As Catholics we are accustomed to beginning our prayer in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In this simple invocation to prayer we are opening ourselves up to the great mystery of faith that is found within the Trinity. In the invocation to the Father we touch our foreheads with our hands, to the Son we lower our hands to below our chest, and to the Holy Spirit we touch our shoulders from the left to the right. In this outward sign we are professing the profound reality of salvation that was brought into the world through the cross. This invocation of words that we make was so greatly important in the life of faith that we even hear of Christ instructing the faithful to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We notice with these words that we have three persons and yet we say name instead of names. To say in the names of would express that these three person are separate gods, but in our ability to say in the name of we profess that we have one God in three persons.
It can be mind boggling to think of how it is possible for these three persons to exist in one God. After all we cannot take three random people and say that they are separate and yet one. On the other hand we are able to easily accept some things as truth when we acknowledge that something can be one and yet many. As we gear up for the summer many people will head to the roads for travel to their vacation destinations. We can easily accept the fact that some roads despite remaining the same change their names on multiple occasions. These roads despite being one take on many different identities through their different names. The Trinity is more profound then all of this, but through our life of faith and our own worldly experiences this notion of being one and yet three should be acceptable. In our profession of the mystery of the Holy Trinity we express the reality of creation found in God , the importance of thought found in the Son, and the ability to be challenged in love by the Holy Spirit.
We believe that God is the creator of all things. This must be so because we exist and someone had to bring us into existence. This world is so complex that we cannot look upon it and claim that out of some random chance that everything popped into being without first having a principle mover. If a baseball where to fly through this Church and fly past our eyes we would have to believe that someone threw it. With the complexity of creation this must also be so. God is the principle mover who created time and place and therefore is deserving of all of our honor and worship. The first person of the Holy Trinity sheds His love upon us through creation and we therefore should be thankful for all that we have had extended into our lives. Our thankfulness for this reality should not come and go depending upon how we feel this day, but instead we should always remain firm in our thankfulness to God the Father's desire to bring us into creation.
The second person of the Holy Trinity is the Son, Jesus Christ. We hear from John's Gospel that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. All of us here are able to think of many things. We are able to choose between doing what is right and wrong. We are able to argue and debate with other people concerning our thoughts and beliefs. We are able to choose what we will watch on television or what we will eat for supper. Despite the thought that we contain in our minds we know that we must first act upon them if anything will come about because our thoughts are not creative. A mere human thought alone will never be able to generate life. God is also able to think. God's thought is so perfect that only God has one thought. That thought is so perfect that it encompasses everything and extends throughout all generations. This one thought is the word that was brought into being by the Father. Jesus Christ is the Son of God because he was brought into being by the thought of God the Father.
Not only are we able to think, but we are also able to love. We find perfect love inside the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. In this world where we can find many perverted understandings of love it is important for us to begin to see what love truly is. Inside of the Creed we make this expression of faith by saying: "who proceeds from the Father and the Son." The Holy Spirit proceeds from the love that is extended between the Father and the Son. In order to have love it cannot remain bottled up within ourselves or be contained by another person. Instead love must come forth from ourselves and be the instrument from which we are drawn to one another. Love will always be abusive if it is only about ourselves and our own desire for pleasure. Love will always be lacking in these relationships because they have failed to be formed in a true giving of self. The profound love that exists between the Father and the Son is known as the Holy Spirit.
On this day we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. May we allow the three persons of the Holy Trinity to continue to give strength and wisdom to our lives. May we realize the Trinity is a great mystery from which flows creation, thought, and love. Thorough the wonderful gift of creation may we always give honor to God. May our thoughts become pure and directed always towards the Son. May we also grow to love as the Holy Spirit always proceeds forth from the Father and the Son. The Holy Trinity truly shows us how wonderful the name of our God is throughout all the earth.
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