Dt 4:32-24, 39-40
Ps 33:4-5,6,9,18-19, 20,22
Rom 8:14-17
Mt 28:16-20
We recall the Most Holy Trinity at the begining and end of every Mass. We invoke the Trinity every time we pray. We call upon the Trinity whenever we say the words: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What we call the sign of the cross or the Trinitarian formula is critical to every sacrament from baptism to the anointing of the sick and dying. This sign begins and ends everything the Church does.
We read in The Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit "Catholics, in particular, are NEVER baptized, or to be baptized, by a whacked-out priest or deranged deacon—both have happened—using the bizarre formula: in the name of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier. If that formula is used the pseudo-sacrament is invalid and the child must be baptized using proper form. Politically correct or so-called “gender sensitive’ rewording liturgically illegitimate and forbidden. The Catechism continues, "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 . . . It is the light that enlightens them. . . . It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith.”
Every time we make the sign of the cross throughout the course of a day, we recall an unfathomable mystery, a mystery that can be neither explained nor dissected. The Trinity remains inexplicable despite the vast number of books written about it. Though each book may contain a tiny insight into the nature of the Trinity, no book captures the essence of the Trinity. The sum of all books written about the Holy Trinity, will ever capture its essence. In the final analysis, the dogma of the Trinity depends on faith and faith alone.
Faith does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. As Paul instructed in his Letter to the Hebrews: “Faith is the conviction of things unseen.” We must become comfortable with faith as mysterious because despite the absence of logical proof, despite the impossibility of philosophy or science to truly explain the Trinity, there is no Christianity without the Trinity. Father. Son. Holy Spirit.
As a legend about St. Augustine holds, he was walking along a beach trying to understand One God in Three Divine Persons through logic. He noticed a little boy digging a hole in the sand. The kiddo was walking back and forth between the water and the hole with a seashell filled with seawater. After emptying the shell it into the hole he returned to the water for more. Augustine observed him for a while and then asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was
emptying the sea into the hole. Augustine asked how he could hope to empty the sea into a small hole? The child responded, “I can empty the sea into this hole more easily than you can understand the Trinity.” The message behind this legend is a reminder that there are things the human intellect will never grasp.
Even if we were to comprehend the Trinity, the limits of human vocabulary, the emptiness of all languages, the pallid nature of similes and metaphors, would prevent us from explaining it to anyone else.
The word Trinity does not appear in the Bible. The understanding of the Trinity grew as the Church began to consider what Jesus had said and done during His time on earth. The doctrine of the Trinity is the doctrine that in the unity of God there are three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is only One God, yet the Persons are distinct. Thus, Jesus always speaks of His Father as distinct from Himself but He also notes that “I and the Father are One.” The same is true of the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity is, and will remain, a mystery. The doxology: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end. Amen" reaffirms that fundamental truth of our faith. It can also fuel hours of contemplation
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Sometimes I choose photos strictly for color with no attempt to be coherent as to place etc. This is one of those times.
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