476. The Blessed Trinity (II)

Meditations no. 219 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The Blessed Trinity dwells in our soul in grace.

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The liturgy on this solemnity of the Blessed Trinity brings out the deepest aspect of our union with God. It is God himself who dwells within us, giving us the very charity with which we love him. As St Augustine says, this is the fullness of our joy, than which there is nothing greater: to enjoy God the Trinity, in whose image we have been made. When we know and love someone, that person becomes part of our lives. But through grace God becomes far more intimately part of us: he lives within us, and we possess and enjoy him. His presence in our soul is something real and personal. We are filled with joy as we realize that Jesus’ promise has been fulfilled: If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

The doctrine of God’s indwelling in the soul in grace is not a new one. It’s an ancient doctrine; it has always been taught, our Father commented. And he added: regnum Dei intra vos est (the kingdom of God is in the midst of you). The Holy Spirit is in the centre of our soul in grace, presiding over all our actions, and turning our whole life into something supernatural. Get inside yourselves, then: seek God in your own heart, as St Augustine did. Do you recall? St Augustine looked around everywhere for God, until he heard these words: “Why are you looking for me outside yourself? I am in you, within you.”

The Blessed Trinity came into our lives a long time ago. We were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, the three divine Persons took possession of us, desiring to be more closely united to us than even our most intimate and faithful friends. Perhaps there have been times when we have been stupid enough to reject this presence, by losing the state of grace. But now we can hear St Paul’s words: Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? And we pray that he will stay in our souls for ever, and be the centre of our existence. As St Ignatius of Antioch says: Let us do all that we do, therefore, as though he were dwelling within us - we as his temple, and he within as our God. We want to follow our Father’s advice: May no attachment bind you to earth, other than the divine desire of giving glory to Christ and, through Him and with Him and in Him, to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Responding to this love by seeking a dialogue with God, One and Three.

The presence of the three divine Persons within us is a living presence, open to our friendship, an invitation for us to get to know them and love them in return. St Augustine asks: Why go searching the heights of the heavens and the depths of the earth for him who dwells within us? We need to have a personal, interior friendship with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit, as a channel for our love for God.

Our Lord desires our loving friendship. He is waiting at the door of our soul. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. And so, following the advice our Father gave us, wherever we are, we enter into ourselves, in a spirit of recollection, and we adore God who has deigned to take possession of us. And we start to talk to him quite naturally, just as we would talk to our brother or our friend, or our father or mother, or a neighbour we think highly of; just as we would talk to our love. Talk in a trusting way, and you’ll see how well it works. You’ll have interior life.

God’s presence within us Opens up a world of possibilities. We find that we have opportunities all the time of making acts of faith, hope, and love, as a constant offering to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Let us ask God our Lord for the gift of being able to know him and be on intimate terms with him, so that we can experience the truth of Jesus’ words: the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. This will be the start, here on earth, of habitual union with the Blessed Trinity: a union which will embrace our every thought and desire once we reach our heavenly home.

If the thought ever passes through our minds, in the face of effort or dryness, that we are “play-acting”, our reaction should be to think that the wonderful moment has come to perform a human play for a divine spectator. God is the spectator: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the Blessed Trinity. And together with God our Lord, the Mother of God and the angels and saints will also be watching us.

Talking to each of the three divine Persons individually.

We can learn a certain amount about God through the wonder of the things he has made. But he has chosen to reveal to us in a supernatural way the intimate truths of his Being, so that we may share his own divine life. We can get to know each of the three divine Persons individually. We talk to the Father in heaven when we repeat the words which the Lord Jesus taught the Apostles: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name… We talk to the Son, because we love him on the Cross, and thank him for having redeemed us. We meet him and converse with him in the Gospel, where we contemplate his sacred Humanity. We thank him for his Real Presence in the Eucharist, and his presence in his Mystical Body, the Church. But, our Father added sorrowfully, we hardly ever remember the Holy Spirit; and yet he is the one who acts within our souls in grace. He comes to live in us to make us temples of the Blessed Trinity - although as there is only one God, whenever the Holy Spirit is present in a Christian soul, the Father and the Son are there too. That is why our Father used to advise us to invoke him often. It fills me with devotion to repeat: ure igne Sancti Spiritus! Burn us, Lord, with the fire of your Holy Spirit!

And so we discover how lovingly the three divine Persons take care of us at every moment. You see now how truly it was said, “The Lord takes care of me.” In order to redeem the slave, St Bernard says, the Father does not spare his Son. The Son goes to his death joyfully for us. Together, they send the Holy Spirit; and the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans beyond all utterance.

Under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, through the intercession of our Lady, full of grace, we will try to let the three Persons take complete control over this dwelling in which they have chosen to reside. Who could be a better teacher of love for God than this Queen, this Lady, this Mother who has the closest relationship with the Blessed Trinity: Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son, Spouse of God the Holy Spirit, and who is at the same time our Mother? Almost without our realizing it, as we follow in the footsteps of Christ we gradually become infused into the divine life; and this union with God becomes the source and model of our union with all our brothers and sisters on earth: as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.