Holy Trinity 101

Bishop Scott Bullock
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
June 15, 2025

Several years ago, on a warm Saturday afternoon, maybe even a day like today, I took my car to a garage to have some maintenance done on it. It had been a rainy and cool beginning of that summer, so it was a delight to sit outside and take in the beautiful brightness of the day. It seemed like it was going to be a great day. Any worries about my car not working evaporated in the peace and radiance of that day.

While literally basking in the day, I noticed a solitary man who noticed me and was making a rather strident beeline toward me, with something on his mind. Filled with the joy of the day, I greeted with the pleasantry of, “How are you on this beautiful day?”  

But, having none of this, he replied, “Who do you think you are?” 

Apparently, we were not to have a pleasant conversation after all. Realizing that who he thought I was was a priest, I knew this was going to be some kind of contentious discussion about the Catholic priesthood, or the Catholic faith, or about his perceived failings of what I represented. Before I could ask for clarification, he offered it: “Who do you think you are, worshipping the three Gods?” 

Aha! We were to join the centuries-long discussion about what Jesus meant when he revealed God as a Trinity of persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! With patience and skill, I offered a reasoned apologetic about our Trinitarian faith, saying something like this: “We don’t worship three Gods. Instead, we worship the God Jesus himself showed us, a God who is love. And, because God is the fullness of love, this love must be between persons: God the Father, God the Son, and the love between them that is the person of the Holy Spirit. The good God behind creation, who has shown His love by creating us and redeeming us to the fullness of love, must exist in a community of persons, for love only exists in its fullness when it is shared between persons and shared with others. A divine love that we experience as the Holy Spirit.” 

I thought to myself, “I aced it—Holy Trinity 101!”

The man acted like he had been hit by a bucket of cold water, paused, shook his head, and said in reply to my expert explanation of the Holy Trinity: “Who do you think you are, worshipping the three Gods!” and then he ran off.  So much for my expert explanation of the Holy Trinity fell flat.

In retrospect, though, I should have known. For the very heart of God, the infinite perfect God, will not be contained in the finite reason of the human mind. My brain, and yours too, is just not big enough to contain the mystery of the infinite God! And yet Jesus has shown us the heart of this mystery — the God who created all the universe and keeps that same universe in movement, is a community of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It should come as no surprise that this great mystery of love confounds us. 

But this does not mean as a result that the mystery is any less true. For in humility, can we not acknowledge that, as we look out across the vastness of creation, we are confronted with a glorious, confounding mystery from a mystery who is God? Where its mystery confounds us, the scriptures speak of this truth: “When the Lord established the heavens I was there. Then was I beside him as his craftsman.” 

This mystery, something that’s beyond our understanding, maybe can be explained by the poets. Like the Spanish poet St. John of the Cross in his poem “Cantar del alma,” the “Song of the Soul,” using the imagery of a spring of water in the darkness. The poet begins his reflection this way:

For I know well the spring that flows and runs, although it is night. The eternal spring is hidden, for I know well where it will rise, although it is night. I do not know its origin, nor has it one, but I know that every origin has come from it, although it is night. I know that nothing else is so beautiful, and that the heavens and the earth drink there, although it is night.

In this, the poet professes the God that Jesus describes — a spring of life in which all finds its origin and continued life, though because of our limited faculties, is a God experienced in a radiant night of our senses. In essence, the poet asks us: Can’t comprehend the mystery of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?  Does this God seem shrouded in darkness? No surprise! For He is too infinite, too glorious, too merciful, too loving to be contained in our finite minds.

Although the life of faith in the mystery in the Holy Trinity is often one traveled in darkness, it is a most loving, benevolent darkness where life springs forth. So, let us not be afraid of the darkness that is the mystery of God! For we have a divine “night light” that is Jesus. He shows us the way to the Father and gives us the sure path to the Father that is the Holy Spirit, a way never clearer than in the Bread of Life we now receive. It is here that darkness is dispersed, light is revealed, springs of Living water spring up, and we are saved as beloved sons and daughters and that’s my friends, who we think we are.