2025/06/15 SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
- Leo Rubinkowski, Manager of Events & Ministry Engagement
“Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…” — from the Gospel Acclamation
Reflecting on the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, what the Catechism identifies as “the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234), the best I have to offer you, dear reader, is that it is good to say true things.
I remember first having this particular thought, expressed with this exact simplicity, at a time in my life when it was difficult to know what I should be saying…to others, to myself, and to God. Prayers of petition had become mysterious and vague. “Thy will be done” looked forward to a future I could not conceive, so confusing were my then-present circumstances. “Pray for us now and at the hour of our death” begged for help I was not sure I would recognize if it came. And my own fumbling words? Forget about it. Prayers of thanksgiving were just as challenging. How to say thank you to a God with Whom I was only just learning to speak intimately, but to Whom I knew, at least intellectually, I owed everything? Reparation and adoration? The same issue: what words were sufficient before my just Judge and my sweet Savior?
No, at that time, the only prayer that felt whole in my making it was the statement of the minor doxology, more often called the Gloria Patri or Glory Be. “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.” A one-sentence statement of facts that, by faith, I knew to be true and worth repeating. God is eternally One; God is eternally Three; God is glorious in Himself and therefore to be glorified. Whatever my feelings toward God, myself, or the world, this prayer I could make.
And so, in light of this Sunday’s Solemnity, I recommend it to you. I wager most or all of you are familiar with the prayer, but my recommendation is not to get acquainted. My recommendation is to attach yourself, to invest, to rely. When something good happens, “Glory to the Father…”; when you are feeling low, “Glory to the Father…”; when you are feeling stress, “Glory to the Father…”; when there is cause to rejoice, “Glory to the Father…”; when you are at a loss, “Glory to the Father…”; when you are going about your normal day and remember for no particular reason, “Glory to the Father….” Make the prayer a habit.
The Catechism observes that salvation history 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.’” (CCC 234) Habitually remembering the foundational truth of our faith, then, seems worthwhile preparation for taking on anything headier, not because anything will simply click with the Glory Be in mind, but because the prayer and the habit of praying it engender awe, confidence, and humility, attested throughout Scripture as always-appropriate responses to God’s presence and working in the world. “In this moment (whatever the moment), God, You are unchangingly glorious. In this moment, God, You allow me know You are glorious and even to glorify You. In this moment, God, be glorified.”
That is how I am meeting the challenge of this Sunday’s Solemnity and its readings. Rather than trying to figure out the Trinity or be persuaded by the evidence of Scripture, I am responding to the truth of the Trinity and to the Triune God’s self-revelation. I am reacting to the shocking words of Wisdom personified, Who was with God in the beginning, before anything that began to be was brought into being by Him (cf. John 1:1-3): “I found delight in the human race.” I am affirming Paul’s assertion that the Spirit, dwelling within us and pouring divine life into us, is the beginning and guarantor of our confidence in God, even in affliction (cf. Job 1:21, Daniel 3:26-28). I am resting in the Lord’s promise to His disciples that by the Spirit they would retain all that He had given them, which the Father had willed for them (cf. John 20:21-23, Acts 2:38). I am remembering how, when my son was born, the awe, fear, and intimacy of the Psalmist’s relationship with God became mine forever, too. (Who is my son that God should create him in an act of totally unique love, and more, dwell within him and claim him for Himself?)
The Triune God is totally self-sufficient; nothing of the created order adds to or detracts from the totality of the divine life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And yet…God created “and found delight in the human race.” And yet…God did not abandon fallen humanity. And yet…the Son took flesh, suffered, died, was raised, and ascended. And yet…the Spirit guides the Church and dwells within Her members. And yet…God desires that each of us be with Him.
This Sunday’s readings are all about those “And yet…” realities, and the best I can offer is what I have learned by experience. If your desire to respond to those “and yets” sometimes exceeds your ability, simplify. Say the thing that you can have full confidence saying. Say the true thing, and say it often, because it is good to say true things.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.