We celebrate this week what we might call a bridge between two important and related solemnities. This past Sunday, we celebrated Pentecost. This coming Sunday, we celebrate the mystery of the very nature of God in the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Each solemnity stands alone as a foundational element of our faith. 

 

In the case of Pentecost, we celebrate Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit upon His followers and upon the world. With the Ascension, Jesus was taken up to heaven where He is seated at the right hand of the Father, as we profess in the Creed each Sunday. 

 

Jesus prepared His followers by saying that He would go away and then come back for them. He said also that He is with us until the end of the age (Mt. 28:20).

 

It was then the reality of the early Church and our own today to ask how Jesus remains with us until He comes again? In what way is He with us until the end of the age? Is it simply in memory and our encouraging each other with the faithful recitation of the Gospel stories? Pentecost answered that question.

 

With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, something happened that went well beyond mere memory or human encouragement. Men and women were transformed from fearful followers of the Lord to His witnesses to the ends of the earth.

 

At that moment they were given the gifts of wisdom, understanding, and counsel. They were also given the Spirit’s gifts of fortitude, knowledge, fear of the Lord and piety.

 

These gifts are not just a pious list with no practical meaning in the real world. They are gifts given to married couples and families, to our young people who defend their faith when away at college or chatting with friends on a summer afternoon. They are the love of parents for the faith of their children and the ability to sense when our contemporary leaders or celebrities are publicly leading us away from God.

 

The Holy Spirit has also been given to the Church. With the full expression in our Catholic Church, even in spite of scandal and weakness, the presence of Jesus is with us always in the sacraments and our teaching. Nothing could be more practical and real.

 

We cannot understand Pentecost well, however, without the knowledge of the Blessed Trinity. God is greater than we are. So it is not surprising that His nature is different. Jesus told us time and again about His Father, in whose house we wish to dwell. 

 

But He told us also of the Holy Spirit. He linked the Holy Spirit to His Father and to Himself. The Church has come to the faith of God who is at the same time one and yet three persons. To know and love each person is to know and love all three.

 

The Holy Spirit, then, is as real and important as Jesus and the Father. Pentecost is especially linked to the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity by the Holy Spirit.

 

The Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity is also a promise of our future happiness. If we are to be with God for all eternity, we will know Him more clearly as He is. We will never fully understand His nature since we cannot contain His infinite goodness. But by revealing His trinitarian reality, God is saying to us, “Come. This is the love and friendship that awaits you for all eternity.”

 

Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. A great summary to our Lenten and Easter exercise!