One of the things I love about being Catholic is that our Church has a great sense of mystery about it. Now when I say mystery, I am not talking about a mystery like Agatha Christie, or something that has to be solved or figured out. Rather, I mean a mystery that is beyond our understanding. Something that is simply awesome and eternal. The reason I bring all this up is that today we celebrate perhaps the greatest mystery of all. It is Trinity Sunday, and we dare to contemplate the mystery that is truly God Himself. All of today’s readings focus in on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and they all invite us to look deeper.
Let me share with you a story from one of my all time favorite Saints, the one and only St. Augustine. One day St. Augustine was walking on the seashore and trying to figure out the Trinity. He was having a difficult time of it, so he sat down to rest. As he was sitting there, he began to watch a young boy of about 8 or 9 years old playing in the sand. The boy had dug a whole and was running back and forth with buckets of seawater and dumping them in the hole he had dug. After sometime, St. Augustine approached the boy and asked “what are you doing with your hole here”? The boy responded “I am trying to take all of the water from the ocean and put it in my hole”. The great Saint said “there is no way that the entire ocean will fit into your tiny hole my child”. The boy looked into the face of the saint and responded “as the ocean will not fit in my tiny hole, neither will the mystery of the Holy Trinity be able to fit in your understanding”. And with that, the child vanished. St. Augustine then understood that there are some things about God that we will never be able to fit in our tiny brains. His ways our not our ways and His wisdom is far beyond our comprehension. It is eternal.
So this week instead of trying to rationalize and categorize God into our own pre conceived notions, let us rather rejoice and embrace the sheer mystery that is our God. His love is all around us and if we are quiet and still in our beings, we too will begin to experience the gentle embrace of the mystery known as the Holy Trinity. Something to think on… and to experience. Try it… and may God richly bless you always…