Trinity Sunday

It is easy to believe that the Holy Spirit is God, that Jesus is God and that the Father is God. But to explain how in the end there is only one God is difficult, if not impossible.

The crest of Benedict XVI has a clam shell. That is because his favorite theologian and Church Father is St Augustine. How did the clam shell get associated with St. Augustine?

The story says that one day St Augustine was walking along the seashore. He was trying to explain how there can be one God and yet the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. He then saw a boy running to the sea with a shell, scooping sea water and going back and filling a hole with the sea water. St. Augustine passed and then asked the boy: What are you doing? And the boy said: I am going to put all the water of the sea into this hole. St. Augustine smiled, shook his head and said: "But that is impossible!" But the boy replied: "It is no more impossible for me to put all the water of the sea into this hole than for you to be able to explain how there can be one God and yet three divine persons."

The Holy Trinity is not a truth to be explained. It is a truth to be believed in.

But above all the Holy Trinity is Someone whom we adore and with whom we can have a relationship that can grow and deepen. A song puts it this way: "Day by day. Day by day. O dear Lord, three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly day by day."