HENEVER someone lets us know intimate and deep secrets about them, it shows that they must have great trust in us and that we must be very dear and special to them. We just don’t share intimate and deep secrets about ourselves at random and without a good reason.
The nature of God. Our reason tells us that we can come to the knowledge of the existence of a God, of some supreme being who is ultimately responsible for the making of the world. Our Catholic faith also teaches us that this is possible. But our unaided reason would never be able to come to the knowledge of the fact that God is a Triune God, that is, that the One God is also the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We only know this primarily through the revelation of Jesus, the Second of these persons. We know this through what has been written in the inspired writings of what we call the New Testament and what the Church has defined and explained for us in its authentic teaching of Tradition.
A Mystery: In spite of all we might know, much still remains a mystery, in other words, something that we cannot explain. We accept it on Faith by the Divine gift of Faith. We accept the Catholic Church’s authentic exposition or presentation of this, especially as it is presented in its infallible Creeds. The best presentation or way of expressing this teaching is simply to say that in the One God there are Three Persons Who are equally God, equally sharing or being all the Divine attributes that we can think of ascribing to them. And yet we know that we will never fully understand this Divine nature. Really only a Divine nature could understand a Divine Nature. And by definition a Divine nature can only be one.
We are privileged: And yet as I said at the beginning we are privileged to know of this great mystery because God deemed us worthy to let us in on this great mystery about Him. He certainly didn’t have to. Actually in the entire Old Testament, God never explicitly or clearly revealed His Triune nature. From what we know from the New Testament, we might see some veiled references in the Old Testament. But that is about all they are. We can conjecture as to why God waited till New Testament times clearly to reveal this aspect of Himself. Many saints and Christian writers have done so. That is well and good, but they still remain conjectures.
Today’s Feast. Today we are given the opportunity in a special way to honor and adore the Holy Trinity by celebrating this Feast. (Actually we do this especially in the Traditional Mass on most Sundays when we use the preface of the Most Holy Trinity.) Each sign of the Cross, each Gloria Patri that we say or sing is in honor of the Holy Trinity. We should consider it a real privilege and honor to be able and allowed to honor and praise the Holy Trinity. Without actually saying so, I sometimes think some people almost think they are doing God a favor when they pray or go to Mass. It’s as if they are taking one of their hours and giving it back to God. They don’t seem to realize that it is God that gives us all one hundred and sixty-eight hours every week. We are not really being that generous if all we are willing to give is one hour, plus a few minutes here and there for a few scattered prayers.
Conclusion: God did not have to let us know that He is a triune God. Notice the Introit for today where it tells us to bless and praise the Trinity. What does it give as the reason? “Because He has shown His mercy to us.” Yes, when we sin, we are offending the Most Holy Trinity. Perhaps the amount of forgiveness we will receive will depend on how much we have honored the Most Holy Trinity.
We hope you enjoyed this homily by Fr. Valentine Young, OFM.
