4 JUNE – SUNDAY OF THE HOLY TRINITY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

On the day of Pentecost the Holy Apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master (Matthew xxviii. 19) they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations and baptising men in the name of the Holy Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of One God in Three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not till after many centuries that it was inserted in the Cycle of the Liturgical Year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church’s Liturgy has the Holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our Redemption centre on It. The feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us each week a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all grace.

This explains to us how it was that the Church was so long in instituting a special feast in honour of the Holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at some certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? It was from all eternity, it was before any created being existed, that God lives and reigns, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that Mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by the fixing some one day in the year on which the faithful would assemble for the offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the Mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve at a future period in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the Apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one no one will doubt that knows from Alcuin’s writings how full its author was of the spirit of sacred Liturgy. But, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to private devotion, which no one ever thought would lead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however, became a great favourite and was gradually circulated through the several Churches. For instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt held in 1022. In that eleventh century, however, a feast properly so called of Holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium — the very same that was to have the honour later on of procuring to the Church’s Calendar one of the richest of its Solemnities.

Stephen, Bishop of Liege, solemnly instituted the feast of Holy Trinity for his Church in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church’s law, which now reserves to the Holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liege, kept up what his predecessor had begun.

The feast became gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the Abbot of Reichnaw, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated Monastery drawn up in 1091, and where we find mention of Holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Under the pontificate of Alexander II who reigned from 1061 to 1073, the Church of Rome, which has frequently sanctioned the usages of particular Churches by herself adopting them, was led to pass judgement on this new institution. In one of his Decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places, but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason — that the adorable Trinity is every day of the year unceasingly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto; as, likewise, by several other formulas expressive of praise.

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground as we gather from the Micrologns and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned Abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a Doctor in liturgical science, explaining the appropriateness of that feast’s institution in these words: “Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at once, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the Holy Trinity. And rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of that same Holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, immediately began to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism.”

In [England] it was the glorious martyr Saint Thomas of Canterbury that established the feast of Holy Trinity. He introduced it in his Archdiocese in 1162 in memory of his having been consecrated Bishop on the first Sunday after Pentecost. As regards France, we find a Council of Aries held in 1260 under the presidency of Archbishop Florentinus solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of Holy Trinity to be observed with an Octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its Houses as far back as 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that during the thirteenth century the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last Sunday, after Pentecost: others kept it twice — once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost Solemnity, and, a second time on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent.

It was evident from all this that the Apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as 1334, completed the work by a Decree in which the Church of Rome accepted the feast of Holy Trinity and extended its observance to all Churches.

As to the motive which induced the Church, led, as she is, in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our petitions, are ever being presented to It — such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced at that period into the liturgical Calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of Saints marked on the general Calendar and universally kept were very few. From that time, they began to be more numerous, and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the Saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this celebration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the Holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian Faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of One God in Three Persons. This is the Mystery from which all others flow. Our Faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite object whose vision is to form our eternal happiness. And yet we only know it because it has pleased God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabits light inaccessible (1 Timothy vi. 16). Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings. It may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works, but the knowledge of God’s intimate being can only come to us by means of His own gracious revelation.

It was God’s good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends giving us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness to brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, God seems intent on inculcating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind. And every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced on Earth had not the infinite goodness of that God watched over its preservation.

Not that the Old Testament Books were altogether silent on the Three Divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal. Only, the mysterious passages which spoke of them were not understood by the people at large, whereas in the Christian Church a child of seven will answer them that ask him that, in God, the Three Divine Persons have but one and the same nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural and said: “Let Us make man to our image and likeness” (Genesis i. 26), the Jew bows down and believes, but he understands not the sacred text. The Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees under this expression the Three Persons acting together in the formation of Man. The light of Faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is a likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, Understanding and Will, are three faculties within Him, and yet He Himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus Solomon speaks, in sublime language, of Him who is Eternal Wisdom. He tells us, and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us, of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being a distinct Person in the Godhead — but, how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil? Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim as they stood around God’s throne. He heard them singing, in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: “Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord! (Isaias vi. 3), but who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals give praise to our Creator? So again, in the Psalms and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us. A brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us but it passes away, and obscurity returns seemingly all the more palpable. We have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the Sovereign Being.

The world had to wait for the fullness of time to be completed, and then God would send into this world his Only Son, Begotten of him from all eternity. This His most merciful purpose has been carried out and “the Word made Flesh has dwelt among us” (John i. 14) By seeing His glory, “the glory of the Only Begotten Son of the Father” (John i. 14), we have come to know that in God there is Father and Son. The Son’s mission to our Earth, by the very revelation it gave us of Himself, taught us that God is eternally Father, for whatever is in God is eternal. But for this merciful revelation, which is an anticipation of the light awaiting us in the next life, our knowledge of God would have been too imperfect. It was fitting that there should be some proportion between the light of Faith and that of the vision reserved for the future. It was not enough for man to know that God is One.

So that we now know the Father, from whom comes, as the Apostle tells us, all paternity even on Earth (Ephesians iii. 15). We know Him not only as the creative power which has produced every being outside Himself but, guided as it is by Faith, our soul’s eye respectfully penetrates into the very essence of the Godhead, and there beholds the Father begetting a Son like to Himself. But, in order to teach us the mystery, that Son came down on our Earth. He Himself has told us expressly that “no one knows the Father, but the Son, and He to whom it will please the Son to reveal Him” (Matthew xi. 27). Glory, then, be to the Son who has vouchsafed to show us the Father! And glory to the Father, whom the Son has revealed to us!

The intimate knowledge of God has come to us by the Son, whom the Father, in His love, has given to us (John iii. 16). And this Son of God, who in order to raise up our minds even to His own Divine Nature, has clad Himself by His Incarnation with our Human Nature, has taught us that He and His Father are one (John xvii. 22) — that they are one and the same Essence, in distinction of Persons. One begets, the other is begotten. The One is named Power, the Other, Wisdom or Intelligence.

The Power cannot be without the Intelligence, nor the Intelligence without the Power, in the sovereignly perfect Being: but, both the One, and the Other produce a Third term. The Son, who had been sent by the Father, had ascended into Heaven with the Human Nature which He had united to Himself for all future eternity and lo! the Father and the Son send into this world the Spirit who proceeds from them both. It was a new Gift, and it taught man that the Lord God was in Three Persons. The Spirit, the eternal link of the first Two, is Will; He is Love, in the divine Essence. In God, then, is the fullness of Being, without beginning, without succession, without increase — for there is nothing which He has not. In these Three eternal terms of His uncreated Substance is the Act, pure and infinite.

The sacred Liturgy, whose object is the glorification of God and the commemoration of His works, follows each year the sublime phases of these manifestations by which the Sovereign Lord has made known His whole self to mortals. Under the sombre colours of Advent, we commemorated the period of expectation during which the radiant Triangle sent forth but few of its rays to mankind. The world, during those thousands [of] years, was praying Heaven for a Liberator, a Messiah, and it was God’s own Son that was to be this Liberator, this Messiah. That we might have the full knowledge of the prophecies which foretold Him, it was necessary that He Himself should actually come: “a child was born to us” (Isaias ix. 6), and then we had the key to the Scriptures. When we adored that Son, we adored also the Father who sent Him to us in the Flesh, and to whom He is consubstantial. This Word of Life, whom we have seen, whom we have heard, whom our hands have handled (1 John i. 1), in the Humanity which He deigned to assume, has proved Himself to be truly a Person, a Person distinct from the Father, for One sends, and the Other is sent. In this second Divine Person, we have found our Mediator who has re-united the creation to its Creator. We have found the Redeemer of our sins, the Light of our souls, the Spouse we had so long desired.

Having passed through the mysteries which He Himself wrought, we next celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit who had been announced as coming to perfect the work of the Son of God. We adored Him, and acknowledged Him to be distinct from the Father and the Son who had sent Him to us with the mission of abiding with us (John xiv. 16) He manifested Himself by divine operations which are especially His own, and were the object of His coming. He is the soul of the Church: He keeps her in the truth taught her by the Son. He is the source, the principle, of the sanctification of our souls and in them He wishes to make His dwelling. In a word, the mystery of the Trinity has become to us not only a dogma made known to our mind by Revelation but, moreover, a practical truth given to us by the unheard of munificence of the Three Divine Persons: the Father, who has adopted us; the Son, whose brethren and joint-heirs we are; and the Holy Ghost, who governs us, and dwells within us.

Although the Sacrifice of the Mass is always celebrated in honour of the blessed Trinity, yet, for this day, the Church, in her chants, prayers and lessons, honours in a more express manner the great mystery which is the foundation of our Christian faith. A commemoration is, however, made of the first Sunday after Pentecost, in order not to interrupt the arrangement of the Liturgy. The colour used by the Church on this feast of Trinity is white, as a sign of joy, as, also, to express the simplicity and purity of the divine essence.

Epistle – Romans xi. 33‒36

O the depth of the riches of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgements, and how unsearchable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, and recompense shall be made Him? For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory, forever. Amen.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

We cannot fix our thoughts upon the divine Judgements and ways without feeling a sort of bewilderment. The eternal and infinite dazzle our weak reason. And yet this same reason of ours acknowledges and confesses them. Now, if even the ways of God with His creatures surpass our understanding, how can we pretend to discover of ourselves the inmost nature of this sovereign Being? And yet, in this in-created essence, we do distinguish the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost from each other, and we glorify them. This comes from the Father having revealed Himself by sending us His Son, the object of His eternal delight. It comes from the Son showing us His own Personality by taking our Flesh, which the Father and the Holy Ghost did not. It comes from the Holy Ghost being sent by the Father and the Son, and His fulfilling the mission He received from them. Our mortal eye respectfully gazes on these divine depths of truth, and our heart is touched at the thought that it is through His benefits to us that He has given us to know Him, and that our knowledge of what He is, came through what He gave us. Let us lovingly prize this Faith, and confidently wait for that happy moment when it will make way for the eternal vision of that which we have believed here below.

Gospel – Matthew xxviii. 18‒20

And Jesus coming, spoke to them saying, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the consummation of the world.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The mystery of the Blessed Trinity which was taught us by the mission of the Son of God into this world, and by the promise of a speedy sending the Holy Spirit, is announced to men by these solemn words uttered by Jesus just before His Acension into Heaven. He had said: “He that will believe, and will he baptised, will he saved” (Mark xvi. 16), but He adds that Baptism is to be given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Henceforward man must not only confess the unity of God by abjuring a plurality of gods, but he must also adore a Trinity of Persons in Unity of Essence. The great secret of Heaven is now a truth which is published through the whole world.

But, while humbly confessing the God whom we have been taught to know as He is in Himself, we must likewise pay a tribute of eternal gratitude to the ever glorious Trinity. Not only has It vouchsafed to impress Its divine image on our soul by making her to Its own likeness, but, in the supernatural order It has taken possession of our being and raised it to an incalculable pitch of greatness. The Father has adopted us in His Son become Incarnate. The Word illumines our minds with His light. The Holy Ghost has chosen us for His dwelling: and this it is that is expressed by the form of holy Baptism. By those words pronounced over us, together with the pouring out of the water, the whole Trinity took possession of Its creature. We call this sublime marvel to mind as often as we invoke the Three divine Persons, making on ourselves, at the same time, the Sign of the Cross. When our mortal remains are carried into the house of God, there to receive the last blessings and farewell of the Church on Earth, the priest will beseech the Lord “not to enter into judgement with His servant,” and in order to draw down the divine mercy on this Christian who has gone to his eternity, he will say to the Sovereign Judge that this member of the human family “was marked, while in this life, with the sign of the Holy Trinity.” Let us respect this divine impress which we bear on us: it is to be eternal. Hell itself will not be able to blot it out. Let it then be our hope, our dearest title, and let us live for the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

O INDIVISIBLE Unity! Trinity distinct in one only Nature! Infinite God, who has revealed yourself to men, graciously bear with us while we dare to make our adorations before you, and pour forth our heart’s thanksgiving, feeling ourselves overwhelmed by the brightness of your majesty. Unity divine! Divine Trinity! We have not as yet seen you, but we know that you are, for you have vouchsafed to reveal yourself to us. This Earth on which we are living has the mystery distinctly proclaimed to it every day of its existence — that same august mystery whose vision is the source of the happiness enjoyed by the Blessed, who are glorified, and are united with you in closest union. The human race had to wait long ages before the divine formula was fully revealed — happy we who live in its full possession and can, and do, delightedly proclaim Unity and Trinity in your infinite Essence!

There was a time when an inspired writer spoke an allusion to this grandest of truths, but his words flashed across the mind of his hearers as lightning traverses a cloud, and then leaves it darker than before. “I have not learned Wisdom,” said he, “and have not known the science of saints. Who has ascended up into Heaven? and descended? Who has held the wind (the storm) in his hands? Who has bound up the waters together, as in a garment? Who has raised up all the borders of the earth? What is his name? and what is the name of his Son, if you know?” (Proverbs xxx. 3, 4).

Thanks to your unbounded mercy, Lord God, we now know your name. You are called the Father, and He whom you beget from all eternity is named the Word and Wisdom. We know, too, that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit of love. The Son, clad in our flesh, has dwelt on this Earth and lived among men. Then came down the Spirit, and abides forever with us, till the destinies of the human race are accomplished here below. Therefore is it, that we dare to confess the Unity and the Trinity: for we have heard the divine testimony and have believed, and, “having believed we have spoken with all certainty” (Psalms cxv. 10; 2 Corinthians iv. 13). Accept, then, this our confession, Lord, as you did that of your brave virgin and martyr Cecilia, who when the executioner had thrice struck her neck with the sword, and her noble blood flowed in streams from her wound, expressed her faith as she breathed forth her soul, and confessed, by the position of her hands, the Unity of your Nature and the Trinity of your Persons.

The hymn of your Seraphim has been heard here on Earth: “Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts!” (Isaias vi. 3). We are but mortals. We are not Prophets as was Isaias and yet have we a happiness which he had not — we can repeat the song of those blessed Spirits with fullness of knowledge, and can say to you: “Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, Holy is the Spirit!” Those same Seraphim flew with two of their wings. With two they hid their face, and with two they covered their feet. So is it with us: strengthened, as we are, by the divine Spirit who has been given to us, we strive to lighten the heavy weight of our frail mortality and raise it aloft on the wings of desire. We hide our sins by repentance and, veiling the weakness of our intellectual vision beneath the cloud of Faith, we receive the light which is infused into our souls. Docile to the revealed word, we submit to its teachings. And it imparts to us not merely a distinct, but even an enlightened knowledge of that mystery, which is the source and centre of all others. The Angels and Saints in Heaven contemplate it with that inexpressible reserve, which the Prophet describes by saying that they hide their face with their wings. We poor mortals have not, and cannot have, the sight of the great truth. But we have the knowledge of it, and this knowledge enlightens our path, and keeps us firm in the truth. We have a dread of presuming to be searchers of your majesty, lest we should be “overwhelmed by glory” (Proverbs xxv. 27). But humbly treasuring up what Heaven has vouchsafed to reveal to us of its secrets, we dare thus to address you:

Glory be to you, divine Essence, that are but one! You are pure Act. You are Being, necessary, infinite, undivided, independent, perfect from all eternity, peaceful and sovereignly happy. In you we acknowledge, together with the inviolable Unity, which is the source of all your perfections, Three Persons distinctly subsistent but, in their production and distinction, the one same Nature is common to all, so that the personal subsistence which constitutes them, and distinguishes them one from the other, causes no inequality between them. Infinite blessedness in this life of the Three Persons! They contemplate in themselves the ineffable perfections of the Essence which unites them together, and the attribute of each of the Three, which divinely animates the nature that nothing can limit or disturb! Wonder of that infinite Essence, when it deigns to act outside itself, by creating beings in its power and its goodness! The Three Persons work then together so that the one which acts in a way which is His special attribute, does so in virtue of a will common to all. May a special love be given to that divine Person who, in the act which is common to the Three, deigns to reveal Himself thus markedly to us creatures and, at the same time, may thanks be given to the other Two, who unite, in one same will, with the Person who vouchsafes to honour us with that special manifestation of Himself!

Glory be to you, O Father, you Ancient of days (Daniel vii. 9). You are unborn, without beginning, but communicating, essentially and necessarily, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, the godhead which dwells in you! You are God, and you are Father. He who knows you as God, and knows you not as Father, does not know you as you are. You produce, you beget, you test — but it is within your own bosom that you generate, for nothing is God which is outside yourself. You are being, you are power. But you have never been without a Son. You speak to yourself all you are yourself. You explain yourself, and the fruit of the fecundity of your thought, which is equal to yourself, is a second Person coming forth from you: it is your Son, your Word, your uncreated Word. Once did you utter this Word. And your Word is eternal as you yourself are, and as is your thought, of which that Word is the infinite expression. Like the sun which is visible to our eyes and which has never existed, but what its own brightness has existed with it: this brightness is by the sun, it is with the sun. It emanates from it without lessening it, and it never exists as something independent of its source.

Bear, Father, with this weakness of our understanding, which borrows from the beings you have created an image to which to compare you. And so, again, if we study ourselves whom you have created to your own likeness, we find that a thought of our own, that it may be something distinct from our mind, has need of a term, a word, to fix and express it.

O Father! We have been brought to know you by that Son whom you eternally beget, and who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to us. He has taught us that you are Father, and Himself Son; and that, nevertheless, you are one with Him (John x. 30). When one of His Apostles said to Him: “Lord, show us the Father!” He answered him: “He that sees me, sees the Father” (John xiv. 8, 9). Unity of the divine Nature by which the Son, though distinct from the Father, is not less than what the Father is! Delight of the Father in the Son, by whom He has the knowledge of Himself! Delight of intimate love, of which He spoke to His creature man, on the banks of Jordan and on the top of Thabor! (Matthew iii. 17; 2 Peter i. 17).

Father! We adore you, but we also love you, for a Father should be loved by his children, and we are your children. It is an Apostle that teaches us that all paternity proceeds from you, not in Heaven alone, but on Earth too (Ephesians iii. 15). No one is Father, no one has paternal authority, be it in a family, or in the State, or in the Church, but by you, and in you, and in imitation of you. No, more — you would have us not only be called, but really and truly be your sons (1 John iii. 1), not, indeed by generation, as is your Only Begotten Son, but by an adoption which makes us joint-heirs with Him (Romans viii. 17). This divine Son of yours, speaking of you, says: “I honour my Father” (John viii. 49). We, also, honour you, sovereign Father, Father of infinite majesty, and until eternity dawn on us, we glorify you now from the depths of our misery and exile, uniting our humble praise with that which is presented to you by the Angels, and by the Blessed ones, who are of the same human family as ourselves. May your fatherly eye protect us, may it graciously find pleasure in us your children, whom, as we hope, you have foreseen, whom you have chosen, whom you have called to the faith, and who presume, with the Apostle, to call you the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation (2 Corinthians i. 3).

Glory be to you Son, Word, Wisdom, of the Father! You emanate from His divine essence. He gave you birth before the day-star (Psalms cix. 3) and He said to you: “This day have I begotten you” (Psalms ii. 7), and that day, which has neither eve nor morrow, is eternity. You are Son, and Only Son. And this name expresses one same nature with Him who begets you. It excludes creation, and shows you to be consubstantial with the Father, from whom you come forth, perfectly like Him in all things. And you come forth from the Father, without coming out of the divine essence, being co-eternal with your source: for in God there is nothing new, nothing temporal. Your Sonship is not a dependency, for the Father cannot be without the Son, no more than the Son can be without the Father. If it be a glory in the Father to produce the Son, it is no less a glory in the Son to be the exhaustive term to the generative power of the Father.

O SON of God! You are the Word of the Father. Uncreated Word! You are as intimately in Him, as is His thought: and His thought is His being. It is in you that this His being expresses itself, in its whole infiniteness: it is in you that He knows Himself. You are the spiritual fruit produced by the divine intellect of the Father. The expression of all that He is, whether He keeps you mysteriously in His bosom (John i. 18), or produces you outside Himself. What language can we make use of in order to describe you and your glories, Son of God! The Holy Ghost has vouchsafed to come to our assistance in the writings which He has inspired: and it is with the very expressions He has suggested, that we presume thus to address you: “You are the brightness of the Father’s glory. You are the figure of His substance.” (Hebrews i. 3) “You are the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image that reflects His eternal goodness” (Wisdom vii. 26). We presume, likewise, to say to you what we are taught by the holy Church assembled at Nicea: You are “God of God; Light of Light; true God of true God.” And we add with the Fathers and Doctors: “You are the torch eternally lit by the eternal torch. Your Light lessens nothing of that which communicates Itself to you; neither is your Light inferior, in anything to that from which it is produced.”

But when this ineffable fecundity which gives an eternal Son to the Father, and, to the Father and Son a third term, willed to manifest Itself outside the divine essence. And, not having again the power to produce what is equal to Itself, it deigned to call forth, from nothingness, intellectual and rational nature, as being the nearest approach to its author, and material nature, as being the least removed from nothingness — then, O Only-Begotten Son of God, the intimate production of your Person in the Father’s bosom revealed itself by Creation. It is the Father who made all things: but, it was in Wisdom, that is, in you, that He made all (Psalms ciii. 24). This mission of working which you received from the Father is a consequence of the eternal generation by which He produces you from Himself. You came forth from your mysterious rest, and creatures, visible and invisible, came forth at your bidding out of nothing. Acting in closest union with the Father, you poured out on the worlds you created somewhat of that beauty and harmony of which you are the image in the divine essence. And yet, your mission was not at an end when creation was completed. Angels and Men, who were intellectual and free beings, were destined for the eternal vision and possession of God. The mere natural order could not suffice for these two classes of your creatures: a supernatural way had to be prepared for them by which they might be brought to their last end. You, Only-Begotten Son of God, are this “Way.” By yourself assuming human nature, you united yourself to your own work, you raised Angel and Man up to God, and, by your Human Nature, you showed yourself as the supreme type of the Creation which the Father had effected by you. Unspeakable mystery, you are the uncreated Word and, at the same time, you are the first-born of every creature (Colossians i. 15), not, indeed, to appear until your time should come and yet preceding, in the divine mind and intention, all created beings, all of which were to be created, in order that they might be your subjects.

The human race, though destined to possess you, in its midst, as its divine intermediary, rebelled against its God by sin, and by sin was plunged into the abyss of death. Who could raise it up again? Who could restore it to the sublime destiny it had forfeited? You alone, Only-Begotten Son of the Father! It was what we never could have hoped for, but this God so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son (John iii. 16), to be not only the Mediator, but the Redeemer, too, of us all. You, our first-born, asked your Father to restore your inheritance to you (Psalms xv. 5). You had to purchase back this inheritance.

Then did the Father entrust you with the mission of Saviour to our lost race. Your Blood, shed on the Cross, was our ransom, and by it we were born again to God and restored to our lost privileges. Therefore, Son of God, we, your redeemed, glory in calling you Our Lord. Having thus delivered us from death, and cleansed us from sin, you vouchsafed to restore us to all the grand things we had lost for, henceforth, you are our Head, and we are your members. You are King, and we your happy subjects. You are Shepherd, and we the sheep of your one fold. You are Spouse, and the Church, our Mother, is your Bride. You are the living Bread come down from heaven, and we are your guests. Son of God! Emmanuel! Son of Man! Blessed be the Father that sent you, but blessed also be you who fulfilled the mission He gave you, and has been pleased to say, that your “delight is to be with the children of men!” (Proverbs viii. 31).

GLORY be to you, Holy Spirit, who eternally emanate from the Father and the Son in the unity of the divine substance! The eternal Act, by which the Father knows Himself, produces the Son, who is the infinite image of the Father: the Father is full of love for this brightness which eternally proceeds from Himself, and the Son, contemplating the source from which He forever comes, conceives for this source a love as great as that with which Himself is loved. What language could describe this mutual ardour and aspiration, which is the attraction and tendency of one Person to Another in the eternally immovable Essence! You are this Love, divine Spirit, that proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one same principle. You are distinct from Both, and yet are the bond that unites them in the ineffable delights of the Godhead. You are living Love, personal Love, proceeding from the Father by the Son, the final term which completes the divine Nature, and eternally perfects the Trinity. In the inaccessible bosom of the great God, your Personality comes to you both from the Father, of whom you are the expression by a second production (John xv. 26), and from the Son, who, receiving of the Father, gives you of His own (John xvi. 14, 15), for the infinite Love which unites them is of Both Persons, and not of one alone. The Father was never without the Son, and the Son never without the Father. So, likewise, the Father and Son have never been without you, Holy Spirit! Eternally have they loved, and you are the infinite Love which exists between them, and to which they communicate their Godhead. Your Procession from Both exhausts the productive power of the increated Essence and thus are the divine Persons Three in number, all that is outside Them, is created being.

In the divine Essence, there is not only Power and Intelligence, but, also and necessarily there is Will, from which action follows. Will and Love are one and the same thing, and you, divine Spirit, are this Will, this Love. When the glorious Trinity works outside itself, the act conceived by the Father, and expressed by the Son, is accomplished by you. By you, likewise, the Love, which the Father and Son have for each other, and which is personified in you, is extended to beings which are to be created. It is by His Word that the Father knows them. It is by you, divine Love, O Holy Spirit, that He loves them and thus, all creation proceeds from the divine goodness.

Emanating as you do from the Father and the Son, you are sent by Both to us creatures, and yet so as not to lose thereby the equality you have from all eternity with Them. The Son, when sent by the Father, clad Himself, once forever, with our human nature and His Person, by the works which are peculiarly His own, is shown to us as distinct from that of the Father. So, likewise, Holy Spirit, we recognise you as distinct from the Father and the Son by your coming down to fulfil in our regard, the mission given to you by Both. It was you that inspired the Prophets (2 Peter i. 21), you that overshadowed Mary in the divine Incarnation (Luke i. 35), you that rested on the flower of Jesse (Isaias xi. 2), you that led Jesus into the desert (Luke iv. 1), you that glorified Him by miracles (Matthew xii. 28). The Church, His Bride, receives you, and you teach her all truth (John xvi. 13), and you abide in her as her devoted friend, even to the very end of time (John xiv. 16). Our souls are signed with your seal (Ephesians i. 13, iv. 30) and you quicken them with supernatural life (Galatians v. 25). You dwell even in our bodies, making them your temple (1 Corinthians vi. 19). In a word, you are to us the Gift of God, and the fountain springing up even into life everlasting (John, iv. 14; vii. 38, 39. May special thanks be given to you, Holy Spirit, for the special works you accomplish in our favour!

And now, having adored each of the divine Persons, and blessed each for the favours He has bestowed on this world, we again dare to fix our unworthy gaze on that Trinity of Majesty which exists in the Unity of the divine Essence. Sovereign Lord, we again confess what you have taught us but we confess it in the words of your servant Augustine: “They are not more than Three: One that loves Him who is from Him; and One that loves Him from whom He is; and One who is that very Love”. But we have still a debt of gratitude to pay for that unspeakable favour of yours by which, blessed Trinity, you have vouchsafed to mark us with the image of yourself. Having resolved from all eternity to admit us into fellowship with yourself (1 John i. 3), you have prepared us for according to a type taken from your own divine Nature (Genesis i. 27). There are three powers in our one soul. This tells us that it was you who gave us our existence, and yet this likeness to yourself, which is the glory of our natural being, was but a preparation for further purposes of your generous love towards us. After having bestowed on us this natural being, it pleased you to decree, sacred Trinity, that a supernatural one should also be imparted to us. When the fullness of time had come, the Father sends us His Son, and this uncreated Word brings light to our understanding: the Father and the Son send us the Spirit, and the Spirit brings love to our will: and the Father, who cannot be sent, comes of Himself, and gives Himself to our soul, giving her a power beyond her own strength. It is in holy Baptism, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that is produced, in the Christian, this work of the Three divine Persons which is so admirably in keeping with the faculties of our soul. And these faculties are but an outline of the masterpiece which the supernatural action of God can alone complete.

Blessed union by which God is in man, and man is in God! Union that brings us to adoption by the Father, to brotherhood with the Son, to our eternal inheritance! But, how has this indwelling of God in His creature been formed? Gratuitously, by God’s eternal love. And, how long will it last? Forever, unless man himself refuse to give love for love. Mortal sin admitted into the soul, the divine indwelling is at an end: the very moment that sanctifying grace is lost, the Three divine Persons who had taken up their abode in that soul (John xiv. 23) and were united with her, abandon her. God would be no longer in her, save by His immensity, but the soul would not possess Him as she did before. Then would Satan set up again his wretched kingdom within her, the kingdom of his vile trinity, concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life (2 John ii. 16). Woe to the man who would dare to defy his God by such rebellion, and put evil in the place of infinite good! Hell and eternal torments are the consequences of the creature’s contempt of his Creator. God is a jealous God. If we drive Him from the dwelling of our souls, the deep abyss must be our everlasting abode.

But is this rupture beyond the hope of reconciliation? Yes, as far as sinful man’s power is concerned, for he can never of himself recover his position with the blessed Trinity, which God’s gratuitous bounty had prepared and His incomprehensible goodness achieved. But, as the Church teaches us in her Liturgy, God never shows His power more than when He has pity on a sinner and pardons Him: it is this powerful mercy of God which can work the prodigy of a reconciliation, and He really does work it, as often as a sinner is converted. When the august Trinity deigns to return into the soul of repentant man, the Angels and Saints in Heaven are filled with joy, as the Gospel assures us (Luke xv. 10), for the Father, Son and Holy Ghost have testified their love and sought their glory by making him just, who had been a sinner; by coming again to dwell in this lost sheep; in this prodigal, who had, but a few days before, been tending swine; in this thief who, but just now, had been insulting on the Cross, together with his fellow culprit, the innocent Crucified.

Adoration, then, and love, be to you, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, perfect Trinity that has vouchsafed to reveal yourself to mankind; eternal and infinite Unity, that has delivered our forefathers from the yoke of their false gods! Glory be to you, as it was in the beginning, before any creature existed; as it is now, at this very time, while we are living in the hope of that true life which consists in seeing you face-to-face; and as it will forever be, in those everlasting ages when a blissful eternity will have united us in the bosom of your infinite Majesty. Amen.