The most Christian of all Christian truths is the Most Holy Trinity. It is a challenge, believe me. Yet, the more I think about this truth, the more I am convinced that we should make the effort to learn what we can about IT, to see what light there is in IT for us.

It is important to see what light there is in IT because the Most Holy Trinity intimately concerns each one of us. I hope that I possess God's grace, and I hope that each one of you possesses God's grace. If we possess God's grace, then we know from God's revelation that in some mysterious way the Most Holy Trinity dwells in our souls as in a temple. You came here to Mass to worship the Most Holy Trinity. Every prayer is basically a prayer to the Most Holy Trinity. We hope to spend eternity with the Most Holy Trinity.

Our attempt to see what there is to be learned about the Most Holy Trinity will show us that our imagination is of no help. The intellect must go it alone with the aid, of course, of God's revelation. The way into the mystery is through understanding - to the best of our ability - the meaning of the words "nature" and "person".

With regard to the Trinity we say that the one infinite nature is totally possessed by three distinct Persons. Simply because we have never personally experienced such a reality does not in any way imply a contradiction. There are many things that man does not know and even in what he knows there is much darkness. I have told you in the past that THE INFINITE NATURE IS POSSESSED BY THREE DISTINCT PERSONS. Here we must be quite accurate: The three persons are distinct but not separate. AND THEY DO NOT SHARE THE DIVINE NATURE, BUT EACH POSSESSES IT TOTALLY.

We must not say three separate persons, but three distinct persons. Although they are distinct - that is to say, no one of them is either of the others - yet they cannot be separated for each is what He is by total possession of the one same nature: apart from that one same nature, no one of the three persons can exist at all. And we must not use any phrase that suggests that the three persons SHARE the Divine Nature. For in God there is what we call utter simplicity - there are no parts, therefore no possibility of sharing. You immediately see how involved is the study of God Himself, because to understand what we mean by the simplicity of God much more DEEP STUDY is involved.

Summarizing thus far, we may state the doctrine of the Trinity in this way: the Father possesses the whole nature of God as His Own, the Son possesses the whole nature of God as His Own, the Holy Spirit possesses the whole nature of God as His Own. Now, since the nature of any being decides what the being is, each Person is God, wholly and therefore equally with the others. Further, the nature decides what the being can do; therefore, each of the three Persons who thus totally possess the Divine Nature, can do all the things that go with being God.

The three Persons are God, not by possession of equal and similar natures, but by possession of one single nature. They do what three men could not do. Three men could not know with the same intellect and love with the same will. There are Three Persons, but they are not Three Gods. THEY ARE ONE GOD.

We Christians are strict monotheists. The idea of more than one God is utterly repugnant to us. So, each time we recite the Creed, we absolutely affirm this conviction when we say: "I believe in one God."

When you add up all the texts in the Gospels in which Our Lord tells us about the Trinity, it is amazing. From the famous text from St. Matthew: "No one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son, and him to whom the Son shall reveal." Our Lord is telling us here that the Trinity can be known only by revelation - the power of the human mind cannot reach it with the aid of God. We find the truth of SELF-EXISTENCE and the TIMELESS PRESENT OF ETERNITY in the words, "Before Abraham was made, I am." WE SEE EQUALITY OF NATURE in the Father and the son in "All things whatsoever the Father has are mine." Further in Our Lord's telling us, "I and the Father are one." Our Lord instructed the Apostles to, "Baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."