COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY TRINITY

SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Prov.  8:22-31; Ps 8:4-9; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15

The Trinity of Our Salvation

The celebration of the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity of Persons in God brings us to the core mystery of our salvation. It is the heart of the Christian revelation and the meaning of our salvation. The choice of readings for the celebration indicates the Church’s desire to guide us through the path of our experience in the meditation on this holiest of subjects. The Holy Trinity is our salvation because we are saved to the degree we understand and relate well to the three Persons in God. The doctrine of the Trinity was so obscure before the coming of the Son of God in human flesh. But after the Incarnation, the Son of Man opened our eyes to the reality of the Trinity everywhere, within and without. The foundational nature of this most holy doctrine is made evident in the fact that the Church, as the people of God, is founded and built on the Trinity. As the Sacrament of salvation for all men, she comes from the Father, founded on the Son, and animated by the Holy Spirit. Every member of the Church, which is the Body of Jesus Christ, receives spiritual life through the invocation and the working of the Blessed Trinity: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Christian life is intrinsically a relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is a longing for the will of the Father that is life; It is the life of the Son and lived through him; It is the love of the Holy Spirit that brings about communion in the Godhead. The relationship with the Trinity is not seen only in man but in the whole of God’s creation. The Book of Wisdom reveals this extant relation in creation. “The Lord created me when his purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of his works. From everlasting I was firmly set, from the beginning, before earth came into being.” The created wisdom here refers to the reality of God the Father’s will operative in the whole of the universe of created things, guiding it unfailingly to the fulfilment of his divine will. The created wisdom is the manifestation of the Eternal Word of God in the whole of creation, giving meaning to everything, operation, and event. We consider the created wisdom thus revealed as the beginning of the Incarnation of the Son of God, which culminated in his appearance as the Son of Man. So, every creature is related to God the Father because his divine word is its source and cause. Each is related to the Son of God because it has meaning as revealing the will of the Father contained in the Eternal Word. Each is related to the Holy Spirit because it is good and shows the goodness and glory of God in its being and operations.

The work of the Eternal Wisdom in creation and his Incarnation makes both the Father and the Holy Spirit present to creatures. “I was by his side, a master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men.” As the Eternal Word of the Father, uncreated and Begotten before all ages, he is always with the Father in the eternity of love; that is, in the communion of the Holy Spirit. He is also within creation, which came into being through the word of God, working out the will of his Father. Thus, he delights the Father while at play everywhere in his world. He is at play, most especially with the sons of men. The Son desires to be at play within the sons of men and not just with them. But the Son can only be at play within the sons of men through love. The fall made the entrance into men’s hearts difficult for the Son and subsequently for the Father; hence, the Son needed to assume our nature.

The whole creation is in vain if the Son does not gain entrance into the heart of man, for creation exists for that singular purpose. “When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon, and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god; with glory and honour you crowned him, gave him power over the works of your hand, put all things under his feet.” We are God’s great project that has gone rogue. The path of restoration is that of faith in the Son of Man, by which the Holy enters and resides in our hearts, establishes the life of the Son within us, and nurtures it to maturity and perfection. The state of grace we have entered grows and develops through walking the path of the mysteries of Jesus Christ to glory. “We can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.” The journey into Jesus Christ is the path of our restoration to the glory God wills for us. It is the enthronement of the Son in us and the new Jerusalem.

In the above passage, Saint Paul describes our dwelling in and sharing in the life of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Lord reinforced this truth. “But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come.” Once The Father has established Jesus Christ in us, he begins to delight to be within us, within the Father, and in the communion of Love, the Holy Spirit. The glory of the Son of God belongs to us, for we are his inheritance. The glory is the Father and the Holy Spirit in communion with the Son within us. “He will glorify me since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: ‘All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.’" Therefore, the Holy Trinity is our salvation and glory.

Let us pray: God our Father, who by sending into the world the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification made known to the human race your wondrous mystery, grant us, we pray, that in professing the true faith, we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.