By Father Rich Tomkosky
Our belief in the most Blessed Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit is THE FOUNDATION of everything else we believe as Catholics, but it can seem like an abstraction if we do not strive for daily union with the Blessed Trinity in deeper prayer and reflection. How can we take our faith/doctrine belief in the most Blessed Trinity and bring it into everyday life in a union of love in the depths of our soul?
We know by God’s Revelation through the Scriptures and the Church that we humans are made in God’s image: in our memory, in our intellect, in our will and in our heart, and now even in our physical nature or bodies because the Second Person of the Trinity took on our human nature in the person of Jesus Christ. But it is not enough to be created in the image of God, which is a wonderful thing, but we must also grow in His likeness, which is what the call to holiness is: to become more like God in all that we say, and think, and do.
Saint Paul tells us this occurs primarily through the mystery of the Cross: “… we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Saint Paul is saying, if we want to know the Trinity in daily life, we need to pray for a greater love of the Cross, and for the grace to consciously unite all our daily sufferings and struggles with Jesus, with love, so they become redemptive in Him and help us and those we offer them for to grow in holiness, e.g., offering our daily sufferings for hardened sinners and the souls in Purgatory.
A second way to come to know the Trinity in daily life is to pray for the grace to abandon ourselves to God’s all-encompassing Providential care. God’s Providence is His guidance and direction of the entire process of history as a whole, as well as His guidance and direction in our individual lives without canceling out the gift of human freedom.
How this all works is one of the mysteries of the universe, but it is true nonetheless, as Jesus says in the Gospel, the Father cares about each one of us so much that He even knows “the number of hairs on our head,” God is interested in the minute details of our lives, not because he is nosey, but because He loves us; and true love is always concerned about the details of the other person, even the smallest things.
Abandoning ourselves to God’s Providential care means that we are willing to TRUST HIM and be willing to live a life of humble obedience to His will manifested to us human beings through the daily circumstances of life and through the Catholic faith guided by the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all Truth. After all, the Trinity’s goal in guiding us is to lead us to ultimate fulfillment and eternal bliss in union with them- the greatest gift of all!
Finally, we can come to know the Trinity more daily by practicing the interior discipline of calling to mind the reality of the Divine Indwelling (see The Fire Within by Fr. Thomas Dubay) in our souls throughout the day.
This is a divine reality from the moment of our Baptism, and if we are not conscious of mortal sin (keep studying the faith, so you know what those sins are, and avoid them always, I’m here to help) which is the ONLY thing that can drive the presence of the Trinity away until we repent and are forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession.
Also, every time we receive Holy Communion with faith (15–30-minute thanksgiving after, per the saints), and not in the state of mortal sin, we grow in our union with the Trinity because where Jesus is, so also is the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Truly by entering into the mystery of the Cross by uniting our daily sufferings with Jesus, by abandoning ourselves to Divine Providence, and by calling to mind the Divine Indwelling of the Trinity in our souls by sanctifying grace, on a daily basis, as well as avoiding mortal sin and receiving Holy Communion in the state of grace with great faith, we come to personally know the Trinity in love. Then our belief in the Holy Trinity is no longer is an abstraction, but in truth the most profound reality of our life.
May all of us come to know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with Our Lady’s help, for as Saint Paul beautifully said, it will lead to a joy beyond our imagining for, “eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it dawned on the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corth 2: 9). God bless you.
Father Rich Tomkosky is the Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish in Bedford and the Pastor of Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Beans Cove.
