XXIII — THE TRINITY AND US

Presence of God. — O Most Holy Trinity, who delight to dwell in my soul, deign to associate me with your divine life.

Meditation

1 — Jesus came not only to manifest to us the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, but also to put us in relation with the three divine Persons. For us He is not only the Revealer of the Trinity, but the Mediator, the Way, the Bridge that leads us to It and unites us with It. Already to our first parents, created in the state of grace, God had willed to give Himself not only as Creator but as Trinity; sin, however, interrupted this more intimate communication of friendship by which God had willed to treat man not only as creature but as friend, to whom He might unveil the mystery of his intimate life in order to associate him with it. All this would be restored to man, but only after the Incarnation of the Word, when Jesus, the God-Man, would place Himself as Mediator between God and men. By purifying us with his most Precious Blood, Jesus restored to our soul the capacity to receive the divine gift: sanctifying grace, participation in the divine nature and life; and thus He reconstituted us in our original dignity as living temples of the glorious Triad. Therefore, by virtue of his Redemption, Jesus was able to make us this great promise: “If anyone loves me... my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14, 23). These words reveal to us the mystery of the indwelling of the Trinity in our soul, an indwelling that implies a wholly special presence of God in us; this presence is realized only in the soul that loves, that is, in the soul that lives in charity and grace because, as St. John says, “he who abides in charity abides in God and God in him” (1 Jn. 4, 16).

God dwells in the soul in grace as a friend who delights to remain with a friend, to converse with him in sweet familiarity. “Behold,” says the Lord, “I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter in to him and sup with him and he with me” (Apoc. 3, 20).

2 — If you are in grace, God not only dwells in you, but, being the living God, lives in you: He lives his intimate life, Trinitarian life. The Father lives in you, continually generating his Son; the Father and the Son live in you, from whom the Holy Spirit incessantly proceeds. Your soul is the little heaven in which this magnificent divine life unfolds, the life of the Most Holy Trinity. But why does the Trinity live in you if not to associate you with its life, to make you enter into the current of its life?

The Father generates the Son in you and gives Him to you to make you his adopted child precisely in view of Him, his Only-Begotten, who for you became incarnate. The Father and the Son breathe forth in you the Holy Spirit and give Him to you so that He, who is the term and bond of their love and union, may also be the bond of your love and union with Them.

The divine Persons are in you: you welcome Them and associate yourself with their divine life by means of faith and charity. Through faith you believe in Them; through charity you unite yourself to Them. Uniting yourself to the Father, He receives you in his paternal embrace, sustains you by his omnipotent strength, and draws you with Himself into contemplation and love of the Son, “according to what the Son Himself revealed to us: ‘no one can come to me unless the Father draws him’ (Jn. 6, 44). Uniting yourself to the Son, He clothes you with his infinite light, makes you know the Father, covers you with the merits He acquired for you by becoming incarnate, and then draws you with Him into the praise and love of the Father, so that his word is fulfilled: ‘no one comes to the Father except through me’ (ibid., 14, 6).

Uniting yourself to the Holy Spirit, He pours into you the grace of adoption as a child of God, pours into your soul an ever fuller participation in divine life, and then binds you with Himself in ever more intimate communion with the Father and the Son, so that, as Jesus said, you may be “perfect in unity” (ibid., 17, 23).

“O souls created for these grandeurs and called to them!” cries St. John of the Cross with enthusiasm. “What are you doing?” (C. 39, 7). The Most Holy Trinity wills to associate us with its divine life, and shall we turn our gaze elsewhere?

Colloquy

“O eternal Trinity, one God, one in essence and three in Persons! You have made man in your image and likeness, so that by the three powers he has in one soul, he may resemble your Trinity and your Unity. And as he resembles You, so may he also be united to You: that is, by memory may he resemble and be united to the Father, to whom power is attributed; by intellect may he resemble and be united to the Son, to whom wisdom is attributed; by will may he resemble and be united to the Holy Spirit, to whom clemency is attributed, which is the love of the Father and the Son.

“O Father, grant that I may unite my memory to You, remembering always that You are the principle from whom all things proceed. O Son, enlighten my intellect, that I may know all things perfectly according to the order established by your wisdom. O Holy Spirit, grant that I may unite my will to You, loving perfectly that love and that clemency which are the cause of my creation and of every grace given to me, without any previous merit of mine.

“Thanks, thanks be rendered to You, high and eternal Trinity, for so much love You have shown us by giving so sweet a form and powers to our soul: namely, intellect to know You, memory to remember You, will and love to love You above all else! It is only fitting that, knowing You, infinite Goodness, one should love You; and this love is of such power that neither demon nor any other creature can take it from me if I do not wish.

“O power of the eternal Father, help me; wisdom of the Son, enlighten the eye of my intellect; clemency and sweet love of the Holy Spirit, inflame and unite my heart in You.

“O eternal Trinity, my sweet Love, You Light, give me light; You Wisdom, give me wisdom; You supreme Strength, strengthen me! O eternal God, You are the tranquil ocean in which souls live and are nourished, where they find their rest in the union of love” (cf. St. Catherine of Siena).