God Shared His Inner Life with Us

 (Fr. Andrew’s Homily for Trinity Sunday, May 26^th 2024) 

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Witnessing to the mystery of the Trinity cost so much to our fathers. People like us, lay and priests, gave their lives for the correct interpretation of this mystery. This is why it would be a mistake to set aside this mystery, to ignore it or to consider it something just for theologians to be busy with. If this mystery was so important for our fathers, why should it be less important for us? Is it not the mystery of our God?

You may know St. Augustine from his “Confessions,” the turbulent and beautiful story of his own life and late conversion. He became a Bishop, so loving of his sheep, and, busy as he was, wrote a large, thick book called: “On the Trinity.” It was written in the years after 400 AD, without computers. St. Athanasius, in the century before St. Augustine, suffered many hardships and was exiled several times because of his defense of the Holy Trinity. He also was a bishop, but preferred to risk his life and to lose the favor of the powerful, rather than to allow this mystery to be changed or misunderstood. The first four ecumenical councils, in which we found in writing the doctrine about the Trinity, have been written by saintly doctors with their sweat, with their tears and with their blood. This doctrine cannot be simply taken for granted or even ignored. The saintly fathers of the Church loved this doctrine: we should, at least, respect it.

We will never on earth understand fully this mystery, as we will never be able to drink a whole ocean. The ocean of the Most Holy Trinity can be admired, it can be tasted from the beach, as it were, but to navigate it in the deep… Let us try today to enter a bit into its waters, with the help of the Catechism and St. Thomas. Let me say something about the Son and then about the Holy Spirit.

1. We use two words to refer to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. We say “the Son,” for example, in the sign of the Cross; and we say also “the Word,” as when we refer to Him as the “Incarnate Word,” or when we say in the Angelus “and the Word was made flesh.” We say that He is the Son because a son is like his father, of the same nature of the father. If the father is a human being, the son is a human being. If the father is a horse, the son is also a horse. In this case, if the Father is God, also the Son is God (the only one God!). Moreover, a son proceeds, comes from the father. Now, in the Trinity, the only distinction between these two Persons is that one proceeds from the other. This is the other reason that the second person is called Son: that He proceeds from the Father. The second Person proceeds from the Father and is equal, consubstantial to the Father: this is why He is called Son.

But how does the Son proceed from the Father? When we talk about father and son in human terms, the son appears usually as younger and as smaller. Do those things take place in the Trinity? Of course not: in the Trinity, Father and Son are equal in eternity, majesty and power. Is there a process, is there a time in which the Son is born, and He was not there before? Of course not. The second name of the Son, “Word,” is meant to help us in understanding how the Son proceeds from the Father. This procession from the Father is not a process in time, but a spiritual and intellectual procession, as when we conceive an idea... When we understand something, an idea proceeds from our mind. This idea or concept is like a spiritual “word,” a spiritual expression of what we know. In a similar way, the Son proceeds from the Father not by a physical process of generation, but by an intellectual generation, by something related to intelligence.

It is interesting that we call our interior word “concept,” as something we conceive, something that proceeds in ourselves from understanding something. In a similar way, when God knows Himself, a concept of Himself proceeds. Because God knows Himself from eternity, there is no time in which this concept was not there. Because God knows Himself perfectly, this concept is a perfect image of His essence. This is why Jesus says “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:15). All the perfection that is in the Father is also in his Image, in his Word. All the perfection that is in the Father is also in the Son. The only distinction is that the Son proceeds from the Father. The Son is not the Father, but both are God, equal in everything.

2. How does the Holy Spirit proceed? His second name will tell us more about His mystery: the Holy Spirit’s second name is Love. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son because of something related to love in God. The Holy Spirit is the proceeding love of the Father and of the Son. He is a love that proceeds from both at once. Love unites Father and Son. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, but they are one in their Love, in the Love that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son as one only source of Love. Love is much more difficult to understand than concepts: this is why the Holy Spirit is usually more difficult to grasp! But we need to know that the Holy Spirit, who is neither the Father nor the Son, proceeds from both as a distinct person, by something related to love. All the Persons in the Trinity love, but only one of them is this proceeding Love from the Father and the Son, and this is the Holy Spirit.

Dear friends, some of these things may be very difficult to understand. But there is much joy in meditating on these things. These mysteries are not just science, which can be boring sometimes, but they are the very life of God. God is infinite joy, and when we meditate on these things, as it happened to St. Catherine of Siena, we may be immersed in the ocean of joy that is God himself. Let us meditate upon these mysteries: many times love gets to know more than studies. Let us meditate upon this mystery, so that we may enjoy the life of our God.