The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity

God pours out his grace on the faithful through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

What can we say about the nature of God? God is a mystery!

The most commonly asked question of someone who is being interviewed for a new job is, “Tell me about yourself.” The answer to that question can reveal more about a person than asking a series of brief questions with short responses. 

One of the most commonly asked questions about God is, “Who is God?” Can we even begin to answer that question? After all God is a mystery and what can one say about a mystery? What does the Church say about the Mystery of God?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’ The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men, ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.’ ”

We know God as the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can say this much because God has told us. The Apostle Paul tells us in the Second Reading from 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 that God is a Triune God when he offers a greeting to the Corinthian community, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

This familiar Trinitarian formula most likely was used in the early liturgy of the early Apostolic Church and is used today in the Introductory Rites of the Mass. This Trinitarian formula in telling us of the nature of God reveals even more to us about the attributes of God’s nature. 

God pours out his grace on the faithful through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This outpouring of God’s grace reveals God’s love for the world, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16) This outpouring of God’s love is God’s most divine attribute.

What else can we say about God as the Most Holy Trinity? We know God’s love is salvific, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17) The salvation that God the Father offers to humanity through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, reveals the mercy of God. This merciful God has been known to humanity since God revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as Moses at Mount Sinai, “Having come down in a cloud the Lord stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name, Lord.” (Exod. 34:5) 

God revealed himself as Lord to Moses. What does the title Lord tell us about God? God as Lord reveals the pre-existent Word of God which brings about creation that is communicated in the Covenant of the Law that God makes with Moses and the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.

This pre-existent Word is fleshed in the person of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As the prologue from the Gospel of John says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.” Only the Lord can bring about creation because the Lord is God and only the Word, which became flesh, suffered and died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead on the third day, could bring about the recreation of humanity for which we share in through the waters of Baptism. Jesus is Lord because God reveals himself as the pre-existent Word and the pre-existent Word is the second person of the Most Holy Trinity. 

What then can we say about God? God is a mystery who has revealed God’s self, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our response to God’s self-communication to us in The Most Holy Trinity should be one of glory and praise as the responsorial psalm denotes, “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever; and blessed is your holy and glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages.” (Dan 3:52)