May 22, 2005

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. It’s hardly even noticed in the calendar and practically no one will give it any special recognition, except perhaps those who belong to a parish named Holy Trinity. It celebrates the mystery of God and reminds us of the incredible reality that stands at the base of our faith.

The Most Holy Trinity is shrouded in mystery. How there can be one God with three individual persons is quite beyond us. This belief is based on the very words of Our Lord “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The doctrine of the Trinity is certainly to be seen in many parts of the Pauline and Johanite epistles, but it was solemnly proclaimed only in the year 325 at the first ecumenical council, which was held in Nicea. It is from that council and the next council the first council of Constantinople held about fifty years later that we get the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. The word Trinity means one in three, tri-unitas.

You might find it very helpful every day to spend a little time at the beginning of the day speaking individually to the members of the Most Holy Trinity. God the Father, source of all things; God the Son, who receives everything from His father and yet comes into the world to save us and is brutally murdered and rises from the dead; and the Holy Spirit, that mysterious person who comes into our lives to encourage and strengthen us, sometimes when we least expect Him. It can be a tremendous help to your spirituality every day to spend a little time in the presence of God. When we address God with this simple word, we are actually addressing the rich reality of three persons distinct but completely equal in all things. The Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR

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