Most Holy Trinity
Post date: Jun 17, 2019 8:50:43 AM
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year C (15 & 16/6/19)
Today’s feast is rather difficult to understand. How can there be just one God, yet that one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit? When you’re at primary school, adults tell you that there are so many things that you can’t understand at the moment, but you’ll understand when you’re older. But with God, even when you’re ninety-three (which I’m not, yet), you still can’t claim to fully understand God. Of course, if we ever did fully understand God, then that would, in a way, make us greater than God – clearly impossible. We would be God, rather than God being God. So we just have to accept that no matter how clever we become, we shall never, never, fully understand God.
But does that mean we should just give up? Of course not! But let’s look at it all another way. We can study God as if He were some subject like English or Maths or History. But that misses the point. We’re not just supposed to know something about God, we’re actually supposed to get to know God.
I mentioned two weeks ago about the cartoon character He-Man. Obviously, He-Man isn’t real. We can watch the cartoons, and read on the internet about who he is and that sort of thing, but that is only getting to know about him. With God it’s different. With God we can actually get to know Him. And as you get to know Him, you also want to know about Him as well. The two go hand-in-hand. As we read about Him in the Bible, we are inspired to talk to Him in prayer. We discover that He is a God who answers prayer, but in His way, not ours. We don’t control God. We begin to discover how beautiful God is. And like a stained glass window, the more we look, the more detail we find. The thing with God is that He is infinite. We can have all eternity in heaven and still be constantly discovering more.
I’d better say a bit about today’s readings.
Jesus said, in today’s Gospel, “I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth”. The disciples had been brought up with the Old Testament. That was how they had come to know God as Father. But now they had spent three years with Jesus, God the Son who had become one of us. They had been able to talk to Him and share their lives with Him. But there was even more. After Christ returned to the Father, next they were to receive God the Holy Spirit. Their relationship with God just kept on getting deeper and deeper. Can you imagine what impact it must have had on them to have seen Christ work all those miracles, then to have seen Him apparently defeated in death, and then rise from the dead and appear to them again? And what about His Ascension into heaven? And then the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to speak to people of different languages without learning their languages, and to perform various miracles themselves?
But our faith isn’t just about great spectacles, great displays of power and might, or seemingly impossible things happening. The core and the heart of it is the love of God. Love makes such a difference to the world. You can have everything – an expensive car, a huge house, the latest gadgets, and be without love, and be utterly, completely miserable. Or you can be of much more modest means, but with love, you are richer than a millionaire. Or a billionaire. Or even a trillionaire.
And where does all love come from? It ultimately comes from God. God is not just a community of persons who love, God is love, and He wants to pour Himself into our hearts.
How does He do that? In Holy Communion. During the Mass, we ask the Father to send His Holy Spirit on the gifts of bread and wine, that they may become Jesus. The appearances of bread and wine remain, but reality has changed – it really now is Jesus that we now receive. And in today’s Eucharistic Prayer we ask the Father, that through receiving His Son and having the Holy Spirit poured out on us, we might be brought together into unity with Him.
It’s awful when we forget this, when we fail to realise what the Eucharist is. And Holy Communion becomes a terrible missed opportunity of grace when we block the action of God in our hearts by our sins. But it’s a beautiful thing when we remember the heart of what the Mass is all about, and when we go and allow ourselves to be washed of all sin by going to confession, allowing that grace to flow freely again.
Let’s enjoy today’s celebration. Let’s remember why we are here. The one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – loves us, and doesn’t want us to be anywhere else.