June 15, 2025

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity presents us with a central mystery of our Catholic faith, namely, that God is one, and yet a trinity of Divine Persons. Attempts to explain what it means that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit share in divinity while being distinct famously fall short in any number of ways. The greatest theologians in history have wrestled with this concept. In a famous story often retold, St. Augustine had a dream while he was writing a treatise on the subject of the Trinity. In the dream, he walked along the shore and saw a boy scooping handfuls of water from the ocean and dropping the water into a hole he had dug in the sand. When Augustine asked him what he was doing, the boy explained that he was putting the ocean into the hole. St. Augustine told the boy how impossible a task it was, as the ocean was so much greater than the hole in the sand, to which the boy replied, “And you could never understand the Holy Trinity,” and disappeared. On this great solemnity, then, we find ourselves at the point where our intellectual searching meets our human need to contemplate mystery.

In a culture that prefers to explain everything, that loves a rational summation, and that is uncomfortable with the unknown, the word “mystery” can be a challenge. Most mysteries for us are solved by the end of the book, or the end of the movie, or the end of the episode. Unanswered questions leave us feeling dissatisfied. But when it comes to things of God, the word “mystery” has a different meaning. We have, unfortunately, sometimes heard the phrase “It’s a mystery” about elements of our faith and been left thinking that we’re not allowed to wonder or to ask questions. If ever “mystery” has felt like an uncurious approach, I hope that the solemnity we celebrate today serves as an invitation. To contemplate a mystery is to acknowledge that there is something unknown – and perhaps ultimately unknowable – with which we are face to face. This thing, though, will be there no matter what. “Mystery” does not mean “stop looking,” or “stop asking.” God can be known by us, even if our knowledge is limited and imperfect. There are many things that we return to again and again, and our very familiarity helps us appreciate what we know and do not know. You may find this with a particular song or piece of music. It may be a painting or a poem or a favorite book. Perhaps your favorite golf course with all its familiar greens still holds a challenge for you even as it remains familiar. In the same way that we return to these things throughout our lives, so the mystery of the Trinity is meant to be contemplated again and again. God is there, whether we understand or not. We are invited to enter more deeply into the mystery every day.

This solemnity is also the liturgical anniversary of my first Mass, which I celebrated on Trinity Sunday in 2008 (which, that year, was on May 18). For me the priesthood is a mystery, which may seem an odd thing for a priest to say. But these years of priestly ministry remind me that there is always something new, something unexpected, something I could not have asked for or imagined. The late Msgr. Nick Grieco, a priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport and longtime pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Weston, told me when I was a seminarian that the greatest gift he experienced as a priest was the awareness that God was at work. “We hold holy things in our hands,” he said. “Every day, we do and say things and God works through us. If you ever get tired of that, if you ever forget that God is working in ways you cannot understand, watch out. We hold what is holy every day.” Msgr. Grieco’s words ring true for me today. Mystery – whether the mysteries of God or the mystery that is our vocation in life – is not something to run from, but a gift to embrace, a subject for our contemplation and thought, and a meditation to bring before the Triune God we celebrate today.

Peace,

Fr. Sam