TRINITY REFLECTIONS

1.     Through the Holy Spirit, the Father gave life to the mortal flesh of his Son and made it life-giving for us. 

2.     All things come from the Holy Trinity and return to the Holy Trinity. 

3.     We can pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

4.     The Father is love, the Son is grace, the Holy Spirit is the bond of communion. 

5.     The true God is One in Three and Three in One – in nature One, in Persons three. Fitting are the words: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4:8, NIV).  

6.     Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come (2 Corinthians 1:21-22, NIV). 

7.     But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.  Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:4-6, NIV). 

8.     Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:3-6, NIV). 

9.     Through the Holy Spirit, the Father gave life to the mortal flesh of his Son and made him the source of everlasting life. 

10.  The Trinity “is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the Holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly in the Church one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word, and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.”  

Writing to the Corinthians, Paul traces all reality back to one God, the Father, saying: There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, NIV).     

The gifts that the Spirit dispenses to individuals are given by the Father through the Word. For all that belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son, and so the graces given by the Son in the Spirit are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit dwells in us, the Word who bestows the Spirit is in us too, and the Father is present in the Word. This is the meaning of the text: My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (John 14:23, NIV). For where the light is, there also is the radiance; and where the radiance is, there too are its power and resplendent grace. 

This is also Paul’s teaching in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14, NIV). Grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. When we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit. 

(Adapted from the First Letter to Serapion of Thmuis by St. Athanasius) 

Photo credit: Intellimon Ltd.

Source: Maxwell E. Johnson and others, comps. and eds., Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 1621-1636.