Living with the Trinity

[Feast of the Holy Trinity, Year C, 22 May 2016, Prov 8:22-31 /Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 / Rom 5:1-5 / John 16:12-15]

TODAY we celebrate the great mystery of our faith, the Holy Trinity. In some ways this is so familiar, as we begin every Mass with “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” but in other ways so mysterious and unfathomable. The story is told of St. Augustine walking along the beach trying to figure out the mystery of the Trinity. He came across a little boy (an angel in disguise) trying to put the seawater from the ocean into a small hole he had dug in the sand. When Augustine inquired as to what he was doing, the boy told him that it is easier to put all the waters of the ocean into the small hole than for the human mind to understand the mystery of the Trinity! Where does that leave us? Perhaps our primary focus is not to understand the Trinity but to know them and love them. As Fr. Jaime Bonet, the founder of the Verbum Dei community wrote, “It is useless to know the doctrines of the Trinity if we do not first savor, drink from and enjoy the fountains of divine love which spring up from deep within us.” It is one thing to try and describe what ice cream is and it is another thing to taste it!