May 21, 2013 // Uncategorized

Glory Be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit

Todays Catholic

This coming Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. During this Year of Faith, we are called to reflect more deeply on the mysteries of our faith. The mystery of God, the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, is “the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234).

Our journey of faith began at our Baptism, when the minister pronounced over us these words: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. At that moment, we received the supernatural gift of faith. We became “new creatures,” adopted children of God the Father, members of Christ and His Body, the Church, and temples of the Holy Spirit. By the grace of Baptism, we have been called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity.

At every liturgy, we adore the one true God in three Persons. Every time we make the sign of the cross, we do so in the name of the Trinity. Every time we pray, we raise our hearts and minds to the Blessed Trinity.

We cannot fully comprehend the mystery of God, His inmost Being as Holy Trinity. This mystery was revealed to us by Jesus, the eternal Son. Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father (CCC 240).

Jesus also revealed to us the Holy Spirit, a divine Person with the Son and the Father. He is of the same nature and substance as the Son and the Father. That is why, as we say in the Nicene Creed: With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified.

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity reminds us that God in not infinite solitude. He is not a static deity. God is a continual gift-giving between Persons, an eternal communion of life and love. It is amazing to consider that we have been called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity. As Jesus said: Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling place with him (John 14:23).

In a recent catechesis on the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis described the Holy Spirit as “the great gift of Christ Risen who opens our mind and our heart to faith in Jesus as the Son sent by the Father and who leads us to friendship, to communion with God.” The Holy Father called the Holy Spirit “the inexhaustible source of God’s life in us.” The Holy Spirit brings to our hearts the very life of God.

We all long for joy and for enduring love. This is what God offers us in inviting us to share in his own divine life. God shares his life of communion with us. May our hearts be filled with gratitude for the great gift of our Trinitarian faith!

During this Year of Faith, we are also celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. The Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) described the Church as “a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” We are called to be faithful to the Church’s nature by our close union with God and one another. In the face of division and conflict in the world, we are to be a sign of unity and love. This is our mission: to bring the world into communion with God.

In 1999, Blessed John Paul II wrote the following to the Church in America:

Faced with a divided world which is in search of unity, we must proclaim with joy and firm faith that God is communion, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, unity in distinction, and that he calls all people to share in that same Trinitarian communion. We must proclaim that this communion is the magnificent plan of God the Father; that Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Lord, is the heart of this communion, and that the Holy Spirit works ceaselessly to create communion and to restore it when it is broken. We must proclaim that the Church is the sign and instrument of the communion willed by God, begun in time and destined for completion in the fullness of the Kingdom.

On Trinity Sunday, we reflect on the mystery of God in Himself, His innermost life. He draws us into this life, His communion of love. This is the deep mystery of being Christian, receiving the gift of God Himself, partaking of His life. The Most Holy Trinity has destined us to share in His own eternal life of love. And so we pray:

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.