Holy Trinity - Year A

 

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity, to whom we love, pray to and we desire to be in union. Today’s Solemnity is the feast day for our parish, because our parish is named after the Blessed Trinity.

When Adam and Eve lost their friendship with God due to original sin, heaven was closed and no one could enter-- and the divine friendship which they possessed was lost and broken. When it came time to restore that friendship, God chose to also reveal Himself as Trinity (three divine persons in one God). Before Jesus came to reveal the Trinity and to restore man’s friendship with God, the Jews could never have known there is one God in three persons.

And so, at the fullness of time, when mankind would be able to accept this most awesome mystery, God the Father sent His only Son into the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the womb of the Virgin Mary, in order for Jesus to die on the Cross and redeem us, so that whoever believes in Him, might not perish, but might have eternal life.

The paschal mystery of Our Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension is the source in which we can now come in contact with God--- and have union with the Blessed Trinity, especially through the sacraments.

In particular, the sacrament of Baptism, not only washes away original sin, but also prepares our heart for the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, which allows us to enter into an intimate union and friendship with God. We are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, which results in original sin being washed away, our soul flooded with grace, and our heart becomes a temple for the Trinity to dwell.

The Blessed Trinity dwells in the Christian soul as in a temple. Saint Paul explains that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And there in the inner recesses of the soul, we learn to converse intimately with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Saint Catherine of Sienna said, “You O eternal Trinity are a deep ocean, into which the more I penetrate, the more I discover, and the more I discover, the more I seek you.” How wonderful it is therefore to seek the Blessed Trinity, who came within our soul at the moment of baptism!

During the Mass, the Father sends His Son. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, Our Lord, becomes present on the altar. It is here on the altar, we come in contact with the Trinity.

Because the Trinity dwells here in our church, in the tabernacle, and becomes present here on the altar, there is no greater place in the world. Our church is grander, and more glorious, than the highest skyscrapers, the largest coliseum, or gymnasium because our church and every Catholic Church contains almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Mass is beautiful and glorious, because heaven is opened, and we participate in the heavenly liturgy with the angels and saints, worshiping the Trinity, as we sing, Holy Holy Holy, Lord God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. The Mass is God’s grandeur in the feeble eyes of man. The Mass is the action of the Holy Spirit, whereby the Father sends the Son, to come in contact with us, and the mysteries of salvation. The mystery of Calvary will become present on the altar, and the mystery of the resurrection, as we receive the resurrected Jesus in Holy Communion.

We worship the Blessed Trinity, and kneel, in adoration at the Sacred Host, as it is elevated. The Sacred Host is God, and within the Host is the Blessed Trinity. The angel at Fatima, and the 3 children prostrated themselves, before the Sacred Host saying, “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore thee profoundly.” And the children also said, “Most Holy Trinity, I adore thee, my God, my God, I love thee in the most Blessed Sacrament.”

Now, as we prepare to receive Holy Communion, let us ask Mary, the Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, to help us to understand that we truly come in contact, with the adorable Trinity in the Eucharist, especially Her Son in Holy Communion.

And at the moment of consecration, gaze upon the presence of God, with faith, and cry out, “Most Holy Trinity, I adore thee, my God, my God, I love thee in the most Blessed Sacrament.”

On special feast days and solemnities I like to quote from the saints, who so beautifully shed light on the mystery of the particular feast.

There are not too many saints, who can help us to love, pray to and desire union with the beauty of the Blessed Trinity-- as well as the Carmelite, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. The following is a prayer written by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity which reveals her love and desire to be in union with the Trinity. St. Elizabeth wrote: “My God, Blessed Trinity! Draw from my poor being what most contributes to your glory, and do with me what you wish-- both now and in eternity. May I no longer place between us any voluntary hindrance to your transforming action…Second by second, with a forever ‘actual’ intention, I desire to offer you all that I am and all that I have. Make my poor life, in intimate union with the Word Incarnate, an unceasing sacrifice of glory to the Blessed Trinity…

My God, how I wish to glorify you! O, if only in the exchange for my complete immolation, or for any other condition, it were in my power to enkindle the hearts of all your creatures and the whole of creation in the flames of your love, how I would desire to do so! May at least my poor heart belong to you completely, may I keep nothing for myself nor for creatures, not even a single heartbeat. May I have a burning love for all mankind, but only with you, through you and for you…. I desire above all to love you with the heart of St. Joseph, with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and with the adorable Heart of Jesus; and, finally, to submerge myself in that infinite ocean, that abyss of fire that consumes the Father and the Son in unity of the Holy Spirit, and love you with your own infinite love…

O eternal Father, beginning and end of all things! Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you Jesus, your Word Incarnate, and through Him, with Him and in Him, I want to repeat unceasingly this cry that rises from the bottom of my soul; Father, glorify continually your Son, that your Son may glorify you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. O Jesus, who said, No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied!”

And you Spirit of Love! ‘Teach us all things’ and from Jesus with Mary in us until we become perfectly one in the bosom of the Father. Amen”.

Elizabeth’s beautiful prayer to the Trinity is a model for us to pray, to love and to desire---God-- the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May it be so!