I want to speak about the central Mystery of our Christian faith, the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the Mystery of our God in Himself and in His relationship with us. . .
When we Western Catholics think about the Holy Trinity, most of us think of God as the One Being He is and then start bringing the Three Persons into the picture. How can one God, one Being . . . be three Persons? And how are we to relate to God? Oriental [i.e. Eastern] Catholics, when they think about the Holy Trinity, think of the three Persons first and then bring God as one into the picture. . . We see what God is first and then combine who God is with that. Oriental Catholics . . . see who God is first and then combine what He is with that. These are two different viewpoints in looking at the Mystery, which is utterly beyond our full understanding.
Which way of looking at the Mystery is the best? Well, if you cling to the oneness of God in our Western way, you may end up ignoring your three relationships with God; you may, without realizing it, be a kind of Unitarian, not seeing any real meaning and importance in the difference of Persons, between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If you cling to the Eastern way and concentrate on the three Persons, you may end up, without realizing it, making the one glorious splendor of the Holy Trinity into three glories, into three gods really. So we need both approaches combined in order in faith to come towards knowing God as He is, three Persons and one God, one glorious God of infinite beauty and glory, three Persons vibrating with personal relationships of love in which they are utterly one being. . .
How then shall we . . . resolve to come closer to God, our wonderful triune God, and to live that Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, God living in us? How shall we come to love this Mystery and be stimulated by our possession of faith in it? How are you and I to respond . . . to the revealed truth that God is three Persons in One God and become able truthfully to say that it is the inspiration of our lives?
How often we say . . . “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.” If we say the Divine Office, or the Liturgy of the Hours as it is now called, we recite many psalms, and . . . we end each one with the Trinitarian doxology, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.”
I am sure that anyone who really had a mystical experience of the Unity and Trinity in God, of the inconceivable beauty and majesty and fire of love that God is, would be very uneasy at saying anything about the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity. If we do speak about it, we must really add that not only are we completely unworthy to do so, but what we say has so little depth and wonder that it hardly even points towards what God is really like. But it is a starting point for our faith, and then in prayer, with more love and reverence than thought and analysis, we may come nearer to knowing the wonderful life of God within us. . . Even if all we can say is that we believe in three Persons in One God and cannot enlarge upon it in our minds at all, our faith does relate us to Father and Son and Holy Spirit; and we adore in wonder and love.
