The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity - Prov 8:22-31; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15

06-15-2025Weekly ReflectionThe Faithful Disciple

Between two people who love each other, speech often gives way to silence. But first, in order to nourish love, there must be a mutual exchange of words. Persons in love wish to share their most intimate secrets so that they might know and be known. In an act deserving of our endless wonder, God disclosed his most intimate secret to us: He is a communion of Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who relate to each other in an eternal exchange of love. St. Thomas Aquinas insisted that the Trinity is not a reality we could have figured out on our own (in contrast to, for example, God’s existence — which we can know simply by examining creation).

God had to reveal his Trinitarian nature to us. While humanity was wandering further and further away from him over the millennia after the Fall, God was preparing us for the revelation of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus is announcing in today’s Gospel: “Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that [the Holy Spirit] will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” To his bewildered disciples, Jesus is expressing God’s intention to communicate his identity to us — an unmerited gift which he offers simply because he loves us.

This is our inheritance as Christians: God has revealed himself to us out of love. Once we’ve assented to this truth, we can no longer dismiss the mystery of the Holy Trinity as “above my theological paygrade.” One who loves is not bothered that the beloved always remains a mystery; instead, he or she is content to remain in wonder and seeks to enter more deeply into the exchange of love. For us, this means responding to God’s gift of himself with reverence, gratitude, and obedience to his will. We approach him in prayer with the respectful but confident attitude of a child who knows itself to be deeply loved; we listen to him, express our thanksgiving for his gift, and seek to know his will for us.

PRAY: Be attentive to the ways God is revealing himself and his love for you in your daily life. Discover that everything is an expression of his care: answered prayers, a kind word given or received, the beauty of nature — even crosses which induce us to turn to him for help! Take a few minutes each day to thank God for his gifts.