The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
June 16, 2019
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of the Blessed Trinity, a mystery of our faith beyond full human comprehension. Clearly realizing this, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist religion said this:
Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man,
and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.
Still, as we pray, we have some limited conceptualization of this Divine Mystery. We reshape it into human terms we can relate to:
Father, Son, Spirit
Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier
These give us some insight into the heart of the Triune God, but only from the limits of our human perspective. It is a mystery so infinite that even in heaven we may not plumb its depths.
Many theologians and philosophers have tried to stretch our perspectives. The great Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes:
The One, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, these are
what we call the transcendental attributes of Being,
because they surpass all the limits of essences
and are coextensive with Being.
It may be helpful in our prayer to think of the Trinity in these terms- The Good, The True, and the Beautiful. These concepts, while we can experience them clearly in an individual or an object, far surpass that one particular presence or circumstance.
So it is with the nature of the Trinity. We perceive it simply in glimpses. Though Its totality far surpasses our comprehension, perhaps these glimpses are enough:
C.S. Lewis puts it this way:
Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun
which you could never get from reading books on astronomy.
These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’
in the woods of our experience.
What does all this mean in our daily spirituality? How can we find a Trinitarian spirituality in our daily encounter with God? How can we find the “patches of Godlight”?
Pope Francis brings it down to our experience of family:
All of the love that God has in Himself,
all the beauty that God has in Himself,
all the truth that God has in Himself,
He gives to the family.
So, in the sincere love – given and received – of a family or community, we find the reflection of this immense mystery.
And St. Catherine of Siena confidently prays about this truth in this way:
You, Eternal Trinity, are my Creator,
and I am the work of Your hands,
and I know through the new creation
which You have given me in the blood of Your Son,
that You are enamored of the beauty of Your workmanship.
Music: Amazing Love – Billy Martin, Peggy Dequesnel, Steve Hall
The distortion of truth has become epidemic among us, infecting us all in one way or another.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus clearly tells us who he is for us:
