Today is Trinity Sunday, and I would like to offer you a few thoughts on the Trinity to reflect upon, but first join with me and pray:

Lord, open my lips to praise your holy name, cleanse my heart from all worthless, evil, or distracting thoughts. Grant me the wisdom and love, I need, to pray this morning with reverence and devotion.  Father let my prayer be heard in your presence, for it is offered through Christ Our Lord, please fill me with Your Love that I may shine Your Radiance in this world. Come, Holy Spirit, [Come] fill the hearts of Your faithful.  And enkindle in us the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and we shall be created. And You will renew the face of the earth.  Amen. How about a pop quiz, do you know the difference between heaven and hell? Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are English, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and everything is organized by the Swiss!  Hell is where the English are the cooks, the Germans are the police, the French are the mechanics, the Swiss are the lovers, and everything is organized by the Italians! You can reflect on your ideas about heaven and hell whenever you would like. The feast of the Holy Trinity bewilders and puzzles us.   We will begin by looking at what the Compendium of the Catholic Church teaches us about the Most Holy Trinity. “44. What is the central mystery of Christian faith and life? ‘… the mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity.’” “45. Can the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity be known by the light of human reason alone? ‘God has left some traces of his trinitarian being in creation and in the Old Testament but his inmost being as the Holy Trinity is a mystery which is inaccessible to reason alone ….  This mystery was revealed by Jesus Christ and it is the source of all other mysteries.’”  [Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church] My favorite metaphor for the Trinity was developed by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Every act of speech consists of a speaker, a word, and the breath that animates the voice and enables the word to be spoken…. Within the Trinity the Father is the speaker, the Son is the word, and the Holy Spirit is the breath.”  [Hans Urs von Balthasar’s description of the Trinity in Longing to See Your Face by Thomas Scirghi, p.37]                I think von Balthasar’s thought is clear and rich, deep and simple. Tertullian, one of the theologians of the early church explained the Trinity this way, “God the Father is a deep root, the Son is the shoot that breaks forth into the world, and the Spirit is that which spreads beauty and fragrance.” I close my reflection on the Trinity with this ancient story about St. Augustine, one day he took a break from writing about the Trinity to walk along the seashore.  There he came across a child with a little pail, intently scooping up a pail full of water out of the ocean, then walking up the beach and dumping it out into the sand, then going back down to scoop out another pail of water to pour into the sand. Augustine asked the child what he was doing, and the child explained that he was "emptying the sea out into the sand."  The Bishop gently tried to point out the impossibility of this task, the child replied, "Ah, but I'll drain the sea before you understand the Trinity." There's truth to that child's comment.  Maybe we today as we celebrate the Most Blessed Trinity we should enjoy and be thankful for God’s love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May God Be Praised!