Readings
Deuteronomy: 4: 32 – 34, 39 – 40
Psalm: 33
Romans: 8: 14 – 17
Matthew 28: 16 – 20
There is a story that Saint Augustine was walking on the beach contemplating the mystery
of the Trinity. Then he saw a boy in front of him who had dug a hole in the sand and was
going out to the sea again and again and bringing some water to pour into the hole. St.
Augustine asked him, “What are you doing?”. “I’m going to pour the entir ocean into this
hole.” “That is impossible, the whole ocean will not fit in the hole you have made” said St.
Augustine. The boy replied, “And you cannot fit the Trinity in your tiny little brain.” The
boy vanished because St. Augustine had been talking to an angel.
William Barklay tells the experience of the first missionary to the Red Indians. When the
missionary told them of the love of God, an old chief said: “When you spoke of the great
spirit just now, did I hear you say, “Our Father’?” “Yes,” replied the missionary. “That is a
very new and sweet to me,” said the chief. “We never thought of the great Spirit as Father.
We hear Him in the thunder; we saw Him in the lightning, the tempest and the blizzard,
and we were afraid. So when you tell us that the great Spirit is our Father, that is very
beautiful to us.”
The old man paused, and then he went on, as a glimpse of glory suddenly dawned upon
him. “Missionary, did you say that the great Spirit is your Father?” Yes.” Said the
missionary, “And,” said the chief, “did you say that He is the Indian’s Father?” “I did,”
said the missionary. “Then,” said the old chief, like a man on whom the dawn of joy had
burst, “you and I are brothers!”
Pope Paul VI described the dogma of the Holy Trinity as “infinitely beyond all that we can
humanly understand.” We cannot possibly decipher the majesty and mystery of God in
Himself: Three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; one in essence, distinction of persons.
“They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: ‘It is the Father who
generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds. The divine unity is
draws Triune… The whole Christian life is a communion with each of the divine persons,
without in any way separating them. Everyone who glories the Father does so through the
Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him
and the Spirit moves him” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 254, 259). When
humans are drawn in the unity of the Trinity, we discover the truth about ourselves: we
are persons and yet brothers and sisters in the community of humankind.
The truth of the Holy Trinity has been deeply embedded since the beginning of the
Church’s faith and life. The disciples baptized individuals with the invocation of the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Each of the divine persons performs a
particular role at baptism and establishes a divine communion with the person baptized.
Just as in the baptism of Christ in the Jordan river the Father and the Spirit were there, so
in every baptism: the Father is there generating the new child, the Son redeeming the new
child and sowing the word of God, and the Holy Spirit, as a gift of the Father and the Son,
sanctifying the regenerated and redeemed new child.
Christian faith calls for a formal affirmation of the teachings of the Church. But the
Church also urges us to grasp the meaning of our faith personally, and as a community.
We affirm the truths of our faith not because we can understand everything immediately.
Rather, it is through the gradual steady gift of enlightenment from God, guidance of the
Magisterium, and confirmation and confirmation of the said truths in our life experience
as Christians.
Authenitc faith on the truth of the Holy Trinity requires a positive response to the
communion of love of persons and to our community life. Pope John Paul II spoke once
on these two closely related concepts in the context of conjugal love and family life. He
said: “Communion has to do with the personal relationship between the I and the thou.
Community, on the other hand, transcends this framework and moves toward a society, a
we. The family, as community of persons is thus the first human society. It arises when
there comes into being the conjugal covenant of marriage, which opens the spouses to a
lasting communion of love and life and it is brought to completion in a full and specific
way with the procreation of children. The communion of the spouse gives rise to the
community of the family. The community of the family is completely pervaded by the very
essence of communion” (Letter to Families of the International Year of the Family,
February 22, 1994).
Separated individuals can only find true fulfillment once they cast out the mold of
possessive individualism. Only in communion does love come to its truth. I am a person
when I recognize others and share my life with them, and when others open their lives to
me and share these with me. Thus the other persons does not constitute a limitation of
my love, but the completion of it. When we are freed from such bondage of isolation,
there comes in us the unity and mutual participation of life, and we transcend into the
solidarity of community life.
The Holy Trinity is the complete anti-thesis of the destructive forces of love and unity in
our contemporary society. Divide et impera, divide and conquer: this is the worldly
method that has caused such untold conflicts an disunity. This subsequently led to the
alienation of persons, separation of communities and social classes, the enstragment of
the person from himself and from others, and especially from nature and from God.
When there is serious cleavage of a person from himself and from others, he does not act
as a human person but as a possession; he desists to regard other people as persons as
well. The consequence of the absence of humanity, solidarity, and friendship is terrifying:
death! Social death ensues when we break off our relationship with others. We become
lonely, exploitative, insecure, and dominating. Spiritual death then sets in – as if we are
living corpses – that we become apathetic anxious, and faithless!
The fullness of human life and its liberating possibilities can only be fulfilled in the
dimension of the Holy Trinity. The key to our human growth and happiness lies in them:
in the communion of love and community of persons. Such dimension sets us free from
the captivity of ourselves, the many forms of slavery that restrict us, and the disaffection
of ourselves from others and from God. This enables us to live the real freedom as
persons intimately engaged in the openness of love, compassion for others, and
communal life. Only this kind of freedom, derived from the Trinitarian model, can heal
the wounds of division, hatred, and isolation. Indeed, this freedom is the freedom of the
children of God who can pray with the Son, and through the Holy Spirit: ‘Our Father’!
Saint Paul greeted the Corinthian community: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:13).
This is the same greeting used in our Mass celebrations, after we make the sign of the
cross in the name of the Three divine Persons. The Eucharist is a perfect act of worship of
the community because it is the reenactment of Christ’s offering of His life to God. His
sacrifice for our redemption. But the Mass is also the expression of the Church’
Trinitarian life in which we attain our vocation of fellowship with God and with others.
We become the Body of Christ crossing over the boundaries of reality and sharing in the
great mystery of the communion of love of Trinity.
Without such mystery, what would be left are the temporal affairs of man and his corporal
existence. Life would be a mere survival and a defeating struggle with death. But entering
into the mystery of God’s love in the Trinity, we live in a project of hope and participate in
the creative power of God Himself. Hope loves life, not death; a real communion and
solidarity become the orientation of the faith towards a common project: reaching out for
and celebrating life with one another in God. “O blessed light O Trinity an first Unity,” so
goes the hymn of a evening prayer. Who can contradict this? Definitely not those who
believe that human life can be totally lived in love and a unity, now and in the future, in
death in resurrection, with others and with God. After all, “Nothing is impossible to God”
(Luke 1:38).
A priest me a humble and simple person, but who was intensely devout in his faith. “What
prayers do you say, my son?” the priest asked. “I cannot read nor understand,” he
replied. “All I can say is ‘amen,’ ‘amen,” ‘amen,’
“Why do you say ‘amen’ so much?”
“I have been told that there are millions of people praying to God the Father, Christ the
Son, and the Holy Spirit; since they know how to pray and I don’t, I say to the Lord,
‘Amen, ‘ ‘amen,’ ‘amen’! Listen to them, God! I don’t know how to pray, but let their
prayers be mine too!”
God bless you. Have a wonderful day!