Today we honour the Most Holy Trinity, the divine mystery at the heart of our faith. Far from being some unfathomable puzzle, however, Most Holy Trinity is as much about us and God’s relationship to us as it is about God alone. Trinity Sunday is one of the few celebrations of the Christian Year that commemorates a reality and doctrine rather than a person or event. On Trinity Sunday, the faithful remember and honour the eternal God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Trinity Sunday is celebrated the Sunday after Pentecost, and lasts only one day, which is symbolic of the unity of the Trinity.

The First Reading especially proclaims God as the creator of history, present and active on behalf of the chosen people; he chooses us as well. This same God in the person of the Holy Spirit adopts us as children (Second Reading, Communion antiphon). And in Jesus the Son, God sends us for the to baptize all nations in the name of t he Trinity.

Essentially, the Trinity is the belief that God is one in essence, but distinct in person. Don’t let the word “person” fool you. The Greek word for person means “that which stands on its own,” or “individual reality,” and does not mean the persons of the Trinity are three human persons. Therefore we believe that the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit are somehow distinct from one another (not divided though), yet completely united in will and essence. Today’s liturgy, then, calls for the full proclamation of the triune mystery.