Today we celebrate the Mystery of the Holy Trinity.  Merriam-Webster defines mystery as a religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand.  It also refers us to the events that serve as a subject for meditation during the saying of the rosary and to the sacraments of the Christian Church.  The dictionary thus points us to avenues in which we can explore this way of mystery.  We know, as John the evangelist tells us in the prologue to his Gospel, that, “No one has ever seen God.  The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” (John 1,18)  And Hebrews tells us that, “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe.” (Heb 1,1)

God opens the doors to his Divine Life of Truth, Love and Union that is lived in the Holy Trinity and invites us to enter in and come to know him in love and truth.  We are invited to not only know him but to also share in his divine nature. (2 Peter 1,4)  We are invited through revelation to receive the testimony of eyewitnesses, “human beings moved by the holy Spirit (who) spoke under the influence of God.” (2 Peter 1,21)  These witnesses to Truth and Love introduce us to the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit so that we might share in “the life (that) was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us – what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1,2f)

Through revelation we come to encounter through the gift of our intellect, the Father who is the Creator, the Son who is the eternal Word, who is Wisdom (Proverbs 8, 22-31), who is Truth itself (John 14,6) – Jesus said to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to  the Father except through me.”, through whom all things are given order and created (John 1,3) – “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”, and the Holy Spirit who is a light, the Spirit of Truth, who is sent to help us to understand over time what is being revealed to us and to our intellect.  “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” (John 14,26)  The light and power of the Spirit helps us to have “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2,16), to think as Jesus would think, and to lead us into the fullness of Truth that is the Father, revealed by the Son.

Revelation also leads us to encounter the Father who is Eternal Love and Mercy in the depth of our hearts.  Through the will be come to encounter God who “so loved the world that he gave his Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3,16) and  that we might be called the children of God (1 John 3,1ff)  – “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are.  Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”   In the Son we see the infinite, self-giving love of the Father through the love unto the end of the Son (John 13,1) and through the oblation of love that is his sacrifice on the cross, this Spirit of love is “poured into the hearts” (Romans 5,5) of all believers so that we might live in hope of eternal life in the Father’s house.

This is revelation, the showing or manifestation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the One God, through the mission or sending of the Son and the Spirit, to our intellect in the Truth, the Divine Logos, the Eternal Word, the Son of God who is with the Father from the beginning and who orders all things in creation.  Who helps us “to see” the Father, “If you know me, then you will also know my Father.  From now on you do know him and have seen him” (John 14,7), “No one has ever seen God.  The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” (John1,18)  If you have seen and known the Son then you have seen the Father.  It is the Spirit of Truth that leads us into the fullness of Truth and reveals to us that Jesus is the Son of God and is Lord.  “And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12,3)  Only in the Spirit of Truth can we say that Jesus is Lord.

Revelation also reveals the mystery of the Father’s love and mercy for us in the love of the Son and infuses that love into our hearts through the grace of the Spirit of love that dwells in our hearts and appeals to our will.  Jesus reveals the mystery of the “no greater love” in laying down his life for us in his love unto the end in the Paschal Mystery.  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15,13)  The sacrifice of the cross reveals the Father’s will to draw all people to himself in love (John 12,32) and to offer himself as a Divine Gift of love that dwells within us through the Spirit of love, transforming us into the glory of the Father.

Revelation appeals to our freedom.  It asks for our assent.  The assent of the intellect and of the will to the Divine Mystery of Life that is offered to us as a Way of Life takes us up into the Eternal Life of the Holy Trinity and leads us beyond our limitations of earthly experiences and introduces us to a life of Faith.  Faith opens to us the “all in all” that is God.  (1 Cor 15,28)  In faith all things are possible to us.  There is no limitation that faith can not overcome.

This Mystery that appeals through revelation to our whole being, intellect and will, unites all things.  It leads us into union with God who is One.  Through the assent of faith we come to know that there is One God, in three divine persons, One Truth, One Love, One  Lord, One Faith, One baptism, One Spirit, One Body of Christ in the Church, “One God and father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4,5)

We live in a scattered world of division and difference.  God heals every division and unites all things in his love and truth.  Through the Mystery of the Holy Trinity we have hope.  Our hope is in our sharing in the divine nature of the Trinity and through this grace overcoming all of our divisions and differences in this world.  We have a brief glimpse of the possibilities that this Mystery offers us in our nation when we profess that we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”  We pray that one day we may truly live out, be faithful to, and perfect that to which we have pledged our allegiance.  It is only possible in the assent of faith to the revealed truth of the Oneness of the Holy Trinity.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.