The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity compels us to
consider the most important truth of our faith. We recall this truth every time we begin and
end 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 Trinitarian formula is
critical to every sacrament from baptism to the anointing of the sick and
dying. The sign of the cross with the Trinitarian formula begins and ends
everything the Church does. As it
should.
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. " I would add that they are never, and can
never be, baptized in the name of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier,
a formula that some with delicate but bizarre sensitivities would like to use.
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.”
The most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy
of the truths of faith.
Every time we make the sign of the cross, we recall a mystery
that is inexplicable. The Trinity remains inexplicable despite the vast number
of books written about it. Though each book may contain a bit of insight
into the nature of the Trinity, no book captures the essence of the
Trinity. No book, or the sum of all
books, will ever capture that full essence.
The dogma of the Trinity depends on faith and faith alone.
One definition of faith is: “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or
material evidence.” Another definition
of faith comes from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Faith is the conviction of
things unseen.” Both definitions tell
us something important in light of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: There will never be a logical proof of that
doctrine.
We must become comfortable with the definition of faith as mysterious
because despite the absence of logical proof, despite the impossibility of
philosophy or science to begin to explain the Trinity, one cannot call oneself Christian if he or
she denies the Trinity. Father. Son.
Holy Spirit.
Many of you have probably heard the story that I did back in
grade school a lot of decades ago. It
still serves to illustrate the impossibility of understanding the dogma of the
Trinity. The great theologian and
philosopher St. Augustine was walking along a beach trying to understand One
God in Three Divine Persons. He wanted
to explain the Trinity through logic.
He saw a child who had dug a hole in the sand. The child was walking back and forth between
the water and the hole with a small cup.
He would fill the cup at the water’s edge and then empty it into the
hole in the sand. Augustine observed
this for a while and then moved closer to ask what he was doing. The child responded that he was emptying the
sea into the hole. Augustine asked, “How
do you expect to be able to empty something as vast as the sea into this small
hole?” The child responded, “I can empty
the sea into this hole more easily than you can understand the Trinity.”
The child’s point is still valid. Only through faith can we understand some
things that our inadequate intelligence will never be able to comprehend. 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 not allow us to explain it in a way that others
could understand.
The word Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible. Rather, the understanding of the Trinity grew
in the early years of the Church 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, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these three Persons is God. There is only One God – yet
the Persons are distinct. Thus, Jesus always speaks of His Father as distinct
from Himself, yet also notes that “I and
the Father are One.” The same is true of
the Holy Spirit.
We are
accustomed to persons being distinct and not the same, even when the persons
are identical twins. We have a hard time wrapping our minds around three in one
the same yet distinct. Thus, Augustine’s
walk along that distant shore.
Over
the past weeks many of the gospels have been taken from the farewell discourse
of John’s Gospel. Jesus refers to both
the Father and the Holy Spirit in reference to Himself several times throughout
this farewell. Ultimately though, the
Trinity is, and will remain forever, a mystery.
The Gospel antiphon following the Alleluia tells us
everything we need to know. "Glory
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; to God who is, who was, and who is
to come."
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A very busy couple of weeks. Spent Wednesday to Sunday before Memorial Day at Regina Laudis. It was a nice time to be there. So as not to repeat the dreadful drive of Easter Sunday that took 3 1/2 hours (should be about 2 1/2) I left not too long after Mass on Pentecost. Will go back in July.
Today is the 40th anniversary of our graduation from Temple Medical. Shocking in some ways. Despite sounding like the cliche that it is, it doesn't seem to have been that long. But after forty years in medicine I can say I've done it all my life. On Thursday night I sent an e-mail with some of the photos below to several friends with whom I have stayed in touch these forty years.
The Kresge Building. This was where it all happened. I have strong memories of walking into that building the first time and being struck by its ugliness. It wasn't too great inside. Brutalist architecture was one of the saddest chapters in the history of American architecture. The building was dark, cold, ungainly, and ugly. Almost no natural light came through the small slit windows in the second photo. The sad thing is that building faced directly east. It would have been nice to have direct sunlight at least some of the time.
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