Blog

Actually, in 2016, I wrote the reflection for Holy Trinity Sunday. I looked back and remembered writing about the priest in my small Catholic high school who challenged us to practice our faith. He told us, that rather than getting caught up in the explanation of the mystery of the Trinity or trying to understand everything about God like one would explain a scientific theory, we needed to just remember that He is our God.  He said God is balanced out to us in a way we could understand by the all-seeing Father, the teacher Jesus, and the guiding Holy Spirit.  They are the different natures of God, who is one in Being.

Then recently I read an article which stated, “There is an old and much-repeated story about St. Augustine, one of the intellectual giants of the Church.  He was walking by the seashore one day, attempting to conceive of an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity. As he walked along, he saw a small boy on the beach, pouring seawater from a shell into a small hole in the sand. “What are you doing, my child?” asked Augustine. “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole,” the boy answered with an innocent smile. “But that is impossible, my dear child,” said Augustine.  The boy stood up, looked straight into the eyes of Augustine, and replied, “What you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of God with your small head – is even more impossible.”  Then he vanished.  The child was an angel sent by God to teach Augustine a lesson.  Later, Augustine wrote, “You see the Trinity if you see Love.”  According to him, the Father is the lover, the Son is the loved one, and the Holy Spirit is the personification of the very act of loving.  This means that we can understand something of the mystery of the Holy Trinity more readily with the Heart than with our feeble Mind.

Henri Nouwen once wrote, “What makes us human is not our mind, BUT OUR HEART; Not our ability to think, but our ability TO LOVE.”

We must remember, too, that we are not forgotten by God.  He does not remove our burdens as we would like, as in today’s world of seeking quick and superficial solutions.  The words in the second reading of today state that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Pope Francis reminds us that in making the Sign of the Cross, we thank God the Father for the new day that He gives us, we pray to Christ and entrust our lives to Him, and we ask the Spirit to illuminate all our daily actions.  We start the day in the sign of the Trinitarian love. 

1. In preparing for this reflection, I found these ‘facts’ that are something to think about:
2. All prayers in the Church begin in the name of the Holy Trinity and end glorifying the Trinity.
3. All sacraments are administered (we are baptized, confirmed, anointed, our sins are forgiven, and our marriage blessed, and our Bishops, priests and deacons ordained) in the name of the Holy Trinity.
4. Where Church bells ring thrice daily, (years ago a common practice) they remind us to pray to the Holy Trinity.
5. We bless ourselves and the priest blesses us, in the name of the Holy Trinity.
6. Many athletes make the sign of the cross when they step on the ice to play hockey, or when they get to base after getting a hit in baseball, reminding themselves that they are not alone in their efforts to win.

Pope Benedict said, “The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this; only love makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and be loved.”  

Let us remember that the next time we make the Sign of the Cross, We Are Loved!                                                                                              

Cathy Keirstead