(Audio recorded live, 15 June 2025)

Readings:

Prv. 8:22-31; Ps. 8; Rom. 5:1-5; Jn. 16:12-15

Today, on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we celebrate the mystery of the Triune God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our readings seek to highlight this mystery by focusing on the wisdom of God, personified by the Holy Spirit. The Book of Proverbs says, “The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; from of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.” King Solomon reveals how the wisdom of God exists even before Creation. That is to say, wisdom was with God in the beginning. As it says in the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth—and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters….” (Gn. 1:1-2). The Hebrew word used for wind is ruah, which means “spirit,” “wind,” “breath.” St. Thomas Aquinas describes the Holy Spirit as the breath of love between the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son spirate the Holy Spirit, that is, they breathe forth the Spirit. This breath of God overflows and brings forth all of Creation. As we heard in our psalm last week: “When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps. 104:34). Just as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters at the moment of Creation, so too, does the Holy Spirit continue to breathe life into the hearts of believers. As St. Paul affirms, “In him we live and move and have our being….” (Acts 17:28a).

Perhaps most significant from the passage in Proverbs is the way in which the wisdom of God finds delight in the human race. Man was created in the image and likeness of God. He is a creature comprised of body and soul. We are like unto God because we have a soul, which is pure spirit, just as God is pure Spirit. We are therefore given a share in God’s freedom through the agency of human freewill. And we were set apart from the animals because we were given a rational soul. We have the gift of reason, empowering us to know right from wrong, good from bad. Why might God delight in this? The psalmist says, “What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor.” What tremendous favor our God has shown to us. But, do we deserve it?

When we look to what is happening in the Middle East and Ukraine, the riots breaking out across the country, does humanity deserve God’s favor? Is humanity acting rationally? Or are they merely reacting out of fear? One of the most repeated phrases in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid,” yet, with the passing of each day we walk more and more on eggshells. Is this how those who are little less than angels should act? We all know violence is not the way. But, we also know that many people fail to follow Christ both in heart and in practice. And so, we pray for the people in troubled nations, we pray for our own people, we pray for those displaced by war or violence, and ask the Lord to deliver us from evil, granting peace in our days.

St. Paul reminds us that we have been justified by faith, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The answer, therefore, is the same as St. Peter said to the thousands of Jews on Pentecost: “God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you (both) see and hear” (Acts 2:29). Luke tells us, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, ‘What are we to do, my brothers?’ Peter [said] to them, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit’” (Acts. 2:37-38).

The gift of the Holy Spirit is manifold. Indeed, whenever we pray, we do so in the Spirit, through Christ, to the Father. We also acknowledge that chief among the gifts of the Holy Spirit is wisdom, and we do well to pray, as Solomon did, that the Lord give us this Wisdom, which sits by God’s throne (See Wisdom 9:4).

For those who seek wisdom, Jesus says, “[When] he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth…He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16:13a, 14). And so, we all have a share in the gift of wisdom through the Holy Spirit, who was in the beginning with God. But, this gift comes to us in a particular way. While all the various faith traditions of the world have some glimpse of this wisdom, only the baptized have the fullness of God’s grace. We experience this grace whenever we gather together as the People of God; we experience this grace whenever we celebrate the sacraments; we experience this grace whenever we seek first the Kingdom of God. As St. Paul says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit; whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others. Let us then pursue what leads to peace and to building up one another” (Rm. 14:17-19). Such is the way of the Triune God.