Spare a thought today for your bishop, parish priest, or deacon especially if they are called upon to preach today’s homily. Truth be told, many of our preachers dread being called upon to preach on this central mystery of our faith. Why is this? Their defense is: ‘The Trinity is a mystery and so let’s leave it as such.’
They are right, of course – the Blessed Trinity is precisely that, a mystery. But are we simply to leave it at that? Surely God would want to invite us to enter more deeply into this mystery, which is indeed the mystery that explains everything. How true are the Psalmist’s words: ‘in your light we see light‘. Consider how on earth we see everything in the light of the sun, though we cannot look at this great star with the naked eye.
St Thomas Aquinas said: ‘The divine nature is really and entirely identical with each of the three persons, all of whom can therefore be called one: I and the Father are one.’ So how can we get our heads around the Trinity? It is a good question but the truth is, we can’t. We can, however, put our heads into it and immerse our hearts in it. For we need a grace of revelation to penetrate into this deep ocean of truth. The Blessed Trinity is first and foremost a trinity of persons and a community of love. Love is the very essence of the Trinity and it is in loving God that we enter into this mystery of love.