Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Year C

Proverbs 8:22-31 

Ps. 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 

Romans 5:1-5 

John 16:12-15

With the celebration of Pentecost last Sunday, the Church concluded the Easter season and so reentered Ordinary Time. Still, the Church wants us to dwell on a few essential mysteries of our faith during these couple of weeks.  

Today, we recall in a specific way the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks about it in definite terms: “the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching … ” (CCC 234). 

Sometimes we use the term mystery in the sense of something yet unknown. But the intrinsic mystery is that which remains a mystery in itself no matter how fully known it is. We would have to possess the Divine Mind for us to be able to comprehend the mystery. This is clearly not the case. But trying to grasp some of it helps the development of our spiritual life.  

In his exposition on the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that, in this case, the word person means relation (see I, 29, 4). The Trinitarian world is a world of relations. This is the reality we must ponder because, in virtue of our baptism, we are “integrated” into the life of the Trinity. As creatures, we have a relation with God. But through Jesus Christ we acquire a new and more intense relation with God because we become children in the Son when we are baptized. Now we can interact with God in a way that was utterly unthinkable for any human mind. 

The second reading expresses this reality in very concrete terms: “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” How did this happen? “… through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand … ”  

What is faith? Whose faith is the Apostle talking about? Influenced by our contemporary mindset, we may think of faith as the individual act of an isolated human person. The reality is that the human person never exists alone. The person is, by nature, a “communitarian” entity. This corporate understanding of the human being was clear for the ancients. For them, the individual person was unthinkable. The necessity of the community was undeniable. The Catechism points out “Faith is a personal act — the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life” (CCC 166). 

In other words, faith is corporate by nature. Actually, faith makes us partakers in the communion of the saints (“common-union”, Greek koinonia, sometimes translated “fellowship”; see CCC 946-962). This communion is no other than participation in the communion of the Most Holy Trinity: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life … what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have communion with us; for our communion is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:1, 3). 

This corporate reality was expressed in the ancient Near East by way of the royal metaphor that means an entire nation identified with its king. This mindset appears in the Old Testament. St. Paul echoes it when he calls Jesus “the firstborn” and “the Head of the Body, the Church” (see Colossians 1:15, 18) or the New Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15). 

Hence, the mystery we celebrate today in a special way is the mystery of our own life. In a sense, it is like the celebration of our own birthday. We live our lives on a daily basis, but the celebration of our birthday reminds us of the unique gift we have received, and it prompts us to examine what we are doing with that gift. Today’s celebration is an excellent opportunity to examine our relation with God, how lively it is, and to look for ways to live it more intensely, aware that this is eternal life.