[00:00:05] Hello, my name is Sally Moriarty-Flask. Welcome to: From His Word to Our Hearts, my weekly Bible Study podcast.
[00:00:14] Together we will explore the readings to be proclaimed at the Catholic Mass on Sunday, June 15, 2025, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
[00:00:25] This week's episode is entitled: The Perfection of God, and in these readings, we encounter one of the most majestic yet confounding mysteries of the Christian faith: The Trinity.
[00:00:43] As we journey through the readings this week, consider the following: The perfection of God can be seen in the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinity is made up of three separate persons - the Father, Son, and Spirit - yet they are all one God, they share one divine substance yet are distinct from each other, each is entirely God but all three are in relation to each other. Our challenge as believers is to understand, to the best of our ability, the great mystery that is the Trinity.
[00:01:36] So let's begin…
[00:01:37] In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:01:42] Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for making known to the human race your wondrous mystery, the Most Holy Trinity. May we acknowledge the eternal glory of the Trinity and adore its perfect unity. We ask this through Jesus Christ, your Son, through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:02:13] In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:02:18] Now that we've opened our hearts in prayer, let's listen to what God is telling us in the Scriptures.
[00:02:23] Our Gospel this week is from John 16: 12-15.
[00:02:30] “Jesus [said to his disciples:] ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’”
[00:03:19] We are - technically - in the season of Ordinary Time (the Easter Season came to a close last week with the Feast of Pentecost) but it doesn't look like Ordinary Time - at least not on the weekends - and it won't look like Ordinary Time until July.
[00:03:41] The first two Sundays after the Easter Season draws to a close are dedicated to Solemnities… to great Feasts that commemorate two great mysteries of the Christian faith: the Trinity and the Body & Blood of Christ.
[00:04:02] This first week is devoted to the Most Holy Trinity.
[00:04:06] Although we are in Cycle C - which means we should be hearing from the Gospel of Luke - this Sunday we hear from the Gospel of John.
[00:04:16] This passage is from part III of Jesus' Farewell Discourse at the Last Supper. These are some of Jesus' final words to his disciples before his Crucifixion, and he uses those words to explain to them, albeit somewhat cryptically, what their lives will be like after his Resurrection and Ascension.
[00:04:43] His words have to be a bit cryptic because the disciples haven't yet received the Holy Spirit. So, let's hear what John says Jesus says to his disciples this week…
[00:05:01] “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
Again, the disciples haven't yet received the Holy Spirit.
[00:05:11] This seems utterly confusing to us since we did just celebrate Pentecost last week. But again, Jesus’ words are spoken to the disciples at the Last Supper… Pentecost still hasn't happened for them.
[00:05:32] And because the disciples haven't yet received the Holy Spirit, they are not able to fully understand everything that Jesus has taught them over the past three years. Through his words and his actions, certainly, but also the words that he's saying to them on this occasion.
[00:05:56] They still don't fully comprehend Jesus’ revelation about the Father or even his own identity as the Son… not yet.
[00:06:11] Jesus goes on…
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth;”
[00:06:20] The Spirit of truth, of course, is the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says the Holy Spirit will guide the disciples into all truth… into all those truths that he just said they are not yet ready to hear. But one thing is certain, even if the disciples aren't ready to hear the fullness of truth, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and, as such, his works counteract the work of the devil.
[00:07:00] Because what is the work of the devil? The devil spreads division, deception, and falsehoods - we know that throughout history. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, imparts unity, honesty, and truth.
[00:07:22] And how does he do that?
[00:07:24] By disclosing the full meaning of the Gospel and helping the disciples… down through the centuries. That means us, too! Helping all of Jesus’ disciples to grow in wisdom and love as we grow in our knowledge of God. Those things all go together.
[00:07:48] The more we know about God, the wiser we become and the more able to love. Because he fills us with his love and his wisdom. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is what God intends for us.
[00:08:07] Jesus goes on…
“for he will not speak on his own authority,”
[00:08:14] The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as part of the Trinity; he functions in communion with the Father and the Son as a member of the Trinity; he is a separate person but - at the same time - is in relation with the Father and the Son within the Trinity.
[00:08:49] All of that means that he does not work detached from - nor independent of - the Father and the Son.
“but whatever he hears he will speak,”
[00:09:02] What Jesus means by those words is that the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to reveal truth - is to reveal Christ to the world. Christ Jesus in turn, is the fullness of truth because he reveals the Father to the world.
“and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
[00:09:30] The word declare, that Jesus uses there, has a couple of layers. On one level, Jesus is drawing on Old Testament tradition from the Book of Daniel, where the word declare is used to make the truth of God a spoken reality… whether that truth is God's divine will, his power, his majesty, or his ultimate authority.
[00:10:05] So, Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit will declare to the disciples the truth about God. On another level, the word declare has an eschatological reality - in other words - it is something that sheds light on the end times, that's what eschatology means.
[00:10:29] So, the Holy Spirit will declare the truth about God in the days, months, and years to come, but also the far distant future… something that's still in the future for us… the Second Coming that will take place in God's time, not in a time of our choosing.
[00:10:54] “He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
[00:11:00] The Son - Jesus - glorifies the Father by doing his work and accomplishing his divine will.
[00:11:12] The Father glorifies the Son through the Resurrection and the Ascension. The Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus by making his divine majesty known - to and through the disciples - enabling them to continue the mission Jesus assigns to them.
[00:11:36] “All that the Father has is mine;”
[00:11:40] Those are Jesus’ words: “All that the Father has is mine” and we can add to that... all that the Son has he gives back to the Father.
[00:11:53] And that is that eternal exchange of love and life, between the Father and the Son, that IS the Spirit. Three separate persons, yet all one God with one divine substance.
[00:12:19] “therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
[00:12:25] The Father's love is revealed in Christ… that eternal relationship between the Father and the Son of total self-giving love is revealed in the Holy Spirit.
[00:12:44] The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture for the Gospel of John says that there are two distinct times of revelation.
[00:12:55] The first is the time of Christ, meaning the objective and historical revelation made by Jesus during his earthly existence… his preaching, his actions, his entire public ministry of which the Gospels are our primary pieces of information.
[00:13:18] The second is the time of the Spirit, the time after Jesus' earthly life when the Holy Spirit illuminates the truth of everything Christ revealed.
[00:13:38] That is the time in which we are living. It is the Age of the Church, and the Church is - and will continue to be - guided by the Holy Spirit until Christ comes again.
[00:13:56] The problem arises because we - as a Church - are all sinful people. So, we don't always hear the message properly, we don't always follow faithfully. But the Holy Spirit is always there to guide us.
[00:14:15] We just have to open ourselves to all of the truth that the Spirit is revealing.
[00:14:22] That takes us to our First Reading, which is from Proverbs 8:22-31.
[00:14:30] “[Thus says the wisdom of God:] The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth and its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.”
[00:16:09] The Book of Proverbs is part of the Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament. The other books that make up the Wisdom books are: Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and Sirach.
[00:16:27] The purpose of Wisdom Literature is to preserve the human experience and express it in ways that can be used to better understand life.
[00:16:43] It attempts to explain humanity's origin and destiny, mankind's search for happiness, and the problems of suffering and death… those philosophical and existential questions that all people wrestle with at one time or another.
[00:17:12] And wisdom literature, then, attempts to propose solutions that can shed light on difficult situations.
[00:17:22] Wisdom was often personified as female in the Bible, and there are several reasons behind that.
[00:17:35] First of all, because women were the source of new life, but then they were also seen as household managers, as family counselors, and as primary educators.
[00:17:51] So all of those things put together shaped the reasoning behind why, in a patriarchal society, Wisdom was personified as a female.
[00:18:04] Now that, to me, still sounds like a pretty reasonable job description for a lot of moms.
[00:18:10] While we can ‘sort of’ pat ourselves on the back - as women being the personification of Wisdom - we also have to be very careful and cautious and say: yeah, you know, that doesn't make us any better than anybody else! And… and we can do some boneheaded things at times, too. So, with that in mind, let's look specifically at Divine Wisdom, because that is what we encounter in this passage.
[00:18:42] Divine Wisdom is both the uncreated perfection in the mind of God as well as something present in everything that God does… creates.
[00:18:58] So let's explore this further in Proverbs…
[00:19:04] [Thus says the wisdom of God:]
[00:19:07] In other words, it is Divine Wisdom itself that is narrating this particular passage.
[00:19:14] “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.”
[00:19:23] There are a couple of concepts introduced there. First, that wisdom was the first of God's creative works and, as such, could serve as a coworker in the design and construction of creation. And second, that Wisdom (Divine Wisdom) was not only prior to, but also superior to, creation… to everything that came after.
[00:19:59] “Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.”
Again, there's that declaration that Divine Wisdom came first.
“When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.”
[00:20:22] To understand the next part of this passage, we really have to look back to the book of Genesis.
[00:20:30] And in Genesis we read that on the second day of creation, God tamed the chaos of the waters.
[00:20:41] Wisdom here reminds her audience that she was there before the waters were tamed.
“Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.”
[00:21:04] Again, back in Genesis, on the third day of creation, God made the dry land appear, and Wisdom says she was there first.
[00:21:17] So far, it sort of seems that Wisdom is taking the days of creation chronologically, oh, but wait…
“When he established the heavens, I was there,”
[00:21:30] Okay, we may no longer be chronological. We've either gone back to day two of creation - to when God created the dome of the sky - or else, we are still chronological and we're now on day four of creation, when God placed the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky. So, we kind of have a handle on what we're doing, oh, but wait again…
[00:21:58] “when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command,”
[00:22:17] Okay, we are definitely not chronological anymore because we have absolutely gone back to day three of creation, and we jump again to…
“when he marked out the foundations of the earth,”
So, we're back again to day four.
[00:22:38] The topics and the order that they're being covered here in Proverbs, while they initially appear to align with the days of creation, they are actually arranged more poetically than chronologically.
[00:22:55] Wisdom guides her audience through water to earth to sky, before returning to water and earth. Remember, water was seen as an agent of chaos, Earth was seen as control over chaos, and the sky was seen as the place where God dwelt.
[00:23:24] So, what Wisdom is doing is carrying her audience through from chaos to order to God, and then back to chaos and order.
[00:23:38] Wisdom uses that entire framework to point out specifically that…
“then I was beside him, like a master workman;”
[00:23:52] Which goes back to what I said when we started talking about Proverbs.
[00:23:57] Wisdom served as God's coworker in creation, assisting him in bringing harmony out of chaos… in establishing order over chaos.
[00:24:13] “and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.”
[00:24:28] God created everything and set time and space in motion; humanity is the recipient of all of that goodness.
[00:24:42] Going back to Genesis again, on the sixth day, God created human beings and gave them dominion over all living things.
[00:24:54] That's what Wisdom means when she says she took delight in the sons of men… she took delight in human beings.
[00:25:06] Dominion, as I said, is a word used in Genesis that we often misunderstand.
[00:25:14] It means we should care for creation, not dominate it.
[00:25:21] It means we should show the world the same love, respect, and concern that God did when he created it, not do our best to damage and destroy it.
[00:25:38] That, more than anything, is why humanity still needs the assistance of Divine Wisdom to help us understand our responsibility and gently and sensibly care for the great gift that is God's creation. This reading may seem to be out of place in a feast commemorating the Trinity, but let's look a bit closer.
[00:26:11] While Wisdom is often personified as a woman (I said that earlier), Divine Wisdom is an attribute of God; Jesus, the Logos, is closely associated with the master workman mentioned in this passage, and the gift of wisdom is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, it should be less surprising that this particular passage from Proverbs is included as part of our readings for the Trinity.
[00:26:48] That takes us to our Responsorial Psalm, which this week is Psalm 8, and the refrain is:
“O Lord, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
[00:27:02] And here are the verses:
[00:27:05] “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have established; what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
[00:27:20] “Yet you have made him little less than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”
“All sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea.”
[00:27:50] This Psalm is a Hymn of Praise to the Creator for the wondrous world he brought forth. So, it's easy to understand why this Psalm was paired with Proverbs.
[00:28:03] The Psalmist points out that creation is glorious, but mankind is weak, mortal, and insignificant and yet God still finds humanity precious.
[00:28:23] Angels are celestial beings that serve at God's throne, yet mankind is exalted and elevated, made king and queen of God's creation… not just the earth but its inhabitants as well.
[00:28:43] As I said before, with such authority comes great responsibility.
[00:28:51] Yes, mankind has been given dominion over creation, but the purpose of that is to ensure all of God's creation is appropriately respected and cared for.
[00:29:07] That takes us to our Second Reading, which is from Romans 5: 1-5.
[00:29:14] [Brothers and sisters:] Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
[00:30:10] As I mentioned last week, and on several occasions before that, Romans is an Ambassadorial Letter through which Paul introduces himself to the already established Christian community in Rome.
[00:30:27] In this passage, Paul states that “we are justified by faith,” meaning that we are cleansed of sin and put in right relation with God through our faith in Jesus and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. That may seem like a strange starting point, but we have to keep in mind that - in the preceding verses - Paul has just explained that justification does not come about through works of the Mosaic Law, but it does come about through faith.
[00:31:10] So, that should help us put Paul's starting point in context. Now, since Paul is not addressing a problem in a community he established, he clearly identifies with his audience in this letter rather than being in a position of authority over them. And that is abundantly evident by his use of the pronouns: we, us, or our in this passage… he uses those a total of 12 times in this very short passage.
[00:31:52] So let's go back through exactly what Paul is saying…
[00:31:56] “[Brothers and sisters:] Therefore, since we are justified by faith,”
Again, we are cleansed of our sins by faith in Jesus, not through works of the Mosaic Law.
[00:32:14] “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Not the worldly peace that Caesar can provide - and remember, his audience lives in Rome, so that is a perfectly appropriate comparison for them.
[00:32:35] And what Paul is saying is that this is not earthly peace, but eternal peace. Not peace provided by Caesar over the Roman Empire, but peace that only God himself can provide.
[00:32:53] “Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand,”
[00:32:59] Through the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, we have received the gift of grace - the divine life of the Trinity shared with us.
[00:33:09] “and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”
[00:33:16] Mankind… human beings are the only one of God's creatures that can acknowledge the goodness and love of God and praise him for his glory.
[00:33:31] Remember, God's glory is, first and foremost, about God. Nothing we - or any of God's creatures - can ever do would add to his glory.
[00:33:43] Mankind, however, can share in the glory of God by doing God's will and by growing in virtue. God's glory can help us become better people.
[00:34:01] “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings,”
[00:34:05] Paul proceeds to set up, here, a linear argument building one concept upon another. And he begins by introducing us to what may seem like a strange reason for rejoicing - the idea of suffering.
[00:34:23] That certainly isn't something we typically think of as bringing joy into our lives. I think it's safer to say suffering can be more of an ‘on ramp’ towards something good - it leads us towards something good - and we can then rejoice in anticipation.
[00:34:48] That's one way of looking at it, another way to look at it is to remember that all of our suffering is a sharing in Christ's suffering, and what Christ does with suffering is precisely what enables it to become a path to something good for us.
[00:35:11] Even, dare I say, a path to virtue, if you will.
[00:35:17] We know that a virtue is a habit of doing good and, like any habit, the more we practice it the better we will become at it. That's why Paul says we should rejoice in our sufferings. But, he doesn't stop there…
“knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,”
[00:35:52] There's that logical argument Paul has constructed, brick by brick, leading us on the path toward virtue. So, what is Paul's conclusion?
[00:36:08] “hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
[00:36:25] That is one of my favorite verses in the entirety of the New Testament. It is somehow uplifting, consoling, and reassuring all at the same time.
[00:36:43] All of our readings this week have shed some light on the mystery of the Holy Trinity. And, truth be told, this passage from Romans is the most straightforward presentation of the Trinity that we've heard… so, it's clear why this reading is used for Trinity Sunday.
[00:37:07] All three persons of the Trinity are mentioned in the text - God the Father, Jesus who is the incarnate Son of God, and the Holy Spirit. Three separate persons who are (as Saint Augustine wrote) “not three Gods, but one God.”
[00:37:24] All who share one divine substance, all who are in relation to each other, all who are distinct from each other, and each of whom is entirely God.
[00:37:47] And if you're anything like me, you're likely thinking all of that hasn't really helped… and perhaps it isn't really supposed to.
[00:38:00] Frank Sheed, a 20th century attorney, author, and theologian, wrote that “mystery […] does not mean a truth we cannot know anything about, but a truth we cannot know everything about.”
[00:38:22] So, we know that God is trinitarian. Got that! May not understand the Trinity completely, but I've got that part, hopefully you do, too.
[00:38:34] We also know that “God is love” - we are told that in 1 John 4. And we know that God is perfect because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
[00:38:53] Our readings this week help us to see the perfect love of God that is present in the Trinity. We are then challenged to understand the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity to the best of our abilities.
[00:39:18] And we have to be honest when we say that most of the time those abilities fall short. Perhaps - for now - the best understanding we have is that we have gained entry into the mystery… we have been invited to contemplate the mystery.
[00:39:48] We have been invited to partake of God's perfect love.
[00:40:00] If you would like to reach out to me with questions or comments, send me an email at
[email protected]
Thank you for spending this time with me, and until next we meet may God shower his blessings upon you like a soft and gentle rain and may he hold you, safe and secure, in the palm of his hand.
From His Word to Our Hearts is produced by SFS Audio Solutions.
The content of the show was assembled by me, Sally Moriarty-Flask.
Our music was composed by Jimmy Flask and is used with the permission of the composer. All rights reserved.
Information regarding references used in preparing the exegesis for this podcast is available upon request.
Thank you for listening and God bless.
