The Nature of God, The Most Holy Trinity, Year C

The Most Holy Trinity
Proverbs 8:22-31
Psalm 8:4-5, 607, 8-9 (2a)
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
June 15, 2025

Jesus does not act alone.  There is much to tell the disciples what it means to follow him but He knew they could not bear it all right away.  He also knew that He did not need to tell them everything.  He knew that the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit would come to guide them, to guide us, “to all truth.”  Even with the Holy Spirit we never learn everything in this world.  Some things will always be a mystery to us.  The Trinity is one of them.  The Holy Spirit will guide us to believe what remains as mystery.

In my recent presentation, Knowing the Holy Spirit, I used the below slide with the quote from the Catechism to tells us that the Trinity is not just one among many mysteries.  It is the “central mystery” of our faith.

When we talk about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as Trinity, we are talking about the nature of God. 

They are three persons yet one God.  Jesus did not act on his own and neither does the Holy Spirit.  As Jesus foretold of the Holy Spirit, “He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears.”  Everything the Holy Spirit speaks is in complete accord with what Jesus said.  In repeating what Jesus said, the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus’ words as truth.  What Jesus says comes from the Father.

Proverbs speaks of the nature of God as eternal.  Proverbs tells us how the “wisdom of God” (understood as Jesus) is eternal.  It existed before everything else and served at God’s side “as his craftsman.” 

Paul writes to the Romans speaking of the nature of God.  He writes, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

We know the peace of God our Father because Jesus has revealed it to us.  We know the love of God through the Holy Spirit who has poured it out to us.  God is peace.  God is love (1 John 4:16). 

It is God’s very nature to love.  This is why He sent Jesus to save us (John 3:16-17).  This is why Jesus willingly laid down his life for us on the Cross (John 15:13).  He loves us.

Even before Jesus became incarnate in the flesh, God was loving us.  The psalmist speaks of God’s choice to love us when the psalmist writes, “what is man that you should be mindful of him…You have made him little less than the angels.  You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet.” 

God does not love us because of our greatness.  Rather, we are great because God loves us.

The Nicene Creed that we say at Sunday Mass speaks of the nature of God.  It speaks of the Father almighty as “maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”  God is our creator.  Everything belongs to him.

The Nicene Creed speaks of Jesus as “begotten, not made.”  Honestly, in human knowledge I do not fully understand what “begotten” means here but in faith, I believe.  I know it means Jesus is “consubstantial with the Father” and that “through him all things were made.”  I know “begotten” means Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.”  More importantly than knowing this, I believe it. 

The Nicene Creed tells us that “For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.”  Jesus didn’t have to do this.  He chose to “empty himself” and become like us in order to save us (see Philippians 2:5-11).  He did this in obedience to the Father.  He did this because He loves us.  For this, Jesus “is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

If Jesus is Son of God and was still obedient to the Father, all the more should we be obedient to God.

The Nicene Creed also speaks of the relationship the Holy Spirit has with the Father and the Son as the one “who proceeds from the Father and the Son.”  Recalling Genesis 2:7, the Nicene Creed speaks of the Holy Spirit as “the giver of life.”  The Three work together.  The Father and the Son create and the Spirit breathes life into us.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three persons yet one God united in perfect unity.  This is the nature of our God who loves us.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff