Feast of the Most Holy Trinity - June 15, 2025
Roman rite
Pro 8, 22-31; Ps 8; Rm 5, 1-5; Jn 16, 12-15
Ambrosian rite
Gen 18,1-10a; Ps 104; 1Cor 12,2-6; Jn 14,21-26
1) God is to be with
Today’s feast is not added to the previous (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost) as a reminder of a particular mystery: the Trinity. Mystery recognized in theory as fundamental, but in practice removed and put in the background. Mystery to which one must think once a year. This Mystery of the Trinity is celebrated as the sum of all that we have celebrated from Christmas to Pentecost to make us see unitarily what we had contemplated one by one like the colors refracted in a prism.
The meaning of all the feasts of the liturgical year is always the celebration of "God with us". But how can God be "with us" if this "with" did not belong always to his essence and his intimate life? The Trinitarian mystery reveals that God is Father with the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
In today’s feast, therefore, we contemplate the Trinity made us known by Jesus, the God with us (= the Emmanuel). "He has revealed to us that God is love "not in the unity of one person, but in the Trinity of one substance" (Preface of today’s Mass). He is the Creator and merciful Father; He is the Only begotten Son, eternal Wisdom incarnate, dead and risen for us; He is finally the Holy Spirit who moves everything, cosmos and history, towards the full final recapitulation. Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is all and only love, pure love, infinite and eternal. He does not live in a splendid solitude, but is rather an inexhaustible source of life that incessantly gives itself and communicates" (Benedict XVI, 7 June 2009).
In the Trinitarian Mystery of Father, Son and Holy Spirit we understand the divine nature itself and the very essence of God who is love, communion, relationship, collaboration, giving, service, charity, and infinite forgiveness.
In the path of the magisterium of Pope Francis, I consider it useful to highlight the most beautiful aspect of our God, in whom we have faith, striving to live in communion with him, and in whom we have placed all our hope. This aspect is mercy. Merciful like the Father, but just as merciful as Christ and the Holy Spirit.
2) From the Cross to the Trinity
The entire Most Holy Trinity is involved in Love and by Love with the Cross of Christ. Many antique pictures represent the Father’s arms holding the Crucifix. For example in Masaccio’s painting (in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, see the attached reproduction) the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove is between the head of the Father and the head of Christ crowned by thorns. It is true! Between the Father and the Son there is a mysterious communion of love. For this reason Jesus from the cross could ask without hesitation: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34). Between Father and Son there is a mysterious spiritual communion of Love! For this reason the dying Jesus could declare with filial trust: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). From this moment the humanity of Christ, permeated by the act of Love that unites from eternity the Son to the Father, has become a source of filial life for all the ones who open themselves to Jesus in the humility of faith: “ But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God”.(Jn 1:12-13)
If God is like that, if this is the true way in which He saves us (and I assure you that is true!) Trinity is not a faraway mystery of no consequence in our life. These three divine persons are “intimate” in our life. They are not beside us like a wife, a husband, children or friends, but inside us. They “live in us” (Jn 14:23).
Saint Francis of Assisi gives us a big example of how the Cross is the way to Trinity. Contemplating the Word incarnated and crucified, the great Saint lived the love of the God-Trinity that donates himself to him and answered back with complete dedication.
Changed in his heart, Saint Francis became like Christ even with his body receiving the stigmata. Taken by the Spirit among the lepers, the Saint of Assisi shared the mercy that he had received from the Father full of mercy. Saint Francis understood and now makes us understand that the death of Christ is the gift that He makes of his Spirit. If Christ gives us his Spirit we become members of Christ and live his Presence.
On the Cross, Jesus gave his Spirit but at that time only few received it because only few (the Virgin, Saint John and Mary Magdalene) had stayed by the Cross. On the day of the Resurrection when He entered the Supper-room, He gave it to the twelve: “Receive the Holy Spirit”. Then He gave it to the Church on the day of Pentecost: “It will spread on all” said Saint Peter. It is a continuous growing of the gift, the same that had been given even to us and that makes us “Temple of the Trinity”.
3) The God nearby
The liturgy of today’s Mass reminds us that God is not an impersonal God detached and far away from us. “Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger, abounding in mercy” (Ps 103:8), “gracious and merciful and abounding in love and fidelity” (Ex 34:6). The Lord doesn’t despise the dust of which we are made, but feeds us with mercy and forgiveness. Let us proclaim with great joy: Blessed be God, the Father and his only Son and the Holy Spirit because God is the Father that has loved us so much that He offered us his Son and gave us his Spirit so that we can recognize God as infinite love.
Nothing is more true, reviving and consoling for us than the presence of the Holy Trinity in our life. Nothing can be, act or become perfect without the three divine Persons, without God. Saint Paul doesn’t hesitate to assert that “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 18:28)
God is near but we think that He is far away. He is into reality and into all the things and we look for Him in dreams and in impossible utopias.
The true secrets to enter in relationship with God are simplicity of heart and poverty of spirit, two attitudes that are frustrated by proud, wealth and craftiness. Jesus had said:” unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3) which means “if you will not be near me”. He was not joking or making fun of us. To see or not to see God depends on our eyes. If we have pure eyes we see Him; if we have impure and malevolent eyes we do not see Him. If sometimes we forget Him because of distraction or superficiality, pain and mystery reminds us of His presence. Mystery continuously surrounds us but it is a mystery of love. It is like our mother’s womb that has kept us and has given us life.
What is more true and simpler than the womb of a woman that holds a child? How to grasp the mystery of the One who loves us?
The easiest way is to be innocent, clever and wise like children. In them there is a basic intuition given by God. However it is not enough to be little, we must also be poor. Be careful because in the Gospel to be little doesn’t mean to be crying babies or immature. To be poor doesn’t mean to wear shabby garments, broken shoes and to live in a shack. Little – in the Christian meaning- is the one who doesn’t put his confidence in what he is or in what he has but has trust in the paternity of God. Poor is the one who doesn’t consider idols what he possesses, on the contrary he feels that nothing can satisfy him except God-Love.
4) Trinity: a mystery that reveals God to us and reveals also who we are.
The most important thing towards Trinity is not to speculate on the mystery but to remain in the faith of the Church that is the “boat” that takes us to Trinity.
We are taken to a god that is “Lover (Father), Loved one (Son) and Love (Holy Spirit) “ (Saint Augustine). God is love and dialogue not only because He loves us and speaks to us, but also because He is a dialogue of love. This fact not only renews our understanding of God, but also the truth of our being. If the Bible continuously repeats that we must live in love, in dialogue and in communion it is because we are “image of God”. For the Christian person who knows that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to encounter God, to have experience of God, to speak of God and to give praise to God means to live in a constant dimension of love, dialogue and gift. Trinity is a truly luminous mystery. In revealing God, the Trinity has revealed who we are.
We find a big help to understand this revelation in the example of the consecrated Virgins. Practicing the evangelic advice of chastity, obedience and poverty these women who have given themselves entirely to God, live with a particular intensity the Trinitarian nature that characterizes Christian life. “The chastity of the virgins as manifestation of their dedication to God with anxiety about the things of the Lord (1 Cor 7:32-34), is a reflection of the infinite love that ties the three divine Persons into the mysterious intensity of the Trinitarian life. Their poverty lived following the example of Christ, who “became poor although he was rich” (2 Cor 8:9), becomes an expression of the total gift of himself that the three divine Persons give to each other. Their obedience carried out following the example of Christ whose food was to do the Father’s will (Jn 4:34), manifests the liberating beauty of a filial dependence not a slavish one, enriched by a sense of responsibility and animated by mutual trust that is the reflection of the loving correspondence of the three divine Persons.” (John Paul II, Post- Synodal Apostolic Exortation, Vita Consecrata, 21).
Along with a prayer from Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity and a patristic reading, I’m attaching the reproduction of the painting of the Trinity by Masaccio
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity: Prayer to the Trinity
O my God, Trinity whom I adore; help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your mystery. Give peace to my soul; make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling and Your resting place. May I never leave You there alone but be wholly present, my faith wholly vigilant, wholly adoring, and wholly surrendered to Your creative Action.
O my beloved Christ, crucified by love, I wish to be a bride for Your Heart; I wish to cover You with glory; I wish to love You...even unto death! But I feel my weakness, and I ask You to "clothe me with Yourself," to identify my soul with all the movements of Your Soul, to overwhelm me, to possess me, to substitute yourself for me that my life may be but a radiance of Your Life. Come into me as Adorer, as Restorer, as Savior.
O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life in listening to You, to become wholly teachable that I may learn all from You. Then, through all nights, all voids, all helplessness, I want to gaze on You always and remain in Your great light. O my beloved Star, so fascinate me that I may not withdraw from Your radiance.
O consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, "come upon me," and create in my soul a kind of incarnation of the Word: that I may be another humanity for Him in which He can renew His whole Mystery. And You, O Father, bend lovingly over Your poor little creature; "cover her with Your shadow," seeing in her only the "Beloved in whom You are well pleased."
O my Three, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself, I surrender myself to You as Your prey. Bury Yourself in me that I may bury myself in You until I depart to contemplate in Your light the abyss of Your greatness.
Patristic Reading
Saint Augustine – On the Trinity
Chapter 5.— Of Difficulties Concerning the Trinity: in What Manner Three are One God, and How, Working Indivisibly, They Yet Perform Some Things Severally.
8. Some persons, however, find a difficulty in this faith; when they hear that the Father is God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet that this Trinity is not three Gods, but one God; and they ask how they are to understand this: especially when it is said that the Trinity works indivisibly in everything that God works, and yet that a certain voice of the Father spoke, which is not the voice of the Son; and that none except the Son was born in the flesh, and suffered, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; and that none except the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. They wish to understand how the Trinity uttered that voice which was only of the Father; and how the same Trinity created that flesh in which the Son only was born of the Virgin; and how the very same Trinity itself wrought that form of a dove, in which the Holy Spirit only appeared. Yet, otherwise, the Trinity does not work indivisibly, but the Father does some things, the Son other things, and the Holy Spirit yet others: or else, if they do some things together, some severally, then the Trinity is not indivisible. It is a difficulty, too, to them, in what manner the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity, whom neither the Father nor the Son, nor both, have begotten, although He is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. Since, then, men weary us with asking such questions, let us unfold to them, as we are able, whatever wisdom God's gift has bestowed upon our weakness on this subject; neither let us go on our way with consuming envy. Should we say that we are not accustomed to think about such things, it would not be true; yet if we acknowledge that such subjects commonly dwell in our thoughts, carried away as we are by the love of investigating the truth, then they require of us, by the law of charity, to make known to them what we have herein been able to find out. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect (for, if the Apostle Paul, how much more must I, who lie far beneath his feet, count myself not to have apprehended!); but, according to my measure, if I forget those things that are behind, and reach forth unto those things which are before, and press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling, I am requested to disclose so much of the road as I have already passed, and the point to which I have reached, whence the course yet remains to bring me to the end. And those make the request, whom a generous charity compels me to serve. Needs must too, and God will grant that, in supplying them with matter to read, I shall profit myself also; and that, in seeking to reply to their inquiries, I shall myself likewise find that for which I was inquiring. Accordingly I have undertaken the task, by the bidding and help of the Lord my God, not so much of discoursing with authority respecting things Iknow already, as of learning those things by piously discoursing of them.
Chapter 6.— That the Son is Very God, of the Same Substance with the Father. Not Only the Father, But the Trinity, is Affirmed to Be Immortal. All Things are Not from the Father Alone, But Also from the Son. That the Holy Spirit is Very God, Equal with the Father and the Son.
9. They who have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God, or not very God, or not with the Father the One and only God, or not truly immortal because changeable, are proved wrong by the most plain and unanimous voice of divine testimonies; as, for instance, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. For it is plain that we are to take the Word of God to be the only Son of God, of whom it is afterwards said, And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, on account of that birth of His incarnation, which was wrought in time of the Virgin. But herein is declared, not only that He is God, but also that He is of the same substance with the Father; because, after saying, And the Word was God, it is said also, The same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made. Not simply all things; but only all things that were made, that is; the whole creature. From which it appears clearly, that He Himself was not made, by whom all things were made. And if He was not made, then He is not a creature; but if He is not a creature, then He is of the same substance with the Father. For all substance that is not God is creature; and all that is not creature is God. And if the Son is not of the same substance with the Father, then He is a substance that was made: and if He is a substance that was made, then all things were not made by Him; but all things were made by Him, therefore He is of one and the same substance with the Father. And so He is not only God, but also very God. And the same John most expressly affirms this in his epistle: For we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know the true God, and that we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
10. Hence also it follows by consequence, that the Apostle Paul did not say, Who alone has immortality, of the Father merely; but of the One and only God, which is the Trinity itself. For that which is itself eternal life is not mortal according to any changeableness; and hence the Son of God, because He is Eternal Life, is also Himself understood with the Father, where it is said, Who only has immortality. For we, too, are made partakers of this eternal life, and become, in our own measure, immortal. But the eternal life itself, of which we are made partakers, is one thing; we ourselves, who, by partaking of it, shall live eternally, are another. For if He had said, Whom in His own time the Father will show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality; not even so would it be necessarily understood that the Son is excluded. For neither has the Son separated the Father from Himself, because He Himself, speaking elsewhere with the voice of wisdom (for He Himself is the Wisdom of God), says, I alone compassed the circuit of heaven. And therefore so much the more is it not necessary that the words, Who has immortality, should be understood of the Father alone, omitting the Son; when they are said thus: That you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: whom in His own time He will show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. In which words neither is the Father specially named, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit; but the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; that is, the One and only and true God, the Trinity itself.
11. But perhaps what follows may interfere with this meaning; because it is said, Whom no man has seen, nor can see: although this may also be taken as belonging to Christ according to His divinity, which the Jews did not see, who yet saw and crucified Him in the flesh; whereas His divinity can in no way be seen by human sight, but is seen with that sight with which they who see are no longer men, but beyond men. Rightly, therefore, is God Himself, the Trinity, understood to be the blessed and only Potentate, who shows the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in His own time. For the words, Who only has immortality, are said in the same way as it is said, Who only does wondrous things. And I should be glad to know of whom they take these words to be said. If only of the Father, how then is that true which the Son Himself says, For what things so ever the Father does, these also does the Son likewise? Is there any, among wonderful works, more wonderful than to raise up and quicken the dead? Yet the same Son says, As the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will. How, then, does the Father alone do wondrous things, when these words allow us to understand neither the Father only, nor the Son only, but assuredly the one only true God, that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
12. Also, when the same apostle says, But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him, who can doubt that he speaks of all things which are created; as does John, when he says, All things were made by Him? I ask, therefore, of whom he speaks in another place: For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. For if of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so as to assign each clause severally to each person: of Him, that is to say, of the Father; through Him, that is to say, through the Son; in Him, that is to say, in the Holy Spirit—it is manifest that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one God, inasmuch as the words continue in the singular number, To whom be glory for ever. For at the beginning of the passage he does not say, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, but of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever.Amen. But if they will have this to be understood only of the Father, then in what way are all things by the Father, as is said here; and all things by the Son, as where it is said to the Corinthians, And one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and as in the Gospel of John, All things were made by Him? For if some things were made by the Father, and some by the Son, then all things were not made by the Father, nor all things by the Son; but if all things were made by the Father, and all things by the Son, then the same things were made by the Father and by the Son. The Son, therefore, is equal with the Father, and the working of the Father and the Son is indivisible. Because if the Father made even the Son, whom certainly the Son Himself did not make, then all things were not made by the Son; but all things were made by the Son: therefore He Himself was not made, that with the Father He might make all things that were made. And the apostle has not refrained from using the very word itself, but has said most expressly, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; using here the name of God specially of the Father; as elsewhere, But the head of Christ is God.
13. Similar evidence has been collected also concerning the Holy Spirit, of which those who have discussed the subject before ourselves have most fully availed themselves, that He too is God, and not a creature. But if not a creature, then not only God (for men likewise are called gods ), but also very God; and therefore absolutely equal with the Father and the Son, and in the unity of the Trinity consubstantial and co-eternal. But that the Holy Spirit is not a creature is made quite plain by that passage above all others, where we are commanded not to serve the creature, but the Creator; not in the sense in which we are commanded to serve one another by love, which is in Greek δουλεύειν, but in that in which God alone is served, which is in Greek λατρεύειν . From whence they are called idolaters who tender that service to images which is due to God. For it is this service concerning which it is said, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. For this is found also more distinctly in the Greek Scriptures, which have λατρεύσεις . Now if we are forbidden to serve the creature with such a service, seeing that it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve (and hence, too, the apostle repudiates those who worship and serve the creature more than the Creator), then assuredly the Holy Spirit is not a creature, to whom such a service is paid by all the saints; as says the apostle, For we are the circumcision, which serve the Spirit of God, which is in the Greek λατρεύοντες . For even most Latin copies also have it thus, We who serve the Spirit of God; but all Greek ones, or almost all, have it so. Although in some Latin copies we find, not We worship the Spirit of God, but, We worship God in the Spirit. But let those who err in this case, and refuse to give up to the more weighty authority, tell us whether they find this text also varied in the mss.: Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God? Yet what can be more senseless or more profane, than that any one should dare to say that the members of Christ are the temple of one who, in their opinion, is a creature inferior to Christ? For the apostle says in another place, Your bodies are members of Christ. But if the members of Christ are also the temple of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is not a creature; because we must needs owe to Him, of whom our body is the temple, that service where with God only is to be served, which in Greek is called λατρεία . And accordingly the apostle says, Therefore glorify God in your body.
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