The Holy Trinity,
Master of the Votive Picture of Sankt Lambrech (Hans von Tübingen), Vienna, 1430

Readings:
Proverbs 8:22-31
Psalms 8:4-9
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

Chants

In today’s Liturgy we’re swept through time in glorious procession—from before earth and sky were set in place to the coming of the Spirit upon the new creation, the Church.

We begin in the heart of the Trinity, as we listen to the testimony of Wisdom in today’s First Reading. Eternally begotten, the first-born of God, He is poured forth from of old in the loving delight of the Father.

Through Him, the heavens were established, the foundations of the earth fixed. From before the beginning, He was with the Father as His “Craftsman,” the artisan by which all things were made. And He took special delight, He tells us, in the crowning glory of God’s handiwork—the human race, the “sons of men.”

In today’s Psalm, He comes down from heaven, is made a little lower than the angels, comes among us as “the Son of Man” (see Hebrews 2:6-10).

All things are put under His feet so that He can restore to humanity the glory for which we were made from the beginning, the glory lost by sin. He tasted death that we might be raised to life in the Trinity, that His name might be made glorious over all the earth.

Through the Son, we have gained grace and access in the Spirit to the Father, as Paul boasts in today’s Epistle (see Ephesians 2:18).

The Spirit, the Love of God, has been poured out into our hearts—a Spirit of adoption, making us children of the Father once more (see Romans 8:14-16).

This is the Spirit that Jesus promises in today’s Gospel.

His Spirit comes as divine gift and anointing (see 1 John 2:27), to guide us to all truth, to show us “the things that are coming,” the things that were meant to be from before all ages—that we will find peace and union in God, will share the life of the Trinity, dwell in God as He dwells in us (see John 14:23; 17:21).

___________

William of Saint-Thierry
from The Mirror of Faith, 6 (PL 180, 384)

"Who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God" (1Cor 2,11).

Run, then, to enter into communion with the Holy Spirit. No sooner do we call on him than he is there, and if we call on him it is because he is already present to us. When called, he comes; he comes in the abundance of divine blessings. He it is who is that rushing river giving joy to God's city (Ps 46[45],5).

If, when he has come, he finds you to be humble and without anxiety, fearing God's word, then he will come to rest on you and reveal to you those things that God hides from the wise and learned of this world (Mt 11,25). Then all those truths will begin to shine out before you that Wisdom spoke to the disciples while on earth but which they could not bear before the coming of the Spirit of truth that was to teach them all truth...

Just as those who worship God must necessarily worship him "in spirit and truth" (Jn 4,24), so those who would know him have only to seek an understanding of the faith in the Holy Spirit... In the midst of this life's darkness and ignorance, he himself is the light that shines out for the poor in spirit (Mt 5,3), the charity that attracts and sweetness that ravishes the soul, the love of those who love and the devotion of those who yield themselves without reserve. He it is who reveals God's justice from conviction to conviction; who gives grace in return for grace (Jn 1,16) and the faith of enlightenment to the faith of those who listen to the Word.