Sometime when we asked questions of our parents as youngsters and our parents did not have the answer, they responded: “It’s a mystery.” It stopped us from asking more questions. And so today, when we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, we want a more adult answer to our questions about the Trinity than, “It’s a mystery.”
Men and women from the beginning of time until now have been blessed by the ways God communicates with them. In the Hebrew Scriptures God revealed himself and his message through intermediaries, the patriarchs and prophets. Through the person of Jesus, God revealed himself through his incarnate Son. But the Son knew that he had a limited time among the sons and daughters of men, so he made a promise to send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to continue the way God communicates with human persons.
And in our Gospel passage today, this Advocate is called the Spirit of Truth because he will “take the things which belong to me (Jesus), and tell you of them.” And so God continues communicating in our day through the Spirit making the New Testament Scripture the truth about who we are, where we are going and how to get there.
The Trinity is mystery in the way love is a mystery. God loves us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
—Fr. Douglas Leonhardt, S.J. is associate vice-president for Mission and
Ministry at Marquette University where he is also pastoral minister for the College of Education and McCabe Residence Hall.