Sunday the 31st of May 2026 - The Most Holy Trinity

Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9/ Dan 3:52. 53. 54. 55. 56/2 Corinthians 13:11-14/ John 3:16-18

Imagine trying to explain the colour blue to someone who has been blind from birth. You could describe the wavelength of light, compare it to the feeling of cool water, read them every poem ever written about the sky and the sea. In the end they still would not really know what blue is. This is a little like trying to describe the Most Holy Trinity, trying to understand a reality that is far beyond us, beyond anything words can fully capture. Yet we keep trying, because we are trying to describe the source of our being and the love that holds us in existence. We will not solve the mystery, but we might just draw a little closer to it.

The readings for today appear remarkably short. Is this brevity meant to give the priest extra time to preach eloquently and at length on the mystery of the Trinity? No, I think not. No homily, no matter how long or brilliant, could come close to explaining the nature of God and the relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The nature of God is beyond the reach of our human understanding. That does not mean it is unimportant to ponder. We should contemplate the mystery of God continually. It is only through prayerful contemplation that we draw closer to Him. The great theologian Saint Augustine spent much of his life pondering the nature of God and in the end confessed that he had only stammered about God. If Augustine could only stammer, we should not expect to do any better, but we can stammer beautifully, and reverently, and with love.

Scripture can help us as God reveals his mystery to us. In the first reading from Exodus, when Moses went up mount Sinai, the Lord passed before him and proclaimed who He is: "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity." God did not first describe His power and majesty, He describes His mercy and love. In the Gospel, Saint John gives us one of the most beloved verses in all of Scripture: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." Here we glimpse the inner life of God. The Father loves so completely that He gives the Son. The Son comes not to condemn the world but to save it. As Saint Paul reminds us in the second reading, the fellowship, the communion, of the Holy Spirit binds us together.

God is the definition of love. Love cannot exist in a solitary being. Love must be shared, given, and received. Love requires a lover, a beloved, and the bond of love between them. The Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a community of love, one God in three distinct Persons, sharing infinite love among themselves from all eternity. This love overflows pouring out upon us, no matter how far we have wandered through sin. The love that emanates from God is immeasurable and boundless.

Rather than grappling with a concept that is unfathomable, it may help to consider the prime actions of each of the Persons, which reveal something of their distinct identities. God the Father is the source and origin of the Trinity. He is neither made, nor created, nor begotten. God the Son, the Word who became flesh, is eternally begotten of the Father. This is outside of created time. There was never a time when the Son did not exist. The Son became human to be close to us, so that God could identify with us and we with Him, and most of all to redeem, reconcile, and save us from our fallen nature. God the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the divine will of both the Father and the Son. The Spirit was the power that drove the growth of the early Church and continues to be the power transforming us in holiness today. The nature, or substance, of God is one. All three Persons fully possess this same substance. They are, as the Creed teaches us, consubstantial. God is entirely one. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three separate gods. They are not three roles, parts, or masks worn by a single God. They are three distinct, relational realities of one and the same divine substance. Our human understanding cannot penetrate this mystery any deeper. Any attempt to do so may lead us into misunderstanding and even heresy.

Jesus pointed to this triune mystery throughout His life. At His Baptism, the voice of the Father was heard from Heaven, and the Holy Spirit descended as a dove. Jesus told His disciples that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father, for they are one in each other. He promised to send the Spirit after His Ascension. The Trinitarian nature of God can be found hinted at throughout Scripture, in both Old and New Testaments. The Church teaches us that the Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life, the source of all the other mysteries. It took the Church time, through much prayerful struggle, to define this mystery in the Creed we recite today. That Creed tells us what we believe, but it cannot explain how three Persons are one being. That is not within our realm of understanding, and it is not necessary for us to know.

Even before the Church had fully developed its language, we hear Saint Paul, within fifty years of the Resurrection, ending his second letter to the Corinthians with the beautiful blessing we still use today: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you." Paul named each Person of the Trinity, even before the Church had the precise theological language to express their unity.

Any attempt by us to fully understand and explain the nature of God will fall short. We are created beings, living within the limits of created science that governs all we see and experience. Through study and reflection, we can explain much of our created universe, but we remain limited by it. God exists in, through, and beyond His creation. God is not limited by the rules He created. Our continued exploration of nature and science is an exploration of the God who made it all. There is no conflict whatsoever between authentic science and belief in the God who created all.

At Mass in the celebration of the Eucharist, we experience the most profound encounter with the Triune God available to us in this life. The Father sends the Son, made present by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we, the Body of Christ, might be drawn into the communion of love that is God. The Trinity is not a puzzle to be solved. It is a communion to be entered. In entering into the God who is love, we draw nearer to the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Let us enter into that communion of love that seeks to envelop us and let us pray for ourselves and for each other in Paul's words: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.

God Bless Brendan