The Holy Trinity Solemnity, John 16,12-15

The mystery of the Holy Trinity does not mean that we cannot know, experience, and love God in our lives…

Do you realize how many mysteries are around us? We pay attention to mysteries from time to time, even though we cannot see them personally, such as atomic radiation when talking about a nuclear power plant. From school, we can explain not only thunder and lightning but also gravity, magnetic waves, the earth’s gravitational pull, or the distribution of the sun’s rays.
Today, in the Church, we remember and celebrate the central mystery of the Christian life. It is the mystery of God as He is in Himself, which is the source of all the other mysteries of faith: one God in three divine persons.
With such obviousness, we say the words of the prayer, “Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, so be it now, and always, and forever and ever. Amen.”
Perhaps today, after the sermon at the words of the Credo, we will realize more fully that it is not easy or straightforward to speak of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, where Jesus and the Father are different Persons, yet they are one. What we have from the Son, we also have from the Father, and we have it through the Spirit. It may seem to us that it is the least happy thing to attempt to describe how it is in God. And yet, the Holy Scriptures tell us how God deals with us, what is the relationship of the Lord Jesus to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and so the Scriptures introduce us to an understanding of the inner life of God, at least in some measure.

At the Last Supper, when the Lord Jesus knew that His hour had come, He also spoke these words to His disciples: “I have still much to say to you, but you are not strong enough for it now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into the whole truth; for he will not speak of himself, but what he hears he will say, and the things that are to come, he shall shew it you(Jn 16:12-13).

The teacher in school must adopt the interpretation accordingly to the pupils’ understanding. If he were to adopt a higher style, using words that are incomprehensible to the pupils, the pupils would hear the teacher speak but would not understand him. One might remark: that it is a pity for the teacher’s effort and the pupils’ unnecessary suffering.
The Lord Jesus, during his public teaching to the crowds, but especially to the apostles, not only tells them about himself and our Father, but also about himself and his relationship to the Father, for example, “The Father and I are one” (Jn. 10:30) or: “… as the Father knows me and I know the Father” (Jn 10:15), or: “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am coming to prepare a place for you” (Jn 14:2)? Jesus is teaching, illuminating, pointing out, and presenting the most basic and essential words about the hierarchy of truths. The Lord Jesus is not just a theorist; by His life, He shows the relationship with the Father. And in the same way, God the Father audibly and visibly manifests His ties to His God the Son. Throughout salvation history, we see how the one and true God reveals Himself to men. Would a man be able to invent how God has shown Himself to us, humans? In baptism in the Jordan River, the mystery of the Holy Trinity is revealed. The Lord Jesus in human flesh, like us in everything except sin, receives baptism from His predecessor, St. John the Baptist, and then God the Father speaks: “You are my beloved Son, in you, I am well pleased” (Lk 3:22). The Evangelist St. Luke further wrote: “When Jesus was baptized and had prayed, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove…” (Lk 3:21).

Nowhere in the New Testament is the Holy Trinity defined using the texts of Scripture and the Holy Spirit. We can look into God’s inner life and have a share in his life. The questions are many. The many answers about the life of the one God in three persons have been a treasure for us since the earliest Christians. One cannot know God completely. And yet, the Holy Spirit Himself gradually leads us to the truth; that is, He unites us with the Father and the Son, that is, with those who speak to us. We must be clear that man cannot know God as something. But God is Someone, that is, a person with whom we can come into contact. Therefore we see from Revelation that every Person is made known to us if we are to know Him. Let us use an analogy: if we do not meet a person and do not speak to him, can we know such a person? No! No matter what we did on our part, we would not know him. God makes Himself known to us by the work of the Holy Spirit. To know God is a gift.
We know from the Old Testament that the chosen people knew God as Creator, Judge, Father, Wisdom Himself, and especially as the foretold and expected Messiah. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus represents all three persons of the one God.

We cannot give a logical and scientific explanation of the truth of God in three persons, but the Christian can know the triune God. The Lord Jesus speaks of a solemn condition on our part, “He that loved me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (Jn. 14:23). Jesus made this mystery known to us so that we could contact the Persons personally. Thanks to Christ, we have created a personal love contact with God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God. With each divine Person, one can have a different dialogue of love. Man can and should call God the Father a father, God the Son, a brother, and realize his relationship to God through the love of the Holy Spirit.

When we sing at Mass after the perforation in the Eucharistic Prayer in praise of God: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of all worlds… we have the opportunity to adore as Moses did when he heard God’s voice from the burning bush. At that time, Moses was filled with fear. Here is offered an opportunity for man’s involvement to glorify God. Our glorification adds nothing to God, for God holds His glorification in the highest possible value. Man receives graces from God that enables him to glorify God more, so he grows in love. Love for God becomes man’s necessary condition for eternal life. It is suitable when we cooperate in love with which God addresses us in individual persons.
A professor at a conservatory in a seminary gave students the task of warmly embracing their father when they came home for the weekend. “I can’t do that,” one defended himself. “That would be the death of him.” “But my dad knows I love him,” said the other student. “At least you’ll have it easy,” the professor remarked. “Nothing is stopping you from doing it.” On Monday, they met and talked about what they had experienced. “My dad cried,” said one. And another said: “It’s strange. My dad thanked me.”
When we can understand the reaction of a father who gave natural life to his son, that he was grateful for the son’s expression of love, how much more can we expect love, graces, and gifts from the Holy Trinity when we know that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16).

The mystery of the Blessed Trinity does not mean that we cannot not only know, experience, and love God in our lives but realize the mystery of which the Creed speaks in our lives.
Christ is my child, wife, husband, father, mother, brother, sister… with whom I am united by blood. Christ is my professor, teacher, master, and tutor, with whom I say goodbye at the end of my studies. He has lovingly given himself to me and whom I have often not accepted, unjustly criticized, slandered… Christ is my work, by which I am to acquire the means not only of earning a living, but is also the means of merit for eternal life.
Thinking of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, I realize how I must live when I know that God is also my Judge. I realize that my duty on earth is: To love God, to know God, and to serve God. God is a God of mercy, a God of love, a God of peace, a God of justice, a God of truth… “God exists, I have met him” – this is the title that the writer André Frossard gave to one of his books. And indeed, after his encounter with his God, when he did everything God expected of him.
What are we to do to experience God and also ourselves? We find the answer in St. Anthony’s biography. After forty years in the desert, he cries out: “Lord, where are you? I have been searching for you for forty years!” And then, in his heart, Anthony heard a still small voice: “And I have been with you for forty years.”
God knows us because, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, the visible and the invisible world. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, the first God from the true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father. By him, all things were created. He came down from heaven for us humans and our salvation. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, he took flesh of the Virgin Mary and became man…”
Let us say these words as we begin and end the day with them. Let us return to them when we have to witness the faith before men, but equally when the temptations of the world, the devil, and the flesh assail us. Let us whisper these words when we are filled with wonder at the works of God. Let us pray to them when we think of death. And also when we fulfill our duties as statesmen.

We encounter mysteries. But God is our mystery of love, our goal, our life.