is present to us through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.”

Although they are one, we can develop a relationship with each of the three divine persons.  To do this daily we can make an examination of conscience with the three in mind.  We can say, “Thank you” to the Father, the source of all things, for any good that we have experienced during the day.  We can say, “Forgive me,” to the Son who died because of our sins for any sins we committed.  And we can say, “Please…” to the Holy Spirit who is sent to help us for any special need we have tomorrow.

Sunday, June 12, 2022

 SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY TRINITY

(Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15)

We've traversed a lot of spiritual territory since March. We passed through our sins at the beginning of Lent. We found God's mercy at the end of the season. Then we experienced the hope of the Resurrection and the glory of the Ascension. Last Sunday we completed the renewal of our salvation with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Now, after more than a quarter of a year, it behooves us to reflect on the dynamism that has driven the process forward. That is, we want to examine: who is God?

We sometimes hear some talking about God in layman's terms, "God is the man upstairs," people say. This cannot be correct. God is neither a man nor above us in the sense that he lives in a place beyond the clouds. Nor is God "daddy" like preachers used to tell us. Language research has certified that “Abba”, the Aramaic word with which Jesus addresses God, does not connote familial affection. It means only "Father" with all the intimacy and respect that this word conveys.

One can truly say that God is a mystery, but what does this term mean? Mystery, in the religious sense, is not like a detective story that challenges us to solve. Nor is it a scientific enigma that we are likely to understand one day. God is a mystery because we don't have the ideas, let alone the words, to adequately describe him. It is a mystery like when they bring us our newborn.  He is all wonder and awe.

However, we don't have to be completely silent about God. The Scriptures give us a glimpse into the mystery. We can examine the readings we just heard to help us know something about God.

The first reading presents wisdom as the companion of God. From the beginning God has always had wisdom as both servant and friend. Wisdom is the personification of the ability to know the nature of things. It is very similar in the way that the Word in the Bible is the personification of the ability to create and name things. For this reason, wisdom is associated with the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Wisdom also suggests the Holy Spirit. The prophet Isaiah names it as a gift of the Spirit.

In the second reading Saint Paul reminds us that we were sinners destined to perdition. Then - he says - God, in his love, sent Jesus Christ to redeem us from sin. He adds that God has shared this love with us by sending us the Holy Spirit.

In the gospel Jesus tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will come with his departure. He assures them that he will teach them everything they cannot understand now (which is a lot because they have not yet experienced the crucifixion and resurrection.) Even more, Jesus promises that the Spirit will take what is his and declare it to them. With these ways communicated to us, his disciples -- including us -- can be holy like Jesus.

Now what can we conclude about God? In the first place, we can say that God has always existed as a trinity of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three have the same divine nature and the same will. Second, we can affirm that God redeemed human beings out of the greatest possible love.  It was like a father who put his own son to the most challenging of tests like walking across Antarctica to the South Pole to save his neighbors from destruction. Finally, God is still with us enlightening the mind and strengthening the heart to imitate Jesus.

A prayer before lying down can help us consider all three persons daily. We want to give thanks to God the Father for some benefit we received during the day. We want to ask God the Son for forgiveness for a fault that we manifested. And to God the Holy Spirit we want to ask for help with a challenge that we will face tomorrow. In this way we wouldn't be solving the mystery of God. But we would be engaging the dynamism of our existence.