God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

To put it simply the mystery of the Holy Trinity says that in God there are three distinct persons. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. Yet, there are not three Gods, but only one.

We can think of the three persons of the Holy Trinity as three faces smiling upon us, the children of the Lord. First, there is the face of God as Father. When God smiled, it resulted in our origin and the origin of all things: the bright stars in the sky, the birds that fly in the sky and the fish that swim in the sea. Second, there is the face of God as Son. When the face of God as Son smiled, God came down from heaven, taking flesh, walking side by side with each of us showing us how to love and live our lives. Finally, there is the face of God as Spirit. When the face of God as Spirit smiled, God entered within us, dwelling within our souls.

Dwelling within our souls is the Holy Spirit who, as St. Paul tells us gives us a variety of gifts, and those gifts come from the Father through the Son. There is almost like this chain of command in which we can begin to understand the Trinity, yet there is one ultimate person who these gifts come from. We have God (Father) who bestows the gifts through the Word (Son), and the Spirit makes us aware of them in our lives. Similarly, the gift of the Trinity is given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. When we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity truly is a trademark of our faith, whether we realize it or not. Every time we gather together for Mass we call to mind the Trinity. Before we eat a meal we pray and recall the Trinity. The Sign of the Cross, that Trinitarian action has become the trademark of our faith- Father, Son and Holy Spirit!