We Can Share in Divine Life
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which the Church celebrates as a Solemnity Liturgy, is the central mystery of the entirety of the Christian revelation and Christian life. This isn’t one of those truths that we can reason to by means of the light of our reason. Our coming to the truth of the Trinity could only be achieved by God revealing it to us.
The Trinity is the most inscrutable of the mysteries of Christianity, although, to be sure, all other mysteries of the faith are depthless themselves. The Athanasian Creed presents us with the most coherent linguistic expression of the mystery. The Creed describes the Trinity as follows: “We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son's is another, the Holy Spirit's another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal” (CCC 266; Athanasian Creed).
It was precisely in the Incarnation of God the Son, the Second Person, that we come to the first inklings of the mystery. It is really in Christ’s pedagogical work that we come to the full reception of the revelation. Beholding Christ’s saving work and the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work affirms and ratifies this wondrous truth of our Faith: God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are consubstantial. They are Three Persons in One God. The Son Proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
The Trinity has worked throughout salvation history in a veiled manner. Revealing themselves in gradual ways, culminating in the fuller revelation we receive from Christ and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, any declaration of the creative Word of God and any declaration of the sanctifying work of God are all veiled proclamations of the work of the Son and Spirit, respectively. Yet the same benevolent Love of the Divine Essence is ever present throughout the Old Testament. God calls His covenant people to faithfulness precisely so that He can continue to bless them in His Love and draw them into the fuller revelation of Himself in the future. One proof of this is how, in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses enjoins the people of Israel to keep the Lord’s commandments so that “you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.” (Deut 4:40).
By the advent of Christ’s public ministry, the mission of the Holy Spirit was being foretold as well. He who is sent by the Father in the name of the Son (John 14:26) and by the Son from the Father (John 15:26) shows us that He is truly one and the same God with the Father and the Son and “with the Father and the Son, He is adored and glorified” (Nicene Creed).
This wonderful revelation of the powerful love of the Trinity is such a privilege that we, as covenant children of God, are blessed to share. Truly, we can proclaim “blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own” (Psalm 33:12b) because we are those people. We who are baptized and bear His mark upon our souls are able to call God Father, Son, and Spirit in a way that no other faith system will allow for, outside of the loving revelation of God to His children!
Augustine was so keenly aware of this that he wrote, “for it is not easy to find a name that will suitably express so great excellence, unless it is better to speak in this way: The Trinity, one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things” (St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine). Words will always fail us in trying to describe the sheer magnificent, wonderful love of the Trinity for us.
God calls us CHILDREN! Outside of the selfless love of God, this is a literal impossibility! And yet, we are CHILDREN of God, and, as Paul says, “If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17)!
Aquinas reminds us that “the Father loves not only the Son but also himself and us, by the Holy Spirit” (St. Thomas Aquinas). God's love is so tangible, so real; it is a Person, and it is this very Person who is poured into our hearts daily as we live out the mysterious wonder of our Christian life!
Because of our Baptism, we have been endowed with the wonderful glory of being able to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity! Here on earth, we share in this life in a veiled manner, but after death, we will share in their divine life in the light of glory!
One day, with the Saints in the Church Triumphant, we await the dignity of being able to cry in unison, “Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; to God who is, who was, and who is to come” (Rev 1:8)!
This week, as we meditate on the wonderful, loving mystery of the Trinity, let us remember that the Trinity is Love and Covenant. God created us and avowed Himself to us, exchanging His divine life with us simply so that He could elevate you and me to His divine life! Nothing we go through on this earth will compare with the outstanding, glorious, loving eternal life that awaits us in sharing in Trinitarian intimacy. The Trinity cares about your life, and if you and I would, we should offer our lives entirely back to God. Let’s begin sharing in that Heavenly life here on earth. Let us pray with St. Francis De Sales, “I vow and consecrate to God all that is in me: My memory and my actions to God the Father; My understanding and my words to God the Son; My will and my thoughts to God the Holy Spirit” (St. Francis De Sales, Consecration Prayer to the Trinity).
From there, let us honor the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us “go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19), drawing numerous others into the deep experience of this powerful, life-changing Love of the divine Trinity.
Deus Benedicat