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Throughout the world Catholics, in particular, and Christians, in general, are celebrating the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. To define the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is only somewhat helpful for our spiritual development. It’s nice to have an analogy like the three lobes of a clover, like St. Patrick was supposed to have used, but what I really want to know is how Trinity functions in my life and in the life of the world. That would be more helpful in my spiritual development.

The Father is the transcendent source of Love. That tells me that God initiates everything. Everything. Or, as the Biblical writer John says, “Let us love one another, because God first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19).  The Son is the historical embodiment of Love. I need to see love embodied, represented, and expressed in someone so that I can believe that love can inhabit my flesh and bones, too. We have the source of Love. We have the embodiment of Love. Now we have the Spirit, the Love that guides us into a future, a future we cannot fully bear or fully understand here and now, as Jesus tells us in today’s gospel. 

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are completely intimate with each other. None of them, as Jesus tells us, speaks on their own. They only say what they hear from the other. They form a unity which ensures continuity between past, present, and future truths of revelation. 

I can’t say that about myself. There seems to be little unity me. I can’t say that what I believed to be true at 20, I still believe it to be truth, in exactly the same way at 56. And I can’t say that what I believe at 56, I will continually believe it to be true when I’m 80, without one smidgeon of that truth ever changing. However, this doesn’t mean that everything I said in the past will someday be proven false. What it means is that as I open myself to greater truths that are revealed to me, these greater truths will transcend and include the beliefs I hold now. So don’t go beating yourself up for being “stupid” at 16; you were supposed to be “stupid” at 16 (no offense to any 16-year-olds in our midst). Jesus has a less crass way of saying this. He says, “you cannot bear it now.” In other words, hang in there, and in time, the Spirit will guide you into all truth. 

I started journal writing around the time I started seminary, 1989. I can easily look back on things I wrote, convictions I had, back 10, 20, 30 years ago, and ask myself now, “Why were you so adamant about holding onto those convictions, and prepared to die for some of them, when now they hardly even matter?” Or, to put it bluntly, “How could I be so stupid as to believe that?” Posing these questions that way, may not be the best way. A better way of putting it is, “How did I change?” Or, “When did I come to this new insight?” Or, “What happened to the black and white world I used to live in, where all the answers were obvious and all the dust was clearly settled once and for all?” 

Fr. Ron Rolheiser calls this “mellowness of heart.” He says that if we don’t grow into “mellowness of heart,” we might very well be a person of integrity, of justice, someone who goes to church every Sunday, but we will grow bitter and angry with each passing year. Inside the bitter and angry person is the constant protest, “It’s not supposed to be this way. My life is not unfolding exactly as I had imagined it. Somebody must pay the price for my unhappiness, for messing up my plans!” Those are the complaints of a person who is not growing in wisdom nor in “mellowness of heart.”  

So, as we grow in wisdom, as we grow in age, we must learn be gentle with ourselves, and forgive ourselves for once being 16. Nowhere in all four gospels does Jesus ever encourage us to despise or reject the short-sightedness of our youth. In fact, he says just the opposite. He tells us that if we discourage a young person, in all their unrealistic idealism, it would be better that a millstone was tied around our neck, and we were thrown into the sea. There is no rejection of the past in Jesus, only an invitation to integrate lesser truths into greater truths. Only after we have realized and integrated a lesser truth does a greater truth become available. Jesus told his disciples, while he walked this earth, many truths. But, the greater Truth, the truth that integrates all lesser truths, will be known to them only after he leaves and sends them his Spirit. Like I said, Fr. Ron Rolheiser calls this “mellowness of heart.” Jesus calls it, “waiting for the promised Holy Spirit.” 

A couple of Sundays ago, on Ascension Sunday, before Jesus ascended into heaven he gave his disciples one last instruction, “Stay in the city, until you’ve been clothed with power from on high.” I take, “stay in the city” to mean “be patient.” Don’t be impulsive, jumping to conclusions. Wait for a greater truth to enter into you. Wait for my Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and guidance.” 

The word “patience” and the word “suffering” come from the same Greek root word, “pathos”. They basically mean the same thing. Whenever we patiently wait for something, we suffer, a little bit. Why do we suffer? Because whatever we want, we want it now, but we can’t have it now. This generation is not really good in the world of delayed gratification. Jesus’ Spirit, the Spirit that brings us into all truth is worth waiting for.

When I look back at journal entries of 10, 20, or 30 years ago, I can’t always pinpoint exactly when, where, or why I changed. I suspect it has something to do with a prayer I learned from St. Philip Neri. Before he went to bed each night, St. Philip prayed, “Lord, change me, but don’t let me know you’re doing it.” He feared what I fear, that is, if I know what the Lord is up to in my life, I’ll resist him all the way. So, change me, but don’t let me you’re doing it. I think that is how grace and God’s Spirit works—subtly, slowly, without us knowing, “crafty as a fox” to use Jesus’ expression. 

God’s love, I believe, comes to us in three forms. The first form of God’s love is creative and initiates love within us. The second form embodies Love in us. And the third form guides us into all truth. 

So, be patient, stay in the city, for this love is already coming to you. 

Fr. Phil Mulligan