TWENTY-EIGHTH LESSON
The Most Holy Trinity.
ST, MATTHEW 28:18-20,
Today is Trinity Sunday. The Church sets apart this day that we may consider the great truth, the foundation of all Christian truth, that in One God there are Three Divine Persons —Three Divine Persons in One God. We are not called upon to understand this mystery, but to believe it. A mystery, is something we cannot understand. But each and every one of the mysteries which the Church declares to be parts of the Faith, we are to believe, if we desire to be saved. Almighty God, the Author of all truth, cannot be indifferent whether people believe His truths or not. He would not have revealed them, and made them known by His Church, if they were matters of indifference. It is quite as much a sin to disbelieve His truths, the articles of His creeds, as it is to break His commandments: and the sin of doing so will just as surely be punished in Hell for ever, unless the unbeliever repents of his sin. This is what people are now-a-days very slow to think; and many refuse to think it. They call it narrow, slavish, and so forth. But it is true, because God is True, and the very Truth.
The word Trinity means Tri-unity; that is, Three in One. We all know that God the Father, the First Person, is the Father of God the Son, the Second Person; but perhaps we do not often reflect upon the mystery I am now going to speak of. The mystery is, that the Father is not more eternal than the Son, nor the Son less eternal than the Father. The Paternity or Fatherhood of the First Person, and the Son-ship of the Second Person, never had a beginning, never will have an end. They are equally eternal; or, as the Athanasian Creed says, Co-eternal. For there is no growth, no progress, no increase, no lessening, no change, in God. Through all eternity, and infinitely before anything we can imagine of eternity, the Father was always, as He is always, and ever will be, the Father of the Son; and the Son was always, and is always, and ever will be, the Son of the Father. There is the same degree of profound mystery in the truths regarding the Third Person, God the Holy Ghost. He proceedeth from the Father and the Son. The love which the Father has for his co-equal and co-eternal Son, and the Son for the Father, is a love so infinite and divine, that the breathing forth of that love, (to use poor human language,) is the proceeding of the Divine Spirit from Both. What has just been said about the eternity of the Fatherhood of the Father and the Sonship of the Son, is equally true of this Procession forth from Both. The Adorable Spirit thus proceeding, never had a beginning, never will have an end, is subject to no progress or alteration. The Procession is simply one act, eternal, changeless, and divine.
My dear children, if any of you, listening to this statement of Catholic truth, is disposed to say: "How can these things be? How can the Son be as eternal as the Father, if He is His Son? How can the Holy Ghost be as eternal as Those from Whom He Proceeds?" I say, in answer: Wait till you are in Heaven, if you are so happy as to arrive there, and then you will know.
St. Paul says: "We see now through a glass, in a dark manner; but then, face to Face. Now I know in part: but then I shall know, even as I am known." And St. John says: "We shall see Him as He is." It is impossible for our weak eyes to gaze up steadily at the sun in his noontide strength; we should be blinded. But if we take a smoked glass, and hold it up, we can see the sun's outline with an unwounded eye. Faith gives us the outline; clear, distinct, not to be mistaken. The glorious sight of the Divine truth, with all the splendor of its rays, remains for hereafter. It will form a chief part of the happiness of Heaven thus to "see Him as He is." It will make us even grow "like Him," as St. John says. This is called the Beatific Vision—the sight that makes the beholder blessed; the sight which eternity will not be too long to gaze upon, and where the glorified saints will find endless happiness and beauty.
How we ought to love and thank, as well as to revere, the Adorable Trinity, when the Father sent His well-beloved Son to redeem us by His agonizing death, and when the Son "was offered up, because He willed it Himself," and when the Holy Ghost loves to dwell within us, and makes our very bodies His temples, unless by sin we forbid Him to dwell there. We can "grieve the Spirit:" we can "quench the Spirit," by sin. But "if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy."
If we could form a just estimate of the tenderness and extent of charity with which God has loved us, we should be constantly endeavoring to return love for love to God, who has made such immense sacrifices for the love of us.
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