In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

Catholics are often dumbfounded when asked “How can one be three; how can three be one”? The fact is that in the created universe, one cannot be three nor can three be one. But that the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit is something that belongs to a wholly different order. Here mathematics does not enter, since mathematics is for quantitative beings. In God there is no quantity. Even the phrase “one God” is not a mathematical expression, but a metaphoric one. Strictly speaking, we cannot say there is “one God” since God cannot be counted. We count the pencils on the table, or the bottles in the refrigerator; but we cannot count God. We can only affirm something about God. But when God Himself reveals that He is “One” yet He is also Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then we can only bow to Him in faith, for we know that He does not lie.

• The Mystery of the Trinity: A Revelation of Love
• In Defense of the Trinity and the Council of Nicea
• A Note on the Johanine Comma
• The Commissioning of the Apostles in Matthew
• Romans 8:14-17 Led by the Spirit, children of God

Reading Guide

Matthew 28:16-20 is the final picture that Matthew gives us of Jesus and his disciples. Here, the Risen and Exalted Lord sends forth his disciples “to all nations” so as to make everyone his disciples, baptizing them and teaching all he has taught them. The universal extension of the mission corresponds to the extension of the Lordship of Christ who has received all authority in heaven and on earth. The apostles are given the mandate to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. This baptismal formula is the NT expression of belief in the “Trinity”, the name coined by Tertullian to designate the mystery of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery revealed in Christ. And it is revealed as something intertwined with the new reality of the Christian as child of God. In the baptismal formula that is given in the gospel of Matthew, the three-fold reality of God is designated by “the Name”. The Jews even today call God “the Name” in obedience to the second commandment. God, Himself is “the Name”. In the baptismal formula of Matthew, we are in a way told that “God” is “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”; each is God though not three Gods, they are one, yet distinct from one another.

The doctrine of the Trinity, that is, the doctrine by which the Church explains the reality behind the baptismal formula in Matthew is not found in the Scriptures itself although the basis of the doctrine is thoroughly Scriptural. The triadic formulae Paul uses in his letters and John’s attempts at verbally expressing how the Son is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit extends the love and care of both to the disciples are attempts at expressing a reality that is experienced but could not be translated into words. The precision that will be lent by the Fathers of the Church, from Tertullian to the Cappadocians to Augustine up to the Doctors of the Middle Ages to the theological language that clarifies the mystery is still part of an ongoing proclamation of God’s self-revelation as Trinity.

Comparing the Readings

“God is love” writes John. And this “God-Love” makes Himself known as the Father who wants to make all His children, the Son who shows the Way to obedience and self-giving love, the Spirit who introduces all to the communion of life and love of the Father and the Son. We have glimmers of this “God-Love” in the Old Testament, especially in Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch’s “Gospel of Love.” In Deuteronomy 4 we find the God of Israel reminding His covenanted people how far He has accompanied them and how far He will still accompany them even after they have entered the promised land. He asks that they be faithful to the covenant contracted with Him. In the second reading from Paul we are told in four verses how our lives are now intertwined with that of the Father and the Son. These lines from Paul vividly describe the meaning of the baptismal formula in Matthew 28. The Christian’s consecration to the Trinity is the beginning of a life that shares in the exchange of love between the Father and the Son made possible by the Holy Spirit that is poured into our hearts (cf. Romans 5:5).

Suggestions for the Lesson

The celebration of the solemnity of the Trinity has a pedagogical value: it gives pastors the opportunity to explain that the whole of salvation history is the work of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. It is also an opportunity for explaining the baptismal formula invoked upon those who are baptized: “(N.), I baptize you in the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

1. By our baptism, our lives have become entwined with the life of God who reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
2. God accomplished the work of salvation in view of each individual who has been called to participate in His life. The Father not only created your life, He also Sent His Son to claim you for Himself. The Son, in obedience to the Father’s will, gave His life for you on the cross, drawing upon Himself the death that should have been yours. Finally, the Spirit of the Father and the Son was poured into you at your baptism, giving you the new life won by Christ on the cross. In all these, God shows himself as God with you, for you and in you.
3. The celebration of the Trinity is the celebration of Him who has created us, redeemed us and who now acts within us as His partners in the upkeep of creation, in extending his salvific forgiveness to all and in building up the reign of Christ.