Heavenly Father, You so loved the world that You sent Your only Begotten Son to be one of us, not to condemn the world but to redeem the world. Before Your Son went to the Cross to destroy the power of sin and death, he prayed to You. And in this prayer he said that before the foundation of the world, before anything was ever made, he shared Your glory as Your only begotten Son. This love You have for Your Son, this glory You give to Him, is the Holy Spirit. This same love and glory Jesus gives to us so that we may be one, as You and the Son are One.
And so Father, Jesus revealed to the disciples the mystery of the most Holy Trinity in His prayer to You. I share in Jesus’ life and try to be His disciple - so I too will try and say something about You Father and Your Son and the Holy Spirit by speaking and praying to You.
You have granted to Your Church great saints to help describe Your mystery: St Gregory Nazianzen says: For one is not more and another less God; nor is One before and another after; nor are They divided in will or parted in power; nor can you find here any of the qualities of divisible things; [God] is undivided in separate Persons; and there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other.” These saints, these Fathers of the Church, used their enlightened reason to help explain the revelation of You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as the Trinity. Yet St Thomas Aquinas describes another way of knowing, the simplex intuitus, the simple look, the simple gaze.
Simply to look and to know You. Surely we know You best by looking at You most Holy Trinity, by contemplating You as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Is it not true that the things we desire most we gaze upon. Do not people in love simply look at each other without speaking? How much more should we look to You most Holy Trinity who are no thing, but the Creator of all things. How much we should desire You and hunger for You, as You desire and hunger for us.
Maybe this is why I cannot speak well of You Holy Trinity, because I do not desire you enough.
The writer George Mackay Brown puts these words on the lips of his priest Master Halcrow: “I like a sermon to be plain and wholesome like a bannock to a hungry man”. Yes, Master Halcrow describes the content of a good sermon - plain and wholesome like a bannock – but also the desire of those who listen - hungry men.
My words are more like stale bread Lord. Yet very soon I will pray infinitely more precious words: “This is my Body which will be given up for you. This is my Blood which will be poured out for you”. Through the words of Your Son, heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit will descend on the bread and wine. Something miraculous happens. The bread and wine then become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of your Son Jesus, the Word made flesh. I raise them up, and for a moment we gaze at Your Son. To see Him is to see You Father – he told us this. He is in You and You in Him through the love that is the Holy Spirit. We simply look.
In the Eucharist You fulfil our desire to gaze upon You. In the Eucharist You fulfil our hunger for You. You created us, Your Son redeems us, Your Spirit sanctifies us. So I will give to Your people not stale bread, nor a bannock, but the Bread of Life, the Bread that is Life sent from heaven to bring us back to heaven. To those who cannot receive the Eucharist, I will bless in Your name Father, Son and Holy Spirit – so that Your peace may possess the deepest part of their being.
Holy Trinity, You are Beauty, Goodness, Unity, Truth and Love. All of Your creation makes You manifest. Humanity most of all. We have infinite dignity – holy Church has reminded us of this. We are made in Your image and likeness. Sin distorts it. You restore it.
St John Chrysostom says “just as what brings heat makes things expand, so it is the gift of love to stretch hearts wide open”. Today is the feast of Your servant St Philip Neri - he desired You so much, Holy Trinity, that his heart was enlarged. He was filled with joy, that infallible sign of Your indwelling.
Then stretch my heart Holy Trinity. Like St Philip may I be possessed by the joy which is You. Let Your consolations calm my soul, and let them, not the anxieties that tear at it, be made manifest in me. Like the Christmas carol, Most Holy Trinity, You are the Silent Night and the Holy Night where all is calm and all is bright – “Night” because Your light is of infinite brightness and blinds us; Holy because you are thrice Holy; “calm” and “silent” for this is in the nature of pure Love.
Come to us today Father, Son and Holy Spirit and let us share fully in Your divine life. To see You God – that will be our eternal reward. You are Beauty, Goodness, Unity, Truth and Love. I desire all these things, so it seems I desire you after all! How wondrous the cosmos. How infinitely more wondrous are You Holy Trinity whose beauty is stamped on all You have made. You are our Father and Creator, our Lord and Redeemer, our Love and Sanctifier. You are our breath, fire and light. You are the Way, the Truth and the Life. You are our prize, our home and our eternal rest.
Amen.