Sunday is Trinity Sunday. While the Easter Season ended with the celebration of Pentecost, today’s feast and next week’s feast of Corpus Christi are extensions of the Easter Season. It seems somewhat redundant that we have a feast celebrating the Holy Trinity, since every day and every liturgy celebrates God who is Trinity. Yet the feast brings into focus for us the great mysteries of God.
While we believe in one God, we believe in a God who is love. Love presupposes relationships. Our God is encountered through relationships. We believe in a God who is in relationship with us. We experience this great mystery of God through three distinct relationships. While the three relationships are divine, they are different yet united and indivisible, unique and distinct. Thus God is experienced as Creator or Father, Redeemer, Savior, Word of God, or Jesus the Son, and Sanctifier, Sustainer, or Divine Presence, the Holy Spirit.
God as Trinity
St. Augustine tells us that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are always in a relationship with God as the Trinity. This Triune relationship happens simultaneously, never separately. For example, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are in a relationship to the Trinity. The prayer is formed by Christ, the Word of God among us. The inspiration to pray is the Holy Spirit, and the prayer is addressed to the Father.
When we are reflecting on the sacred text, we are relating to the Trinity. The desire to reflect on Scripture comes from the Holy Spirit. The appropriation of the text to our lives comes from the Holy Spirit. The Scripture text we are reflecting upon may be about Jesus, a psalm, or even a text of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Word in the Old Testament or the New Testament is Jesus, who leads us to the Father. Notice the prayers at Mass. They are addressed to the Father, through the Word who is Jesus, and in unity with the Holy Spirit.
Created for Relationship
God is a mystery in whose image we are created. We are created in the image of the Trinity. We are created in the image of the God of relationships. It is only through our relationships that we come to be known to ourselves and that others experience us. The same is true for God. We know God in and through relationships with him and with others.
Each relationship and each person contains mystery. Mystery is experienced rather than understood or explained. God is experienced through the mystery of love. Love creates. Love gives of itself for the good of the beloved. Love is enduring and inspiring.
Msgr. Guy A. Massie
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
May 31, 2026
