On this solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity the Church gives praise to God simply that “He is”. God is Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one Nature; each Person is distinct from one another; each Person is truly God yet this does not divided the divine Unity. God is one but not solitary. It is a mystery infinitely beyond human reason. God had to reveal this mystery to us:

“No man has seen God; the only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known”.

The Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, made man in Jesus Christ came to reconcile us with God, to be our model of holiness and to fully reveal God to us, to let us know his love and through baptism, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to enter the very life of the Most Holy Trinity, the life of God Himself.

Yes – today the Church lifts our gaze to the Most Holy Trinity to praise God simply that He is. That God is the Most Holy Trinity is, in the words of the Catechism, the central mystery of the Christian faith because it is the mystery of God in Himself. But the Catechism also says that it is the central mystery of Christian life.

Why?

First, because the Most Holy Trinity is our final destination, the Most Holy Trinity is our home:

“Father” Jesus prays just before His Passion “I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me where I am”.

Second the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian life because through our baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, through loving Jesus, we become the home of the Holy Trinity:

“If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home in him”.

The Father loves the Son. If we love Jesus, the Father will love us and in that Love which is the Holy Spirit they will come to dwell in us. It is the indwelling of the Triune God.

The Trinity is our home and we are the home of the Trinity who dwells within us.

And the Most Holy Trinity is Life, Light and Love – is Life as Creator, is Light as Divine Wisdom and Love as the Spirit of Charity. Life, light and love the very things we desire in abundance.

The saints are the ones who live in this Life, Light and Love, the supreme reality that is the Most Holy Trinity and it gives them the right perspective. St Gregory the Great relates in his Life and Miracles of our Holy Father St Benedict that St Benedict once saw in a vision the whole world gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light. As St Gregory explains:

“All creation is bound to appear small to a soul that sees the Creator.”

He goes on:

“Once it beholds a little of this light, it finds all creatures small indeed … not that the heaven and earth grow small but that the spirit is enlarged.”

Another saint, this time the Spanish Trappist St Raphael Baron who died in 1937 at the young age of 27. Like most young men he liked fast cars, the sense of freedom it gave:

“How stupid I was” .. he recalls … “I realised I was running out of horizon… for the earth is a small place and you run out of it very quickly. Now I have infinite freedom, I have heaven – I have God. God alone. How sweet it is to live like this”.

Yes. The earth is a small place. But the Trinity dwells within us. God alone. When, like the saints, we allow the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit to act within us our spirit, our hearts expand in love and charity and like St Benedict, like St Raphael we gain the right perspective on the world. It is a grace we can ask for. The Holy Spirit will grant it. How sweet it is to live like this. Not that we will be removed from the world or stand aloof from all its pain. No because “God so loved the world that he gave His only Son”. We are not removed from suffering, in fact we suffer more as our compassion grows. Yet we see all the worlds suffering (and how it is suffering now) more with the eyes of God. This leads us from despair to hope – hope in the infinite mercy of God, of the Most Holy Trinity. Praise of the Triune God, the central mystery of our faith and life, protects our hearts from despair, worry and anxiety and grants us life, light, love, peace and joy. Let us give glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit and never despair of God’s mercy.