Make an effort to know the Persons of the Trinity

May 24, 2024

The Most Holy Trinity (B)
Readings: Deuteronomy 4:32-34; 39-40; Romans 8:14-17
Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

About 15 years ago, seated silently in Maranatha, I was enjoying the serene peace and quiet next to a small pool with a lotus flower and the sounds of running water, insects, and birds. This setting seemed perfect for deeper prayer and meditation. It was around this moment, while meditating on the love of God with a deep desire to know Him more, that the sounds of birds, insects, running water, and wind started to become harmonious and seemed to converge and move synchronously to an escalating higher pitch, as if leading my spirit to a higher spiritual plane. It was beautiful, and I thought, ‘Wow, what was that?’ But at the same time, I was aware that it was very much the presence of God moving me deeply through nature and my surroundings in the silence.

If I thought that was it, I was in for a greater surprise. Suddenly, I found myself drawn deeper in my imagination towards something more mysterious. In pitch darkness, a great immense door opened with brilliant bright light behind it, and two mysterious but strangely very familiar figures seemed to be moving towards me. I could not see their faces, and yet deep in my heart, I was quite comfortable with them. In a flash, as if shrinking into a child and the two persons being taller than me, I felt I was moving upwards towards the slightly older person and brought closer to his face (although I still couldn’t really see their faces). I was being held very close to the first person while I was busy complaining in anxious frustration, like a child to a father for abandoning me and leaving me all alone in the dark. At the same time, though, I could sense intuitively that while I was complaining like a pouting child, the person like a father was looking at me with great delight and love. He was very pleased to see me and held me close to him, and I felt truly loved. The other person was smiling while looking at me too.

Before I knew it, I was back on the ground, and the two persons went back towards the door, which closed behind them, and the place was pitch black again. Then, another hand held mine, and I could sense a new person suddenly next to me. He was full of light, and both of us were like two children, soulmates, running freely, fearlessly, and joyfully, lighting up the darkness wherever we went. Strangely enough, I could not see any of their faces. I was in tears of joy even as this whole experience played like a movie in my mind, filling my heart with immense love and peace. I was convinced that the first two persons were the Father and the Son, and the third person who stayed with me so that I would not be alone was the Holy Spirit.

To this day, I go back to that memory whenever I need to remind myself of the consolation that God gave me out of His great mercy through a revelation of Himself as three persons who loved me, especially whenever I am feeling alone, fearful, down, depressed, or anxious. It was a grace given to me to know the one God much more intimately than what my intellect could ever hope to figure out just from reading and memorising the catechism’s teaching on the Holy Trinity. It was personal, intimate, intense, and never earned or merited by anything I could do myself, but a grace that God, I believe, thought I needed to experience. If you remember the scene of the Transfiguration, in which Jesus brought the three apostles, Peter, James, and John, up the mountain to pray, they had a very powerful experience of the Holy Trinity which prepared them for the scandal of the cross, of the temporary absence of Jesus from their life in the near future. It was no different for me.

Now, are these experiences only limited to certain people, saints, or special individuals? Certainly not, as the Gospel reading tells us, the apostles baptised in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. All of us who have been baptised have access to all three persons. But do we really believe that? Do we really believe when Jesus said that no one can come to the Father except through Me? Do we really believe Jesus when He said that He will send another Paraclete to be with us and He will lead us into all truth? Unless we take the words of Jesus at their claims, we have not fully accessed and explored our faith to the full. If we have not experienced what Jesus claims, how are we going to go to the ends of the earth to proclaim Jesus and know deep in our hearts and minds that what we believe is true because it IS true? The Father looks at each one of us with great delight and love. As we celebrate Holy Trinity, let’s make an effort to know the Persons a bit more than yesterday, and as we seek, we will find that the Holy Trinity has always wanted to reveal themselves more intimately to each one of us and is waiting for us to take our faith and relationship with them more seriously.