The Holy Trinity, Pierre Mignard c.1663, Church of the Val-de-Grâce, Paris, France.

[The Holy Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”     John 16:14-15.

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At the very deepest level of the beating Christian heart is its most profound mystery, the Holy Trinity of God. Christianity is a monotheistic faith, meaning a belief in one God, yet at its heart there are three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – yet one God. Artificial Intelligence assures us that “thousands” of books have been written about this profoundest Christian mystery, theological, devotional, historical and academic. So it is, in a word, inexplicable. It rests on faith alone. If Jesus said it, it’s true. And he did. And buried right at the center of this mystery is its power: love. Now note that carefully; love requires, demands even, at least one other. Unrequited love is agonizing. It certainly isn’t love as it is understood. But when it is returned, the drab world is filled with color, you feel as though you are walking on air, there is one other person who means everything to you. The other person completes your life. It is perfection. For many it is God, the unfathomable depth of love present for all eternity, always present and always constant. And for many it is the person in this life with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. This love is life-enhancing, making everything in it tolerable and meaningful. It is the power which created everything, sustains it and gives it hope. It is the only reasonable explanation of how everything came to be, as love opens us up to the world and everything in it. If something is not perfect, love urges us to transform it into something acceptable and good. And only togetherness can do that. Hence the Holy Trinity must be at the heart of all that is good and beautiful. Yes, one God, so united that the three persons had to share their love with others – with us. They provide the template of perfection against which we can measure everything. And if lacking, it is to the Trinity that we can call and receive guidance and help. True love freely gives, asking nothing in return. 

It was through the centuries that God slowly revealed this profoundest mystery of the Christian faith. The Father intervened in human history with the call of Abram/Abraham. Through the centuries we humans slowly understood that this God was open to relationship, beginning with the revelation of the God’s holy name, Yahweh, I Am Who Am to Moses (Exodus 3:14). The arrival of Jesus in our midst exemplified all the qualities revealed as divine through the pages of the Old Testament. Taking the ideal of relationship, for example, to a numinous level, Jesus at the Last Supper declared basic human food, bread, to be his body, and we were to take and eat it. This was relationship at its ultimate: we take the Lord into ourselves! Complete union! The Holy Spirit is the power which has enabled everyone since that time to participate in the Lord’s Supper, beginning with the miracle of Pentecost, celebrated last week, down to today. And at each Mass, God’s Holy Spirit is called to descend on the gifts of bread and wine so that they become the body and blood of the Lord himself. It is the ultimate sharing, the love of God coming to us, transforming the simple realities of bread and wine into the real presence of God. God gives his very self to us! 

Now at this point I ask you to look at the notes from last week, the feast of Pentecost, which refer to the gender of the words which refer to the Holy Spirit. All of them are feminine in the language of Jesus, Aramaic (as well as in Hebrew). Whenever the Holy Spirit of God is invoked in the Hebrew Testament, she is always referred to as she! Now I say this to make a point. We, each and every one of us, were conceived in the womb of our mother. Most of us grew up amid a welcoming and loving family which nurtured us and created the foundations on which we stand for life. I know this does not apply to everyone, but I think my point still holds. The Holy Trinity without the feminine principle present seems hollow to me. Our whole experience of life requires a feminine presence. We all of us exhibit male and female traits. Consequently the question arises, where did they all come from? If the Holy Spirit is constantly referred to as “he” there is an awning empty space somewhere. Look at today’s gospel and compare it to this:

But when she comes, the Spirit of truth,
she will guide you to all truth.
She will not speak on her own,
but she will speak what she hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.

She will glorify me,
because she will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

And when Jesus spoke these words, he used the Aramaic word for Spirit (also meaning breath and wind), רוּחַ pronounced “roo-akh” which is feminine in gender, so Jesus’ words would have sounded like the revised gospel above! And if you add that feminine presence or reality to the Holy Trinity, surely it must reflect our experience much more realistically. The Father and the Spirit forever creating the Son, the incandescent eternal presence of creative, sustaining love. And that is the reality we are celebrating today! And one final word: in Hebrew the word for truth, אֱמֶת, emet, is feminine, and is composed of the first, middle and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet; but in Aramaic, it is שְׁרָרָא, sherara, meaning tightly bound, and is masculine. But it also means umbilical cord… 

The Holy Trinity, Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Covington, Louisiana, USA.

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