“The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit…”

It always surprises me that the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is so often spoken about as a mystery that we just cannot comprehend with our limited human minds.  Whilst this is undoubtedly true, what about the Creation, God’s Revelation via angels, prophets, miracles (the parting of the Red Sea, Manna, water from the rock), the Incarnation and Virgin Birth, Jesus’ miracles, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Assumption and what we celebrate at every mass, Holy Communion?

The Church has always proceeded via Faith and Reason, but reason itself will only take us so far.  But that doesn’t mean that we can say nothing about the Trinity.  Even though this word is not used in the Bible, Holy Scripture abounds with references to the three persons of God.  In particular, right at the start of our story, in Genesis, we hear that God’s Spirit hovered over the waters.  In other words, there is God, and there is the Spirit of God as something distinct.

And likewise, the People of God were promised a Messiah, a saviour, an anointed one who again was imagined as both God and one sent by God.  This promise was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.  And he himself promised that when he returned to the Father, the Father would send us the Holy Spirit.

God is three, and God is one.  He is one being in three distinct persons and the Trinity has sometimes been described as a “community of love.”  We are drawn, by our faith, into the life of the Trinity.  As I often quote, “God cannot be known by thinking about him, only by love.”  In the end, we discover more about the Trinity not by reason but by faith, and not by thinking but by love. 

 God bless, Fr Kevin.