Today is a day the Church has set aside to contemplate the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which is “the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God himself. It is, therefore, the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them” (CCC #234). Since “God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him, and so to come to paradise,” we necessarily must be in relationship with the Triune God if we hope to enter the eternal beatific vision in heaven at the end of our earthly life, where we will know him to our fullest potential (CCC #1721). With the Holy Trinity as the central mystery of our faith, anything we believe or celebrate as Catholics finds its origin of truth there and thus helps to facilitate our relationship with all three Persons of the Triune God. With that in mind, let’s look more specifically at how the sacrament of the Eucharist leads us more deeply into relationship with the Blessed Trinity.

Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity and the Word made flesh. He is the only one of the three Persons of the one Triune God who entered into humanity and walked among us. When Jesus returned to heaven at his ascension, the Church he established became the Body of Christ with him remaining the head of it.  Therefore, the divine life of the Trinity is communicated to us through Jesus, as the head of the body. Because the Person of Jesus Christ is so intimately bound up with humanity and the human experience, we are animated by the same divine life with which he is animated. The perfect imagery for this is, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:5). The branches and the vine are the same entity, moving in the same direction, with the same purpose, and producing the same fruit, because they are nourished by the same source. Jesus circulates the divine life and love of the three Persons of the Trinity within us, keeping us moving toward the beatific vision and producing good fruits along the way.

To remain close to all three Persons of the Trinity, we must remain close to Jesus as the transmitter of the divine life. To dwell in Jesus is to be in an intimate relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We do this most actively and tangibly by participating in the sacraments. First, through baptism, we enter the life of Christ, become members of his body, and receive his life-giving supernatural grace. Then, through confirmation, the grace we received at baptism is deepened and strengthened, helping us to perfect the supernatural union we have with God. While both baptism and confirmation are necessary and integral to an intimate relationship with the Triune God, both sacraments may be received only once, and we can lose the grace they confer through mortal sin (unless restored by the Sacrament of Reconciliation). So, knowing our human frailty, God mercifully offers us more sacramental help.

To offer access to a daily source of supernatural grace from a share in the Trinitarian life, our Lord has instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the source and summit of our Catholic life. The Eucharist serves two purposes for our spiritual life: to lead us to perfection and to maintain our union with Christ. Consider the image of a path or a channel connecting the Holy Trinity in heaven to you below on earth. Jesus takes that path, bringing the divine love of the Trinity to man in the Eucharist. Then, purified and strengthened by the grace from the Eucharist and in the company of Christ, your love is better able to ascend back on that path into the divine love of the Trinity and closer toward the beatific vision. It is through Jesus Christ in the Eucharist that both directions on the path between you and the Holy Trinity are open.

As the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus shares in the one divine nature of the three Persons. Therefore, to receive the Eucharist is to be united to the whole Triune God in an intimate way. “Throw melted wax into melted wax, and the one interpenetrates the other perfectly. In like manner, when the body and blood of Christ are received, the union is such that Christ is in the recipient and he in Christ…we have the same body, and the same blood” (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book IV, Chapter 2). In other words, when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we receive his human and divine natures in their entirety, and therefore we receive the entire Trinity. We then become temples of the living God in a very real sense. When we consume the Eucharist, our souls become a sort of heaven in which the Trinity dwells. The same exchange of Trinitarian love that happens in heaven eternally happens within us. What’s more, the souls in heaven and the souls on earth are partaking in the same divine life in that Eucharistic moment. The difference is, that the souls in heaven can see God, while we partake in faith. However, if our faith is strong enough, the effects of our interpenetration with that divine life would be essentially the same, and we would be as transformed as the souls in heaven.

Now, one may ask: once the physical elements of the Eucharist have dissolved and are gone, is our union with the Trinity also dissolved and gone? Once the Eucharist loses the appearance of bread and wine, the humanity of Christ is no longer physically present with us, but his love and grace continuously emanate from the tabernacle we’ve created for him in our hearts. This allows us to maintain an intimate relationship with Jesus in his humanity, even when he is not substantially present within us. No other earthly relationship can match this union, not even that of husband and wife, because Jesus’ sacred humanity enters our bodies and then permeates our very souls with his grace in the Eucharist. Therefore, when the physical Eucharist is no longer present, the relationship remains and longs for the next time it can be consummated in the Sacrament of the Eucharist again.

So long as you remain in the state of grace, the Holy Trinity dwells within you. Each time you receive the Eucharist, it augments and amplifies the presence of the three divine Persons, rather than introducing them anew. Think of it like a surge in an already live electrical circuit. Only mortal sin can destroy this grace-filled union. However, each person’s level of consciousness regarding the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will vary depending on one’s own spiritual journey. The Holy Spirit may very well be living and exchanging love within someone who is not aware of it, or not aware of exactly what that means. However, the Trinity is a dynamic life-and-love-generating relationship among three divine Persons, so, as long as he dwells within someone, the Trinity remains active, hopefully stirring the person to a deeper consciousness and union with him.

The Trinity, as the central doctrine of our Christian faith, is not distant and inaccessible to us. While it is a mystery we cannot completely understand until we are in heaven beholding the Triune God, we can partake in his divine life now through the Eucharist. It is the Person of Jesus Christ who makes our immense intimacy with the Trinity possible as we consume him with both his humanity and his divinity. Contemplate the implications of the Eucharist bringing the entire Trinity within you and penetrating your soul with his love and grace, becoming more closely united to you than you are to anyone else. Ask that your hunger and longing for the Eucharist increase, so you might receive it more often to nourish and sustain you, keeping you close to the Trinity until you behold him in the beatific vision in Heaven.

BACK TO LIST