Proverbs:8:22-31; Psalm 8; Romans:5:1-5; John 16:12-15
From of old I was poured forth…
Any communication of love from our dear ones is treasured. This is not surprising because God is love and He created us for an exchange of love, beginning here on earth in the darkness of faith and finding fulfillment in the eternal light of heaven.
On this Trinity Sunday, one week into the ordered time of the liturgical year that we call “Ordinary”, we celebrate the central mystery of our Faith – the Most Holy Trinity – one God in Three Divine Persons. The Persons are at the same time equal and distinct from each other, communicating love, always and without change.
Today we offer two stories that can help us approach this wonderful mystery.
The first story is a legend many hundreds of years old, about the great St. Augustine at the time he was working on his treatise on the Trinity. Perhaps you have heard it as well.
According to the ancient legend, the brilliant Augustine was walking along the beach one day, pondering the mystery of the Trinity, when he noticed a child repeatedly scoop up water from the ocean and pouring it into a hole in the sand. The little fellow innocently told Augustine that his goal was to put all of the ocean into his little hole.
The future saint remarked that it wasn’t possible for the child to accomplish that huge task. The child replied to the future Doctor of the Church that it was equally impossible to fit the mystery of the infinite Trinity into one finite human mind! After the child said this, he disappeared. We can imagine how Augustine’s considerations continued after this! We, too, are called to admire and meditate this mystery of love.
The second story was published in Dr. Scott Hahn’s book, A Father Who Keeps His Promises. Here is a summary of that story:
One morning in 1983, an earthquake in Armenia that killed thousands of people also toppled a school. One father, who had promised his son to save him if he was ever in danger, rushed to where the school had been standing and began energetically to pull away the rubble.
Hour after hour, the father frantically dug while calling his son’s name. After over 30 hours of digging the father heard a faint voice responding, “Papa!” The devoted dad was able to rescue his son, along with other buried students. What had given them hope was the son’s confident affirmation to the other students, during those long hours: “See, I told you my father wouldn’t forget us.” This story always moves me to tears, but it shows only a faint shadow of our Heavenly Father’s faithfulness, Who saved His only Son first, and then each of us.
We can see in this story a modest and imperfect model of the Holy Trinity, Who is Love. The human father and son believed in and trusted each other. Their mutual love was an overshadowing reality so powerful that it produced another wonderful reality – their heroic efforts, with life-saving effects.
God the Father and God the Son have always given themselves in love totally, so much more completely than the father and son in Armenia, that the Holy Spirit proceeds forever “from the communion of both the Father and the Son” as St. Augustine wrote in the same treatise on the Trinity mentioned above, also quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Par. 264).
Most fortunately for us beloved children of God, the Most Blessed Trinity shares their own divine life with us through the grace given in the Sacraments of our Church. We are made to model their infinite generosity by mutual love in our families and in our communities.
Since God desires to communicate the glory of his blessed life to us, our joyful duty is to open our hearts to His outpouring, and to willingly be the dry tinder that the Trinitarian love can set aflame.
May the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit help us to know and love each Person of the Trinity and help us to grow together in love as families and communities.
“…and I found delight in the human race”
and then