John 16: 12-15

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason, I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”

Discussion Questions:

1. How would you describe different ways you are guided by the Spirit?
2. Beyond the theological concept of the Trinity, where have you experienced God as a trinitarian relationship in your day-to-day faith journey?
3. When you pray, do you pray to different persons in the Trinity at different times? What guides the focus of your prayer?
4. How would you describe to someone, the way the members of the trinity interrelate?

Biblical Context

Margaret Nutting Ralph
John 16: 12-15

 The scene for today’s reading is once more Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples on the night before he dies. Jesus knows that the disciples are simply unable to understand what he is telling them and that they will be equally unable to understand the events that they will soon encounter: Jesus’ arrest and his scandalous death on a cross.  Jesus acknowledges their inability to understand when he says, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

Once Jesus has departed, how are the disciples to learn the truth?  Jesus assures the disciples that “the Spirit of truth… will guide you to all truth.” We just read, on Pentecost Sunday? John’s account of the disciples receiving that Spirit of truth on the evening of the resurrection when Jesus appears to them: “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit” (John 20:22). In John’s Gospels Jesus fulfills both his promise to return and his promise of the gift of the Spirit on Easter Sunday evening.

Jesus tells the disciples that when the Spirit of truth comes, “he will guide you to all truth” and “will declare to you the things that are coming. “Jesus is not saying that the gift that the Holy Spirit will give to the disciples is knowledge about inevitable future events. The “things that are coming,” in this context, are Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. The disciples will be frightened and disillusioned by these events. Once they receive the Spirit they will understand the events in an entirely new light.

The Spirit of truth will not “speak on his own,” but “will speak what he hears.” Jesus himself is the revelation of the Father’s love. However, the world has not yet understood this revelation or the mighty saving act that the Father has accomplished through Jesus. So, the Spirit will teach the same truth that Jesus has taught to a world that has not yet understood it.

The Spirit will glorify Jesus: “He will glorify me.” As we discussed before, to see Jesus’ glory is to witness Jesus’ saving acts and to witness some visible manifestation of Jesus’ divinity. In John’s Gospel Jesus’ glory is revealed when he is lifted up, both on the cross and in the resurrection (John 12:27-36). The Spirit will glorify Jesus by making the truth about his death and resurrection known to his disciples.

Just before Jesus’ arrest in the garden he showed that he understood that his crucifixion would reveal the Father’s glory.  Jesus said, “ I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? Father, save me from this hour?” But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it and will glorify it again’ ” (John 12:27-28). Unlike Jesus, the disciples will not immediately see Jesus’ glory or the Father’s glory in the “things that are to come,” but with the help of the Spirit of truth they will eventually understand.

Our reading ends with an emphasis on the fact that the Holy Spirit will reveal not a new truth but the same truth that Jesus himself has revealed. Twice Jesus says, “he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” However, the truth that is Jesus’ is also the Father’s. “Everything that the Father has is mine.” On this Trinity Sunday we celebrate the Father, Son, and Spirit, who share the same truth: God is love. The Son has revealed the Father’s love, and the Spirit has continued to teach this revelation through the centuries.

Accepting the Mystery of Trinity

Reflection
John Shea

My first serious run-in with the Trinity came in eighth grade. In religion class the Trinity was explained with images of three pedaled shamrocks and a blanket neatly folded in a threefold way. The phrase I remember that would get you through the test was “three in one.” In a moment of uncharacteristic bravery, I told the religious sister who taught us, “I don’t get it.”

She was waiting for me. She told me I didn’t have to understand it. Moreover, since it was a Mystery, I couldn’t understand it. I countered that if I couldn’t understand it, how could I believe it? How could I give a “firm assent of the mind” (another phrase to get you through the test) to something I couldn’t understand? She said the Mystery of the Trinity was a revealed truth, and we had to believe it for our salvation. But we believe it not because we understand it, but because the church, which is guided by the Holy Spirit, guarantees its truthfulness. The reason you believe in the Trinity is the authority of the church. At least that is what I heard.

She supplemented this approach with a story about St Augustine/ who wrote a profound treatise on the Trinity. As he walked along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, he was pondering the mystery of the Trinity. He came upon a small boy who was carrying a bucket of water from the sea and pouring it into a hole in the sand. Augustine asked. “What are you doing?” The boy replied, “I am pouring the sea into this hole in the sand.” Augustine laughed. “Can’t be done. The sea is too large and the hole is too small.” The boy replied, “So it is with you and The Trinity. The mystery is too large and your mind is too small.” Then the boy disappeared.

The effect of this explanation and story was comforting. I did not have to struggle to understand. The mystery was infinitely beyond not only me but even St. Augustine and, by implication, all finite understanding. Instead, I needed to trust the dogmatic tradition of the church. Even when I studied the history of theological reflection from the elemental trinityarianism of Matthew’s mountaintop commissioning to the mystical connections of John’s gospel to the profound reflections of later theologians, I never quite abandoned this fundamental attitude. The Trinity fell into the category of the old joke. “Of course, I believe it I have no idea what it means, but I believe.” Belief entailed a “sacrificium intellectus”, a sacrifice of the mind. And I was only too ready to make it.

The Trinity entered my life because I belonged to the Christian Catholic Tradition. To belong to a religious tradition is to have a faith delivered to your door. You are taught the formulations of the past because the consensus of your ancestors was that they harbor truths that are essential to your salvation. As someone said, tradition is the best argument we have so far. However, your cooperation is needed if those truths are going to be communicated. The adage is: faith seeks understanding. What is handed on to you wants to be understood. This understanding is not merely logical and rational comprehension. It entails realization and integration. You are to grasp what the dogma is about, allow it to structure your consciousness and guide your actions. The presence of mental confusion does not mean dismissing the project. It is not an excuse for lack of engagement. Eventually reflective believers who are informed by the Christian faith tradition will have to come to grips with a Trinitarian God.

My present path into the Trinity comes through my work in Catholic Health Care. One of the guiding principles of Catholic Health Care is the dignity of the human person. On the clinical level, this principle means each patient is treated with respect no matter what their physical and social conditions. Human dignity is inherent and it does not come and go with circumstances. What this respect entails is spelled out in terms of the inner attitudes and concrete behaviors of the entire staff, especially the medical caregivers. On the organizational level, the principle of human dignity influences how people participate in decisions that affect them, how evaluations are conducted, how dismissals are processed, how diversity is appreciated, etc. Human dignity is consulted again and again as organizational structures are put in place and organizational behaviors encouraged. The emphasis is on the “behavioral entailments” of human dignity. What has to be done so human dignity is honored in action?

This principle of unshakeable human dignity is grounded in the faith conviction that we are made in the image of God. This phrase is usually just stated and not explored. But if we are made in the image of God and this means the Trinity, our personhood and consequently our dignity may be more than we imagine it to be. In the Trinity, three Persons engage in a mutual and self-giving activity that is so complete it makes them a dynamic unity. This activity is characterized as perichoresis, a relational dance. If we are made like this, as persons we are essentially plural, an ongoing interrelating, an interpersonal flow of energy. There is something beautiful about this vision.

However, this is not how we are used to identifying ourselves. We think we are self-enclosed beings who have individual disasters and destinies. We are in competition with everyone else to gain a comparative sense of well-being. Our dignity is always threatened by negative experiences and always compared to the situations of others. But perhaps our dignity, grounded in the three Persons of the Trinity, is essentially social. Perhaps the more profound approach is to situate human dignity as ours, not belonging to each in their solitude but constituted by the loving activity that defines our lives as persons. (For an exploration of how to think about the human person and all creation in terms of being made in the image of the Trinity, see Beatrice Bruteau, The Grand Option. University of Notre Dame Press, 2001; and God’s Ecstasy Crossroad Publishing/1997.)

When I think this way about the Trinity there is a part of me that feels back in eighth grade, overwhelmed by not getting it. I do not understand all it means to be made in the image of the Trinity and I do not know how to integrate it into how I presently live. But it does not produce in me the befuddlement of my earlier experience. It is not simply an unintelligibility I feel helpless about. Exactly the opposite. It is an excitement I am eager to pursue. There is a truth about it I intuit as a next step I may or may not live to take. But the sense of exhilaration in being made in the image of the Trinity comes from escaping the confinement of individualism.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle C, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2006 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.

Spiritual Commentaries and Teachings are excerpted from The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers by John Shea © 2004 by Order of Saint Benedict. Published by Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.