Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Fr. Ben Riley
About forty minutes South-west of here there is a small mountain. It is not necessarily a secret place, but it’s the kind of place you have to be shown first before you can find it. At the top of the mountain, there is bluff with an overlook, and the view is one of the most spectacular I have ever seen. The mountain looks over the rolling hills of the Ozark Mountains and deep into the buffalo river valley, and in my opinion, it is one of the best campsites in all of Arkansas. I am hesitant to tell you exactly where it is because I want it to remain a bit of a secret. It’s a special place. For me, it’s a sacred place. If you are up for a pretty strenuous hike, I would like everyone to be able to experience it, this beautiful image of God’s creation, so I’ll tell you, it’s called antenna pine.
The prophets have always searched for God on the mountain, and they often found Him. Today, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, is an excellent time for us to reflect on this searching. For we too are searching. We search for meaning, we search for truth, and ultimately, we are searching for, striving after, a deeper relationship with God. And an understanding of the Trinity, an understanding that is often elusive and complicated. But like the prophets, we too may come to realize that the Lord is often found on the mountain, though our mountain is not made of stone and earth, but of spirit, love, and sacrifice: the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
This solemnity was affectionately called, heresy Sunday, by my Trinitarian Theology Professor, berceuse it is pretty easy to accidentally preach hearsay about such a confusing topic. However, to keep us on track, the Church, in her wisdom, gives us three readings that each address a different person of the trinity, and shines a light on their different aspects.
Before we begin our hike up this mountain of understanding there is a hard truth that we must come to accept. While our searching is advantageous for us because of the grace we receive in prayer, study, and reflection: all of which bring us closer to God. It is also true that despite our searching, we cannot fully know God and the Trinity in this life. The Holy Trinity, the reality of three district persons existing in and through one God, this is a mystery to us, and it always will be, at least in this life. That type of knowing is only revealed once we reach the top of the mountain and can see the glory of God fully in the beatific vision. But rather than frustrate us, we should see this deepening of our understanding and relationship with the Holy Trinity, not as a destination, but a journey. Heaven, the summit of the mountain, is indeed our goal, but how we get there is equally important.
The first reading today gives us a glimpse of the first person of the Trinity, the Father, the creator, the unmoved mover who put all the universe into motion. He is the beginning and the end.
His name “I am who am.” He is being itself. He is essence itself. All things that exist, exist in and through Him. If He was not consciously thinking of us at every second of our existence, we would cease to exist. That is how much God the Father loves you. He is thinking of you, considering your joy your sorrow, yearning for a relationship with you, personally, at every second of every day.
Love, joy, beauty, goodness, justice, emanate from Him. But even more than that. He is love, he is joy, he is beauty. Our first reading from the book of Exodus says, “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Here too, are more aspects of God the Father. But it is important to remember that while these aspects of mercy, graciousness, kindness, and fidelity are traditionally attributed to God the Father, they do not belong to Him alone. After all, we believe in one God but three persons, not three different God’s. We also want to be careful to avoid what’s called modalism, or the idea that there is one God with one personhood who simply manifests Himself in different ways or modalities. A couple ways to clear up this confusion might be to look at the traditional attributes of the other two persons of the trinity, the savior, and sanctifier, and to address some analogies of the trinity given by the Church fathers.
Our second reading today give us a glimpse of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, in the most simple of expressions, is love. He is the love that is shared by the Father and the Son. In the Nicene Creed we acclaim that the spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified. The fancy theological term for this is spiration. The love that is shared between the father and the son spirates the Holy Spirit. It comes from a Latin word that means breath. The father and the son literally breath out the Spirit.
The best way to describe procession as it relates to the Trinity is to use the analogy of the family. Husband and wife become one flesh, and from their expression of love, and new life comes into existence. It is the love that the Father and Son Share that emanates the Holy Spirit. This is not a creative act. The Catechism describes it as a sharing of the three persons’ intellects. Unfortunately, this analogy, like all analogies, is inadequate to express the infinite mystical nature of the Trinity, but it is useful to provide context.
The Spirit is also the giver of life. He dwells within each soul to provide that essence within us that drives us to do, and make, to grow, and to build, to love, and to cry, to rejoice. In our second reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he expresses the Holy Spirit’s attribute of peace. He says, “Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” These are a few of the individual aspects of the persons of the Trinity, but there is still one more characteristic that should be addressed. They cannot be known separated from each other. We believe in one God and three persons. And so we must also view the Trinity by their relation to each other. To use Saint Tertullian’s analogy. He uses the image of a tree. The Father is the root of the Tree, the beginning. Without the root the rest of the tree couldn’t grow. The trunk of the tree, is analogous to the second person of the Trinity the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is begotten by the Father, the Father begets the Son. The Father is lover and the son is beloved. The trunk of the tree is the savior, the redeemer. As our Gospel reading says “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
To complete Tertullian’s analogy, it is the Holy Spirit, or the fruit of the tree that spirates from the father and the son. Again, this analogy is not adequate to describe the trinity, but it does offer a clear image of the relationship the persons share, their unified nature, and their consubstantiality. Yet another aspect of the Trinity that we express in the creed, when we profess. That the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the father and the son. This word is meant to express the reality that whatever the mystical reality of the trinity is, they are of the same substance. The same stuff.
Finally, you may be saying to yourself, this is ridiculous, it’s so confusing, why do I need to know all these aspects of trinitarian theology. Well, it’s because God has called us into a loving relationship with himself, and we cannot love someone, if we don’t know them. Today’s feast, the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, it is meant to inspire us to be curious, to search, to ask questions, and try to understand the mystery of Who God is and how much he loves you.