Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity. The mystery of the most Holy Trinity is a basic doctrine of faith in Catholicism, understandable not with our heads but rather with our hearts. It teaches us that there are three distinct persons in one God sharing the same divine nature. Our mind cannot grasp this doctrine which in essence teaches us that 1+ 1+ 1 = 1 and not 3. But we believe in this mystery because Jesus who is God taught it clearly, the Gospel writers recorded it, the Fathers of the Church tried to explain it and the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople defined it as a dogma of our faith. We are constantly reminded about the Trinity. All of our prayers begin in the name of the Holy Trinity and end glorifying the Trinity. All sacraments are administered (we are baptized, confirmed, anointed, sins forgiven and marriage blessed) in the name of the Holy Trinity. Church bells ring three times, inviting us to remember and pray to the Holy Trinity. We bless ourselves and the priest blesses us in the name of the Holy Trinity. The dogma of the Holy Trinity is a mystery. Our human minds are not large enough to understand HOW there can be three persons in ONE God, but we believe it in faith. In John chapters 15-18, we have a detailed account of Jesus’ teaching of the role of each person of the Holy Trinity. God the Father creates and provides for His creatures. God the Son redeems us and reconciles us with God. God the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, strengthens us, teaches us and guides us. And sooooo…let us endeavor to respect ourselves and others because every one is the temple of the Holy Spirit where all the three Persons of the Holy Trinity abide. Let us have the firm conviction that the Trinitarian God abides in us and He is the source of our hope, courage and strength and our final destination. Let us practice the Trinitarian relationship of love and unity in the family relationships of father, mother and children because by baptism we become children of God and members of God’s Trinitarian family. Let us practice the I–God–my neighborvertical and horizontal Trinitarian relationship in society by loving God living in others. An English teacher of a 21-sophomore high school class put a small chalk dot on the blackboard. He then asked the class what it was. A few seconds passed and then someone said, "That is a chalk dot on the blackboard." The rest of the class seemed relieved that the obvious had been stated, and no one else had anything to say. "I'm surprised at you," the teacher told the class. "I did the same exercise yesterday with a group of kindergartners and they thought of 50 different things the chalk mark could be: an owl's eye, a cigar butt, the top of a telephone pole, a star, a pebble, a squashed bug, a rotten egg, a bird's eye, and so on." The older students had learned how to find a right answer, but had lost the ability to look for more than one right answer. The Holy Spirit helps us, in his wonderful Wisdom, to see more than we might have seen by ourselves. The Spirit's vision allows us wonderful options for expansion and new possibilities. It is the Spirit's Wisdom that reveals the Word to us. It is the Wisdom of the Spirit which shows us our sin, which guides us, which instructs us, which leads us in the way everlasting. GOSPEL HOMEWORK OF THE WEEK: Think about what you are saying when you make the sign of the cross.