The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 06-03-07

The Glory Given to us by the Triune God

Scripture Readings
First Proverbs 8:22-31
Second Rom 5:1-5
Gospel John 16:12-15

Prepared by: Rev. Jonathan Kalisch, OP

1. Subject Matter
• The proximity of God to the believer by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
• God, who is Wisdom (Proverbs), in the mystery of our creation (Psalm 8) and redemption
(Romans) gives us hope through the gift of His love in the abiding presence of the Spirit
(John).
• God is known by us through the work of creation, the revelation of the Son, and the
remembrance brought about in us by the Spirit of Truth.

2. Exegetical Notes
• Proverbs 8:22-31 is part of the Wisdom personified theme of Proverbs (see 1:20-33, 3:16-
19, and Chap 8-9). Here Wisdom reveals her origin before all other created beings, and the
active part she plays in creation and her function in leading men to God (31, 35-36).
• Prov 8:22 “The Lord possessed me”: is Jerome’s translation vs. the Arians who translated it
as the Lord “created me,” to support their heretical view of the created nature of the Logos.
Wisdom is from God and absolutely prior to all created things. “The author is trying to assert,
in the best way he can, the absolute priority of Wisdom and her origin from God before all
creation.” JBC
• In the NT, Jesus is referred to as Wisdom itself. See Mt 11:19, LK 11:49, Mt 23:34-36, 1Cor
1:24-30. Like Wisdom, Jesus participates in the creation of the world (Col 1:16-17) and the
protection of Israel (1 Cor 10:4). In John’s Prologue, the characteristics of creative Wisdom
are attributed to the Word Himself.
• Psalm 8 is a hymn of praise to God as creator. The great contrast between God’s majesty
and his ‘care’ for man to whom He has subjected all of creation. See Heb 2:5-9 for the glory
of the new creation in Christ.
• Rom 5:1-11. “Paul announced that justified man was empowered to live a new life as the
result of God’s love manifested in the liberating act of Christ. For it produced for him not only
a status of uprightness before God, but also freedom – freedom from Sin, Death, and the
Law. Now that liberation has taken place, he is able to live a life ‘for God,’ as Christian
experience shows. The new Christian mode of life is due above all to the love of God. From
it comes the internal dynamic principle of activity that is found in the newborn Christian, the
Spirit of God himself.”
• Rom 5:1: “We enjoy peace with God.” “Once justified, the Christian is reconciled to God and
experiences a peace that distressing troubles cannot upset, a hope that knows no
disappointment, and a confidence of salvation of which he can truly boast” (JBC).
Reconciliation replaces his estrangement (Eph 2:14-17, Col 1:20). The life of peace through
Christ expresses the mediation of Christ in the Father’s salvific plan and affirms His actual
influence on men as the Risen Lord.
• Rom 5:2: “We have gained access by faith”/”we have secured an introduction”. JBC: “The
peace the Christian experiences is derived from his introduction into the sphere of divine
favor and grace by Christ. Jesus has, as it were, reconciled him by leading him into the royal
audience chamber and the divine presence.”
• Rom 5:2 “We boast in the hope of the glory of God.” JB: Hope’s excelling source is the Holy
Spirit (Gal 5:5) – the greatest of all the eschatological gifts. It is in part already conferred (Act
1:8), this enlightens (Eph 1:17) and strengthens hope (Rom 15:13) and inspires its prayer
(Rom 8:25-27) building up the unity of the Body of Christ.
• JBC: “The Christian who boasts, puts his boast in something that is wholly beyond his
ordinary natural powers – in hope. But hope is really as gratuitous as faith itself, and in the
long run the boast relies on God. What the Christian hopes for is the communicated glory of
God still to be attained, even though the Christian has already been introduced to the sphere
of ‘grace.’”
• Rom 5:5 “and hope does not disappoint”: The hope of God’s glory is founded on God’s love
for men. The believer will never be embarrassed by a disappointed hope, in comparison to
human hope which can deceive.
• Rom 5:5 “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts.” The Holy Spirit is the pledge
of God’s love for us, and by His active presence within us, he bears witness (Rom 8:15 and
Gal 4:6). JB: “Through him we stand before God as sons before their father; the love is
mutual. This text therefore, in light of its parallel passages, asserts that the Christian shares
in the life of the Trinity through ‘sanctifying grace.’”
• Note that it is not “our love of God,” but “God’s love of us. The gift of the Spirit is proof of the
outpouring of divine love, signifying the presence of God in the justified believer.
• Jn 16:12-15 Context is the Last Supper Discourse and the tension between Jesus’ desire to
communicate much to his disciples and their present inability – their fragility - to cope with all
the implications of the revelation of God that takes place in Jesus.
• Jn 16:12 The burden of the disciples’ future is a weight they cannot now bear. “The future
will test them in ways that they cannot now anticipate; Jesus, therefore can teach the
disciples nothing more about the future in the present moment” (NIB)
• Jn 16:13 “the spirit of truth”: It is the Holy Spirit who makes fully understood the truth
revealed by Christ. This expression occurs here for the third time. See 14:17 and 15:26
• Jn 16:13 The title “Spirit of Truth” shows the reliability of the Paraclete to guide the disciples
into all truth. “The verb ‘to guide’ occurs only here in John and is compound verb from the
roots ‘way’ (hodos) and ‘lead’ (ago), thus literally ‘lead in the way.’ This verb is used in the
Psalms (LXX) to point to the instructional role of God (PS 25, 5, 9; 85:10) in leading the
community into right and faithful behavior. In Wis 9:11 and 10:10, it is used to describe the
teaching function of Wisdom. This verb thus points to the teaching role the Paraclete will
have in the future life of the faith community. Its combination with ‘truth’ is a direct echo of
14:6, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life,’ and thus specifies the content of the
Paraclete’s teaching. To say that the Paraclete will guide the disciples into all the truth is to
say that in the future the Paraclete will lead the community into the life-giving revelation of
God in Jesus” (NIB).
• Jn 16:13 The Paraclete “will declare to you the things that are coming.” “The verb ‘to
declare’ (anangelo) means to proclaim what has been heard (4:25; 1625) … it is not a verb of
prophecy or prediction, and thus does not describe the Paraclete as one who foretells the
future. Rather, it highlights the proclamatory function of the Paraclete within the
community…the Paraclete thus will proclaim the teachings of Jesus to them in the new and
changing circumstances of their lives. That is, Jesus’ words are not locked in the disciples’
past, restricted to a particular historic moment…the promise is that the presence of the
Paraclete in the life of the community will ensure that all believers’ futures are open to fresh
proclamations of Jesus’ words” (NIB).
• Jn 16:13 While God has been made known to all who have seen Jesus, it will only be in the
Spirit-directed time after Jesus’ departure, that the full implications of this revelation will
unfold. “The journey into ‘all truth’ has not yet been completed, even though Jesus has been
with the disciples as ‘the way.’ He is about to depart, but ‘the way’ goes on. The in-between-
time will be marked by the ongoing presence of the light and the truth of Jesus, through the
presence of the Spirit of truth who will lead disciples unerringly toward the fullness of truth.”
(Moloney)
• Jn 16:13 “Neither Jesus nor the Paraclete is the ultimate source of the revelation they
communicate. Like Jesus (cf. 3:32-35; 7:16-18; 8:26-29, 42-43; 12:47-50; 14:10) the Spirit
will speak whatever he hears” (Moloney).
• Jn 16:14 “He will glorify me” : “The glorification which the Son has from the Father and which
is in turn the glorification of the Father (12:23-28; 13:31) is continued in the Church (14:13)
through the activity of the Spirit which continues the work of Christ. As the existence of the
Church is the result of the shared life of the Father and the Son (3:35, 5:20, 10:30), so its
continuance is the result of the shared life of Son and Spirit” (JBC).
• Jn 16:14 “Jesus’ revealing mission, described biblically as the vision of the doxa (12:43; cf
Exodus 19:16-20; John 2:11; 11:40; 12:23; 13:31), will continue in the revealing mission of
the Paraclete who will take all that is of Jesus and declare it, thus bringing to remembrance
what Jesus has said to the disciples (v. 14, 14:26). But this affirmation calls for further
clarification lest the disciples think that what the Paraclete declares has it source in Jesus.
Both Jesus and the Paraclete are sent by the Father (14:16, 26; 15:26). Jesus states that
everything belonging to the Father also belongs to him. Not only does Jesus receive
everything he has from the Father (5:19, 30), but everything the Father has is his. The
 oneness between Jesus and Father (1:1-2, 18; 10:30, 38) is so complete that what is of the
Father is also of Jesus. Jesus is thus the perfect and ideal revelation of the Father, and
nothing of the Father can be hidden, as Jesus possesses everything of the Father (16:15)”
(Moloney).
• Jn 16:15 “All he tells you will be taken from what is mine” (Jerusalem Bible). By revealing
the hidden depths of the mystery of Jesus, the Spirit makes his glory known. Jesus, in his
turn manifests the glory of the Father (17:4) from whom comes everything he possesses.
See 3:35; 5:22, 26; 13:3; 17:2. “The Father is the source of the revelation communicated by
the Son and brought to completion by the Spirit who is this way glorifies both Son and Father.
There are not three revelations but one.”
• Jn 16:14-15 “Jesus Christ here reveals some aspects of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.
He teaches that the three divine Persons have the same nature when he says that everything
that the Father has belongs to the Son, and everything the Son has belongs to the Father (cf
Jn 17:10) and that the Spirit also has what is common to the Father and the Son, that is, the
divine essence” (Navarre Bible).

• Jn 16:14-15 “The activity specific to the Holy Spirit is that of glorifying Christ, reminding and
clarifying for the disciples everything the Master taught them (Jn 16:13). On being inspired
by the Holy Spirit to recognize the Father through the Son, men render glory to Christ; and
glorifying Christ is the same as giving glory to God (cf Jn 17:, 3-5, 10)” (Navarre Bible).

• John 16 “Jesus’ teaching on the critical presence of the Paraclete over against the sin, false
righteousness, and false judgment of the world (v. 8-11) is new, but it is a logical
development of what he has already said about the inability of the world to receive the
Paraclete (14:17). The Paraclete brings krisis into the world, exposing its darkness (v. 8-11)
as the ongoing presence of the revelation of God in the in-between time (v. 12-15)”
(Moloney).

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• The Lord “completed and perfected Revelation and confirmed it…finally by sending the Spirit
of truth” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 4)
• CCC 234: The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and
life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of
faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the
"hierarchy of the truths of faith." The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of
the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals
himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.
• CCC 240: Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in
being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in
relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the
Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
• CCC 245: The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was confessed by the second ecumenical
council at Constantinople (381): "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who
proceeds from the Father." By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the
 source and origin of the whole divinity." But the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected
with the Son's origin: "The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal
with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature. . . . Yet he
is not called the Spirit of the Father alone, . . . but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son."
The Creed of the Church from the Council of Constantinople confesses: "With the Father and
the Son, he is worshipped and glorified."
• CCC 253: The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons,
the "consubstantial Trinity." The divine persons do not share the one divinity among
themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is,
the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e., by
nature one God." In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): "Each of the persons is
that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."
• CCC 254: The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not
solitary." "Father," "Son," "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the
divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the
Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the
Son." They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who
generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds." The divine Unity is
Triune.
• CCC 255: The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the
divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the
relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the
Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are
called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance." Indeed
"everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship." "Because of that
unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the
Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the
Son."
• CCC 258: The whole divine economy is the common work of the three divine persons. For as
the Trinity has only one and the same nature, so too does it have only one and the same
operation: "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of creation but
one principle." However each divine person performs the common work according to his
unique personal property. Thus the Church confesses, following the New Testament, "one
God and Father from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all
things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are." It is above all the divine missions of
the Son's Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit that show forth the properties of the divine
persons.
• CCC 259: Being a work at once common and personal, the whole divine economy makes
known both what is proper to the divine persons and their one divine nature. Hence the
whole Christian life is a communion with each of the divine persons, without in any way
separating them. Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy
Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit
moves him.
• CCC 260: The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into
the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the
 Most Holy Trinity: "If a man loves me," says the Lord, "he will keep my word, and my Father
will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him."

4. Patristic Commentary
• Theophylact: “And so the Holy Spirit did teach them and remind them: he taught them what
Christ had not said because they could not take it in, and he reminded them of what the Lord
had taught and which, either because of the obscurity of the things or because of the
dullness of their minds, they had not been able to retain.” (Enarratio in Evangelium Ioannis,
ad loc)
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “Since the Holy Spirit is from the Truth, it is appropriate that the Spirit
teach the truth, and make those he teaches like the one who sent him.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “Whatever the Father has the Son has, but not that the Son has it in
the same order as the Father. For the Son has a receiving from another; while the Father
has as giving to another. Thus, the distinction is not in what is had but in the order of having.
Now relations of this kind, that is, of fatherhood and sonship, signify a distinction of order: for
fatherhood signifies a giving to another and sonship a receiving from another.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “We say that the Son receives from (de) the substance of the Father,
that is, he receives the substance of the Father; and we say that the Holy Spirit receives from
the substance of the Father and the Son; and that the Father, by virtue of his nature, gives
his substance to the Son, and the Father and the Son give to the Holy Spirit…Thus what is
communicated to the Holy Spirit is what is common to the Father and the Son.”

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

• Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity: “O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely
so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity.
May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but
may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your
heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there,
but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and
wholly given over to your creative action.”

6. Quotes

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Holy Spirit creates understanding because he is the Love that
flows from the Cross, from the self-renunciation of Jesus Christ.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “Jesus is the source of the Spirit. The more we enter into him, the more
truly we enter into the Spirit, and the more truly the Spirit enters into us. The Spirit is not
visible to us when we turn away form the Son, but only when we turn toward him…The Spirit
is the breath of the Son. We receive him by drawing within range of the Son’s breath, by
letting Jesus breathe upon us.”
• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Spirit has his place at the beginning as the scarcely perceptible
guide and leader of mankind; he leads us to the Son and through the Son to the Father…In
contrast to the names ‘Father’ and ‘Son,’ the name of the Third Divine Person does not
express some specific quality of the Person; on the contrary, it expresses what is common to
all three Persons in God. But in so doing, it gives expression also to what is ‘proper’ to the
Third Person: he is that unity personified. The Father and the Son are one because they are
united in the Third Person, in the fruitfulness of their gift of themselves to one another.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Spirit is likewise the expression of one of the four life-sustaining
elements: the element of air. What this mysterious element means for biological life, that the
Holy One, the Holy Spirit, is for every spirit. Where he breathes, human life can begin,
humanity can exist, God can really dwell…As Christians we must consider it our duty to
preserve the pure air of the Holy Spirit, to prevent pollution of the spiritual environment, and
to create in the faith community oases in which the heart and soul can breathe and breathe
freely.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Spirit…makes manifest to us the unity of the Godhead. To
contemplate him means to overcome our diversity and to recognize the ring of Eternal Love,
which is the supreme Unity. It is impossible to speak of the Spirit without speaking of the
Holy Trinity.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Spirit teaches us to see Christ entirely in the mystery of the
Trinitarian God – as our Way to the Father, with whom he is in a constant communion of
Love. The Holy Spirit points to the Trinity and, precisely for that reason, points to us as well.
For the Trinitarian God is the prototype of a new and unified humanity…the model and
foundation of the Church, which is to bring to fruition the word of creation: ‘Let us make
mankind in our image, according to our likeness’ (Gen 1:26).”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “ How does the Spirit operate? First of all, by bestowing remembrance,
a remembrance in which the particular is joined to the whole, which in turn endows the
particular, which hitherto had not been understood, with its genuine meaning. A further
characteristic of the Spirit is listening: he does not speak in his own name, he listens, and
teaches how to listen. In other words, he does not add anything but rather acts as a guide
into the heart of the Word, which becomes light in the act of listening.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Spirit does not employ violence. His method is simply to allow
what stands before me as n other to express itself and to enter into me. This already entails
an additional element: The Spirit effects a space of listening and remembering, a ‘we,’ which
in the Johannine writings defines the Church as the locus of knowledge. Understanding can
take place only within this ‘we’ constituted by participation in the origin.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The ultimate thirst of men cries out for the Holy Spirit. He, and he
alone, is, at a profound level, the fresh water without which there is no life…The Holy Spirit is
eternally, of his very nature, God’s gift, God as wholly self-giving, God as sharing himself, as
gift. In that sense, the inner reason and basis for creation and salvation history do after all lie
in this quality of being of the Holy Spirit, as donum and datum…He is the content of Christian
prayer. He is the only gift worthy of God: as God, God gives nothing other than God; he
gives himself and thereby everything.”
• Pope Benedict XVI: “The Spirit does not speak, as it were, from himself, but is a listening to
and a making clear of the Son, who in turn does not speak on his authority, but is, as the one
sent by the Father, his distinct presence. The Father also gives himself to the Son so
completely that everything that he has belongs to the Son. Each of the three persons of the
Trinity points to the other two. In this circle of love flowing and intermingling, there is the
highest degree of constancy and this in turn gives unity and constancy to everything that
exists…What sustains us is the movement of heart and spirit that leaves itself and is on the
way to the other.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “The experience of the Spirit, the presence of God in us, in our
innermost being…it turns out that this ‘Spirit’ is not simply identical either with the Father or
the Son, nor is he yet a third thing erected between God and us; it is the manner in which
God gives himself to us, in which he enters into us, so that he is in man yet, in the midst of
this ‘indwelling,’ is infinitely above him.”

• Pope Benedict XVI: “In the one and indivisible God there exists the phenomenon of
dialogue, the reciprocal exchange of word and love. This again signifies that the ‘three
Persons’ who exist in God are the reality of word and love in their attachment to each other.
They are not substances, personalities in the modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure
actuality does not impair the unity of the highest being but fills it out.”

• Pope John Paul II: “Christ has not left his followers without guidance in the task of
understanding and living the Gospel. Before returning to his Father, he promised to send his
Holy Spirit to the Church: ‘But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all I have said to you’ (Jn
14:26). This same Spirit guides the successors of the Apostles, your bishops, united with the
Bishop of Rome, to whom it was entrusted to preserve the faith and to ‘preach the Gospel to
the whole creation’ (Mk 16:15). Listen to their voices, for they bring you the word of the
Lord.” (Homily at Knock Shrine, 30 Sept 1979).

• Bultmann: “The believer can only measure the significance and claims of what he has to
undergo when he actually meets it. He anticipates the future in faith, not foreknowledge.”

Recommended Resources

Aquinas, St. Thomas Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part II Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s
Publications.
Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John (i-xii) in The Anchor Bible, Garden City, NY:
Doubleday & Company, 1966
Francis J. Moloney, SDB, The Gospel of John Sacra Pagina Series, Vol 4, ed. Daniel J
Harrington, Collegeville, MN: the Liturgical Press, 1998.
The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, and Roland Murphy,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1968.
The Navarre Bible: The Gospel of Saint John, Four Courts Press, 2nd ed, 1998.
O’Day, Gail R. “John” in The New Interpretater’s Bible, vol 9, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Introduction to Christianity, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004.
Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Co-Workers of the Truth, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.