Today is the fourth day of the octave of Trinity, which is an “extended” celebration for this very important feast (Pentecost had one too). Sunday was the main celebration but the entire week afterwards repeats the very same Daily Office of prayer and meditations, albeit with some variations, in order to more fully appreciate the deeper meaning of the spiritual lesson of the Trinity. As an aside, you might ask why the word “octave” suggests eight days when the prayers last a week. In the ancient tradition of reckoning days, the first day is included. So Trinity Sunday is day one, Monday is day two etc… and the following Sunday is day eight. The spiritual lessons available by contemplation of the Holy Trinity can be esoteric to some so I find that celebrating all eight days of this particular octave to be especially enlightening. Matins of the Divine Office of the Anglican Breviary has this, which upon reflection has deeper and deeper layers of meaning:

Thou O Father art Love; thou O Son Art Grace; thou O Holy Spirit art Communication of Both to the Other and to us, for thou the Blessed Ones art One in Trinity. Fount of Truth art though, O Father; Truth itself art thou, O Son; Giver of Truth art thou, O Holy Spirit for thou the Blessed Ones are One in Trinity…. By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the Breath of his mouth. For his pleasure they exist, and were created. — Antiphons, Versicle and Response for Nocturne III of Trinity Sunday in the Anglican Breviary

Like many other Christians, I struggled with the concept of “Three persons and One God” for a while. A couple of large (arguably) Christian denominations reject the Trinity altogether such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Islam considers the idea that someone could share in God’s divine nature to be polytheism or shirk. So what is so important about the three persons of the Trinity? I’ve posted about the relationship between man and God in Christ here, here and here. So more precisely, what’s so important about the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit?

The best explanation for me is suggested by the passage above, that the Holy Spirit is Communication. If Christ is the embodiment of the ongoing physical bond between man and God, the Holy Spirit is the intellectual bond. The Holy Spirit is something we can fathom and understand, whereas God is absolutely not. As with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is accessible. It was accessible then and is still accessible at this very moment, although maybe not with a rushing wind and speaking in tongues: It’s guiding me as I write this and you as you read it. Put in more mystical terms, Father, Son and Holy Ghost are different expressions and interpretations of the same complete divinity. All are eternal and co-equal but one “begot” the other, to use the words of the Nicene creed. The Son was conceived by the Father, in both senses of the word “conceive”: The son was formed as an idea (as we all are; see “by the breath of his mouth” above), and actually made incarnate. The Holy Spirit proceeds from that divinity, which implies movement towards something. Towards what? Towards us. The Holy Spirit then is the manifestation of this transcendent divinity in and to each of us. If the Father and Son are like our two eyes seeing what is real, the Holy Spirit is the intellect understanding that reality (as much as we are able in the here and now).

I invite you to re-read that passage above because there is more in it than just what I’ve discussed here. I’ll leave you with another gem from yesterday’s Matin lesson:

When a man is ill disposed toward things which can be apprehended by the intellect, he may be justly charged with a want of understanding; but when he refuseth to receive on faith things which cannot be apprehended by the intellect, the charge against him is no longer want of understanding, but lack of belief. — Homilia 27 in Joannem by St John Crystostom