Trinity C – 2025
The first words of the priest at Mass accompany the sign of the Cross with the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Similarly, at the end of Mass we receive a blessing in the name of the three divine Persons. We sing the Creed as a confession of our faith in the Father who created the world, in the Son who saved us by His cross and His resurrection, and in the Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts and is the source of the life of the Church. We are therefore very familiar with the mystery of the Trinity. Our faith tells us that the One God revealed Himself to us in three Persons. These Persons are distinct, really different, while remaining not only united – as would be three good friends, for instance – but simply One.
The Three are One which is not only puzzling for those of us who have not totally forgotten their primary school maths, but indeed deeply mysterious. This is a truth which belongs to an order of reality situated beyond our comprehension. Does this mean that we can only adore in silence a mystery we do not understand at all – just because the Church teaches us that it is the correct interpretation of what God says to us about Himself in Revelation? No. Not at all.
First of all, because the Trinity is not exterior to us. We have been baptised in the Name – the One Name – of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We have been plunged into the one life of the three Divine Persons. It is therefore a question for us of discovering this mystery from inside; of opening ourselves to the life of communion of the Divine Persons, because our baptism and our faith make us partakers of divine life.
It is, if you wish, like getting to know the members of our divine family, getting to know and love them. Interestingly, the same Holy Spirit whom St Paul says has been given to us so that God’s – that is to say, the Father’s – love has been poured into our hearts, is the one whom Jesus calls the Spirit of Truth. He teaches us what Jesus said about His Father. He communicates a knowledge and a truth which enable us to know and to love the Father and the Son.
Also, St Paul tells us somewhere else that the Spirit prays in us. He is always the one who establishes the connection. In the Spirit we acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord – that is to say, that He is God – and we believe that the Father sent Him.
And then, when we turn to our sisters and brothers, it is precisely with the love given by the Spirit that we serve and love them, that we recognise in them the presence of Christ, and that we turn together with them in prayer to our common Father.
Often without realising it, we live our Christian life in constant relationship with and dependency on the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is constantly mingled with our Christian life. To be a Christian is to live within the Trinity and for the Trinity.
Today, we more especially adore the Trinity of Persons in the unity of the Divinity. They know us well and as we progress in faith we get to know them. They are one and we become one in them. Knowing and loving them will fill us with wonder, with joy, and with peace – and this will have no end. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit! Amen.