The Most Holy Trinity (Year A)
Ex 34.4-6, 8-9;
Dan 3.52-36;
II Cor 13.11-13;
Jn 3.16-18
Today's solemnity of the Holy Trinity brings together the various teachings about God that we have heard through the gospel readings each Sunday since Easter. During the Easter season, we primarily focused on Christ Our Lord—His resurrection, His appearances to the apostles, and His Ascension. Last Sunday, we celebrated Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit. In the period between His resurrection and His ascension, Christ's teachings were more directly about the reality of God's existence rather than how to live a good life. In other words, He was revealing God to us. When His disciples found these teachings difficult to grasp, our Lord promised they would understand much more after He sent the Holy Spirit to teach them. Each person of the Trinity reveals more and more of the one God, who is three persons but not three separate gods.
Today’s Mass opening prayer offers a helpful framework for understanding this great mystery. It addresses God the eternal Father and speaks of the Son being sent by the Father to bring us the truth, and of the Spirit being sent to make us holy. Truth and holiness—these are what we need if we are to truly understand God. The prayer asks that through the truth revealed by the Son and the holiness granted by the Spirit, we may come to better understand the mystery of God's life.
The first key point about truth is this doctrine of the Trinity: that God exists forever in three distinct Persons without dividing Him into parts. Reflecting on this helps us better grasp God's essence and nature. Within God, independent of anything else, exists the primary and uncreated love flowing among the three divine Persons. The Father loves the Son, not Himself. The Son loves the Father, not Himself. The Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son—a love so real it is a Person. This mutual love in God exists outside of creation, before anything was made, and will continue to exist long after the worlds cease to be. The three Persons have loved each other from all eternity and will continue to do so. In this light, the doctrine of the Trinity can help us understand one of the most relevant beliefs about God: that God is love.
Pondering this can also lead us to see that relationship is the fundamental mode of existence. God, in Himself, is a community—a relationship. Relationship is at the very heart of God and of all reality. As human beings created in God's image, we are made in the image of the Trinity. This explains why we define ourselves most accurately by our need to be in relation with others—family, community, friendship. These are not just extras but core to who we are. The Trinity forms the foundation of our self-understanding, highlighting our need for others. The love within God is the key to understanding what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Having reflected on the inner life of the Trinity and its reflection in our nature, we must also ask where we meet the Trinity. The answer is that we encounter the Holy Trinity especially in the Eucharist. During the Mass, the first part is the Liturgy of the Word, with readings from Scripture. The most important of these is the gospel—the words and deeds of Christ, the Word made flesh. But the gospels aren’t just about Christ. God is never divided. None of the three Persons exists alone. We must broaden our understanding to realize that in Scripture, it is primarily God the Father revealing Himself through His Son’s teachings and miracles, recorded by human authors. God uses human minds and words as channels of revelation, but these are inspired by the Holy Spirit at every stage. All three Persons are involved in this process—Christ revealing the Father, and the Spirit reminding and interpreting that truth. As Jesus says in John's Gospel: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you into all the truth. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what He will make known to you."
After the Scripture readings, the Mass moves into the second part—receiving and offering the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Prayer, which includes the consecration, is addressed to the Father. The priest asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the gifts of bread and wine, so they can be transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. "And so, Father, we ask you to make these gifts holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." It is through the work of the Holy Spirit and the Father’s power that Christ’s Body and Blood become truly present on the altar. Then, empowered by the Spirit, we offer ourselves along with Christ’s sacrifice to the Father.
The final part of the Mass is when we receive Holy Communion. In this sacrament, we are united with Christ and experience His life and love in a deeply personal way. Receiving communion means encountering His real presence—His body and blood—physically present so we can receive Him in both body and spirit. This union helps us become more like Christ—full of holiness and truth. When we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we also accept the reality that He is one with the Father and the Spirit. The Eucharist is our way into the Trinity: in taking and eating Christ, we enter into the life of God Himself. Christ acts as our bridge to the divine, our passport to heaven. Every time we receive communion, we are renewing our spiritual visa. One day, when we meet eternity, that divine fountain will overflow into an endless sea of love, and we will lose ourselves in heaven
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