HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY

Trinity Sunday was officially added to the church calendar by Pope John XXII. One of the best descriptions for the Trinity to be found is in the Athanasian Creed, part of which says: “This is what the Catholic faith teaches: we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divinity, equal glory, and coeternal majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Spirit is.” (It goes on in greater detail making the full creed well worth reading) Fr Andrew Hamilton, SJ on Australia Catholics writes, “Unless we know a little about the history behind the words we use to describe God as Trinity, it is easy to dismiss the belief as concerned with divine mathematics. It really celebrates something much deeper: the depth of God’s involvement with us in the salvation that Jesus brought us. It insists that when Jesus spoke to us, God speaks, when Jesus dies on the cross, God dies in him, that when Jesus rises and ascends to God he takes us with him and that when the Spirit works within our lives and Church, God works within us. The Feast of the Trinity says that our world is not God’s colony under colonial management but is God’s home. It is about the intimacy of God’s presence to us in our world and in the Church through Jesus.” In GPBS eNews, they ask how we can tell where one identity leaves and one begins. They say, “We can’t. And we don’t have to. That’s the nature of mystery. God can’t be sliced up like a pie and served across the table piece by piece. We want to be scientific, or at least mathematical, about Trinity: How much of Jesus is God? (All of him) Then what’s the difference between God and Jesus? (Full humanity) How can Jesus be fully God and fully human? (Good question!) If Eucharist is Jesus, and we consume Eucharist, how much of us is Christ? (As much as we allow) This last question is the only one that’s no mystery at all. It's an invitation awaiting our response.”