Trinity Sunday & Corpus Christ

The Church describes the Trinity as an “absolute mystery”. We should remember, though, that the word ‘mystery’ is a technical one in theology. It doesn’t mean we have no clue, it means we understand it partly, but are unable ever to understand it completely. In fact, the Church set her best minds to work on trying to understand the Trinity, and something of what we understand ‘partly’ is deeply inspiring.

As an example, we know that since we are made in the image of the Triune God, there are bound to be things in our life and experience that reflect the mystery of our maker and redeemer. There are many such reflections, or metaphors, if you like, but I would like to work here with just one simple one - expressing ourselves.

It starts with us having a thought. Thought is spontaneous and seems to go with being alive. It is difficult not to be thinking. Even when we sleep the mind seems to need to think and act while the body lies inert, and so we dream. If you attempt to stop thinking for just a few seconds, you will see how hard it is. These thoughts that simply begin are like God the Father, the spontaneous originator of things.

But thought, unexpressed, is not communication. We speak our thought aloud in order to express ourselves. We make audible (or visible) words. This is thought incarnate, just as God the Son is described by St John - ‘In the beginning was the Word’. Words are the audible reflection of inaudible thought, matching the thought perfectly. And Jesus is ‘the visible image of the invisible God’, matching him so exactly that he can say, ‘to have seen me is to have seen the Father’.

But even if the words perfectly express the thoughts, it would amount to nothing if the people around us did not share our language. When the hearer shares the same language as the speaker, something is successfully communicated. The thought of the one person becomes a matching thought in the mind of the listener. The shared language is a metaphor for the Spirit, which we share through the generosity of God. This is the Spirit of Truth and Understanding. It is the language of the thought, the language of the word - proceeding from them both. This is how God communicates himself to us. And when the divine thought, expressed in the Word, forms itself perfectly in us, it cries out Abba! Father! It is not a coincidence that the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost is made manifest in all men understanding the apostles in their own language!

This language of the Spirit, is a language of love, understanding, reverence, courage and virtue. When we start a new language we can only understand basic things at first, but gradually through constant use, we become fluent and skilled. Through faith, lived according to the Christian way, we can become fluent in the idiom of God himself. Let us pray for such a gift!

This gift to us, shows us how serious God is about communicating himself to us, becoming one with us, to share his glory and his love. The down-payment to show us he is serious, is the Body and Blood of Christ. The Father gives us his son, daily, through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the 3rd Eucharistic Prayer we pray, “May we, who are nourished by his body and blood, be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.”

For this reason the Church places the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ in the week following Trinity Sunday. And places it always on a Thursday to echo the Thursday when he offered the First Eucharist at the Last Supper.

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