Trinity Sunday
(Cycle “B" – June 11, 2006)

Q. 375:   The concept of the “Holy Trinity” is very hard to understand. Is there a quick way to learn about this belief?

A. 375:   You are not alone, because we are once again in the area of “mystery.”   As you can see, these “mysteries” all seem to loom large right after Easter, the greatest mystery of all.   It is our faith in that mystery of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that enables us to walk once again in the sheer faith of our spiritual journey.   So in rapid fashion after the Easter season, we celebrate the mysteries of Pentecost, the Most Holy Trinity, Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ), and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The early Christians had a difficult “doctrinal transition” to make: from believing in the One God, to believing in this same One God as enfleshed in Jesus the Christ.   So they developed “Trinitarian language” to preserve both of those truths, as well as a third truth: that the Spirit of Jesus kept the presence of God constantly in our midst.   In fact, it is this Spirit of God who dwells within the believer through baptism.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus articulates this truth, when he commands his disciples to baptize and teach “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:16-20).  The early Church Fathers enshrined this dogmatic belief in “One God but Three Divine Persons in that One Godhead,” by encasing that belief in a dogmatic Creed.   It still remains a “mystery,” and the poverty of our human understanding shows the gap between the Human and the Divine.   So the answer to your question is “no, there is no quick way” to absorb this concept, except the way of faith.

KNOW YOUR CATECHISM!   What an incredible gift is the theological virtue of faith, the free assent of the believer to the whole truth that God has revealed (CCC #126, 142)!  The mystery of the Trinity in itself is inaccessible to the human mind and is the object of faith only because it was revealed by Jesus Christ, the divine Son of the eternal Father.   The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity (CCC #232, 237).

Deacon Paul Rooney
Mary Our Queen Parish, Omaha

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