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In this episode of Roadmap to Heaven, host Adam Wright and special guest Father Wade Menezes delve into the profound doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Catholic Church. Father Wade emphasizes that the Trinity is an infinitely mysterious concept and cannot be fully understood or explained. He shares the story of Saint Augustine’s struggle to comprehend the Trinity and seeing a young boy on a beach trying to scoop the entire ocean into his bucket helped him realize its incomprehensibility.
Fr. Wade highlights the significance of the Holy Trinity as the central and fundamental teaching of the Christian faith. He explains that the Trinity represents a communion of persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and believers are called to share in this divine communion. Through Jesus and the Word, God has revealed Himself, allowing us to truly know and love Him.
Citing quotes from saints like Saint Turibius of Montenegro, Father Wade encourages listeners to involve the Holy Trinity in their daily lives. He suggests offering different aspects of life, such as prayer, work, relationships, and hobbies, to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. By doing so, individuals can accomplish more unintentionally than they would otherwise, aligning themselves with the divine will.
Reflecting on the limits of human understanding, Adam likens the understanding of the Holy Trinity to the love between spouses, acknowledging that fully expressing or comprehending that love is beyond our capabilities. He suggests that sometimes it’s best to cease trying to put love into words and simply spend time with the Holy Trinity.
In summary, this episode of Roadmap of Heaven explores the profound and mysterious nature of the Holy Trinity, with Father Wade Menezes shedding light on its significance in the Christian faith and offering guidance on how to involve the Trinity in daily life. Listeners are encouraged to deepen their understanding through various resources and to seek further enlightenment from Father Wade through EWTN’s Open Line Tuesday program.
Adam Wright:
Father Wade Menezes is the author of Catholic Essentials, and before that book came out, in fact, a long while before that book came out, there was this book too, that could be called a Catholic Essentials. It’s Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed, and I brought it with me today because Frank Sheed shares with us the doctrine of the Trinity outlined. More on that in a moment because Trinity Sunday is coming up. And as I said on the show this past Tuesday, there is a lot I could say about the Holy Trinity, and there is a lot that I do not understand about the Holy Trinity, but I do know that per Frank Sheed here in the barest outline, the doctrine contains four truths.
In the one divine nature, there are three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. No one of the persons is either of the others, each is holy Himself. The father is God. The son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. They are not three Gods, but one God. That’s from our good friend, Frank Sheed here. Now if you’re like me and you’re hearing that and saying, “Hold on. There was a lot you just said there, and some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn’t.” Well, we couldn’t get Frank Sheed because he’s been dead for a while, but we could get Father Wade Menezes from the Fathers of Mercy to join us, host of EWTN’s Open Line Tuesday and, Father, it’s good to have you back with us. I imagine you’re going to get some phone calls this week about the Holy Trinity.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
I probably will, and I’m ready for it. You know, the church actually teaches that the doctrine of the most Holy Trinity is an inexhaustible mystery. So for example, if you claim to know everything there is about the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, three divine persons and one God, one God and three divine persons, you’re a heretic because the church teaches you can’t know everything about the Trinity. It’s an inexhaustible mystery. As we progress now through, really, this octave of Pentecost, Pentecost Sunday itself, being the first day of the eight-day celebration, what we call an octant, and Trinity Sunday, being the eighth day, as we traverse through this Octave celebration of Pentecost, it will culminate with the great Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. And that’s what I want to talk a little bit about today for our listeners.
It’s such a beautiful, beautiful doctrine. What we do know about the Blessed Trinity, what has been revealed through the Son, through the sacred scriptures, what the church fathers of the first eight centuries have expounded upon for us. You know, there’s a famous story, speaking of the church fathers, about Saint Augustine following his conversion. He was already made the Bishop of Hippo, of Northern Africa, and one doctrine that just really continued to stump him was the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. He just could not fathom fully the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So one day, he’s taking a walk along a beach and he’s just meditating on the Trinity and beautifully so. And way up ahead, he sees a young boy who has a shovel and a pail. And he sees the little boy going out to the lapping wave, when the wave of the ocean is lapping there on the sand, and he picks up, with his shovel, a scoop of water and then takes it to the pail and dumps it in, then he waits patiently for the next lapping wave to come in. And he takes his shovel again and he picks up some water and then he carries that little shovel of water to his pail, and he dumps it, and Augustine’s watching this as he keeps walking towards the little boy.
Finally, he approaches the little boy and he says, “Young lad, what are you doing?” And the little boy looks up at him and he says, “Why sir, I’m putting the entire ocean in this here bucket.” And Saint Agustine said, “Young man, there is no way ever that you will be able to put the entire ocean in this bucket.” And the little boy looks up at him and says, “And neither will you, sir, ever be able to comprehend fully the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity,” and the little boy vanished. So Saint Augustine believed that that was the adolescent Christ child, guiding him to understand that it is indeed an inexhaustible mystery. But it’s a beautiful story.
And so we may think of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity as something too complicated, or abstract even, to make much of a difference in our day-to-day life, but it is an important doctrine. After all, the church does teach the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is something very important for us because it’s our Triune Godhead that we worship. Yet the catechism states that: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith, and of Christian life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all other mysteries of the faith. The light that enlights all these other mysteries of the faith is the light of the Holy Trinity. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching.” That’s pretty powerful words, and that’s from number 234. Paragraph number 234 at the beginning of the universal catechism of the Catholic Church.
“The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that indeed enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching.” So very, very powerful. And yet it’s an inexhaustible mysterious teaching. In contemplating and loving the blessed Trinity, we behold the truth of who God really is, a communion of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is that mystery and that life that we are called to share in. And I’ll talk more about that in regards to the exitus and reditus doctrine, which I’ll define shortly. The Trinity is who God really is: a real, personal, wise, and loving God. And because He has revealed to us, literally through his Son, who He really is and through His word, we can really speak to Him and really truly love Him. He’s a revealed God.
Saint Turibius of Montenegro, a 16th-century saint, says this: “God is the infinitely perfect being who is the Most Holy Trinity.” Now what a great apologetical answer. If a protestant friend comes up to you, or even a non-Christian friend comes up to you and says, “Hey, Adam. I know you practice your faith really, really well, and you love your Catholic faith and you practice it. For you, Adam, as a Catholic Christian, a Christian specifically a Catholic, who is your God? Who is God for you?” And you can simply answer what Saint Turibius of Montenegro just told us. You would answer that friend, “Me? Personally? As a Catholic Christian? My God is the perfect infinite being who is the Most Holy Trinity.” Because that sums it up.
Adam Wright:
End of discussion, right there.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Right. The infinitely perfect being who is the Most Holy Trade. And Saint Columban, the great seventh-century Abbot, says this: “Who then, is God? I shall tell you who is God. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God. Therefore, do not look for any further answers concerning God.” Great quotes from the saints. That they’re not only summing it all up, they’re telling us, “Look, don’t make extra work for yourself. Alright?” And, I love this now. The famous Benedictine liturgist Dom Ciprian Vagaggini, who wrote beautifully on the liturgy. And, of course, the Benedictine school has given us some great liturgists over the decades.
But he says this: “The way by which God comes to us and we go to God, is left neither to our own, whim nor to our own device. No. But is positively pointed out for us by God himself. It is the law of objectivity. It is what it is. The primary basis of the liturgy, and indeed, of all prayer shows this truth to us. Why? Because God has made manifest to us through His divine revelation, in the sending of His Son, and in a quite detailed manner, how we are to approach this way of communion with Him. Indeed, the communion between God and men. Revelation teaches us in the first place that the God to whom we must go is a God of three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in the second place, this same revelation, the better to illuminate our path, discloses to us a wonderful beam of light which rests upon the whole cycles of what are called ‘relations’ between that trinitarian God and each one of us. To describe this cycle of relations in brief, we can say the following…”
And now I love this, okay? Everything is ordered to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. And we see this especially in the collect prayer at the beginning of Mass, right after the penitential where the priest says, “Let us pray.” And then he goes into the collect prayer after that pause. What was he doing during that pause, by the way, Adam? He was making a mental willed intention, a deliberately willed intention to collect, all the intentions that had been brought to this particular Mass. That’s why it’s called the collect prayer. He’s just collected all the intentions along with his own primary intention for that particular Mass. And here’s the thing. How is the collect prayer always worded if you listen to it? Also called the opening prayer of the Mass, but the official name of it is the collect prayer. It’s always ordered to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
Beautiful, beautiful prayer, the collect prayer. So here now is Dom Vaggagini, the great Benedictine liturgist, explaining these relations of the to, the through, and the in, that all liturgy and all prayer is based upon that God has revealed. He says this: “To describe this cycle in brief, we can say thus. Every good gift comes to us from the Father through the medium of Jesus Christ, His incarnate Son, in the presence of the most Holy Spirit. And, likewise, it is in the presence of the Holy Spirit through the medium of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, that everything must return to the Father. This is the Christological trinitarian activity of sacred history of salvation. Of the plan of God working in the world, a plan given to us by Him Himself. The whole structure of the liturgy presupposes this activity, and without which the liturgy would be incomprehensible.”
What do we mean by liturgy? The celebration of any of the seven sacraments, but in a way par excellence, the most Holy Eucharist and its celebration. Because where the other six sacraments affect the grace signify, the Eucharist not only affects the grace it signifies, the Eucharist is what it signifies. So without these relations of the to, the through, and the in, the three divine persons, to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, the liturgy would be incomprehensible. Okay. So would prayer. So would the sacred incarnation of the Son, right? So this is all very, very important.
Pope Saint Leo the Great says, “Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit.” See? To, through, and in. The church fathers got the memo. Saint Athanasius, 4th century, says this, “The grace and gift of the Trinity are given by the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, and all returns to the Father.” So in other words, the life of the Trinity is truly the whole point of the Christian faith. The goal of every single individual human life. We come from our trinitarian God, and we are called to return back to our trinitarian God. This is the great exitus (“coming out of or out from” in Latin) and reditus doctrine, the great returning to God. Exitus and reditus. Those who have studied theology know this phrase well. Everything comes from God, exitus, and in a certain way, everything returns to God, reditus. Isn’t that beautiful? So this gives us some indication of how we worship or the inner workings of our liturgical worship, and our prayer life: always to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.
Adam Wright:
And if you’re like me and you’re saying, “Wait a minute. Father, you just said a lot here, and this is all over my head. I mean, I think I’m picking up bits and pieces here.” I’m just going to rest assured in something Father said earlier, that these great saints that he quoted are all saying, “Don’t think too much about it. Don’t make yourself work harder than you have to. You’re not gonna fully understand it until, God willing, you experience beatific vision and you are a saint one day.” And then we’ll know.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Exactly. Very true. Very true. And in the meantime, we can do this, though. It’s been said that if you really, truly, sincerely, with purposeful willed intent, involve the three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in your daily life, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose. And I’m a living example of that, because of my schedule. If you truly, sincerely, with purposeful willed intent, involve the three divine persons in your daily life, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose.
So, how about offering the following to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit? For example, your prayer, your work, your recreation and leisure, your family life, your friendships, your marriage, your singlehood, your widowhood, your consecrated religious life. Your Diocesan priesthood, your employment – doctor, farmer, lawyer – doesn’t matter. Offering all things to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, daily with purposeful willed intent. A beautiful, beautiful reality, and a beautiful thought of what we can do to involve the Trinity in our daily life.
And I’d like to say this too, Adam. We’re gonna spend an eternity with God when we make it to Heaven. God willing, we remain faithful. Doesn’t it make sense that if this is going to be the same God you’re gonna spend eternity with that it makes sense, even on a natural plane, that you get to know Him well now, for this average of 78 years? The latest longevity statistics for those of us living in the west. Makes total perfect sense. If we’re going to spend an eternity with Him, we want to get to know Him well now. And that’s something that I often preach to my listeners.
Adam Wright:
I was thinking about our most recent recording. We were talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And how it’s like flexing a muscle. And do you want to wait until you fully understand the trainer, the Holy Spirit, training you in these gifts? Or would you just like to say, “Trainer, I don’t understand everything you’re telling me here, but please help me flex this muscle.” I think it’s good to just start working out now and you don’t have to understand everything fully to do what Father Wade just encouraged us to do. You can go to the Father, through the Son, in union with the Holy Spirit.
Father. actually, that’s a question I want to ask you right now. When we pray at home, say our kids have a test coming up. They’d be really surprised because they’re on summer vacation now, and they thought they were done with tests. But if we said, “Well, let’s pray for that test. Father, we ask you to pour out your graces upon this student who’s getting ready for this test. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, in union with the Holy Spirit.” Could we pray like that at home? Because that sounds an awful lot like how you would pray at Mass.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah. It’s the collect prayer. “Heavenly Father, we humbly ask you… We ask this through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.” The to, through, and in, what are called the relations, between the three divine persons. Three divine persons and one God. One God and three divine persons. Remember the old Baltimore catechism had the wonderful diagram of the Trinity. It had a shape of a shield in the middle, and it simply said, “God” in the middle. And then it said, “Father”, “Son”, and “Spirit” on the outer perimeter of that shield shape that had the word “God” in the middle. And then there was a line going from the “Son” and on the line was written “is” God. The “Holy Spirit” with the line pointing to the center “is” God. And the “Father” with an arrow pointing “is” God. But then, going back to the outer peripheries, there was a line connecting the “Father” to the “Son” and it said, “is not”. So the Father is not the Son. Then there was a line on the outer periphery connecting the “Son” to the “Holy Spirit” with a line, and it said the “Son is not the Holy Spirit”. And then there was that third and final one with the line connecting from the “Holy Spirit” to the “Father” with the “Holy Spirit is not the Father”. But yet each one is God. You know? I remember my young intellect – what was that, maybe eleven, twelve years old? I’m like, “This totally makes sense.”
Adam Wright:
You know, we have that. If you ever visit our beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, underneath the Baldacchino. It’s hard to see if you’re not a priest, or if you’re not the altar server, because of where it’s positioned, but we have that in the mosaics on the bottom side of the Baldacchino over the altar. A professor I had here in St. Louis reminded me of that very diagram and said, “Let’s remember those are two-way streets, that it’s not just the Son is God, but God is the Son.” But I love it. I love that image. I was going to bring it up and here you beat me to the punch, Father.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
A couple more saints quotes that I think are really, really good. We have a whole plethora of saint quotes from the first eight centuries because that’s when the trinitarian doctrine was being resolved and discussed and voted on in councils, in regards to its proper expression. It was believed in, but the question was how to properly express it. Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe, sixth-century bishop, he says, “The most Holy Trinity, the one true God is of its nature, unity, equality, and love. And by one divine activity, this Trinity sanctifies its adopted sons and daughters.” Again, beautiful imagery. And by this one divine activity, this Trinity sanctifies its adopted sons and daughters.
Saint Joannicius, ninth-century religious, says, “My hope is in the Father, my refuge is in the Son, and my shelter is in the Holy Spirit. O Holy Trinity, all glory be to you.” And Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity says, “Oh my three, oh my all, oh my beatitude, oh my three infinite solitude. Oh immensity, in which I lose myself because I cannot fully comprehend you. I bury myself in you and ask you, yourself, to bury yourself in me. I will never fully contemplate you until I finally reach your light, the light of your greatness.” And she’s referring to the beatific vision that you referred to earlier. Once we’re in Heaven, once we are saints, that’s the goal right there. To behold the beatific vision, eternal beatitude. Heaven for all eternity where eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it even dawned on the human mind and heart, what God has prepared for those who love Him.
A famous quote by Saint Catherine of Siena, we can kind of wrap it up with this one, which shows forth the fact that it’s an inexhaustible mystery. Catherine makes this very, very clear. She says this, “O eternal Trinity, you are a mystery as deep as the sea. The more I search, the more I find. And the more I find, the more I search for you. But I will never be left satisfied. No. Why? Because whatever I receive will lead me desiring even more of you.” So there you have it. A great quote that tells us that the trinitarian doctrine is an inexhaustible mystery.
And one final point: we Catholics are big on octaves, right? So this octave currently, from Pentecost Sunday, which closed the 50-day Easter season per se, to Trinity Sunday, is an octave. Then we’ll have the Trinity Sunday octave to Corpus Christi Sunday for those diocese that observe it on the Sunday following the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. We’ll close the octave of Trinity Sunday with the great celebration and Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord.
Adam Wright:
For those of you who are married, think of it like this: have you ever been able to fully express in words how much you love your spouse? If you’re like me, the answer is no. Have you ever been able to fully understand all of the ways your spouse loves you? If you’re like me, the answer to that is also no. And, Father Wade, that’s what I keep thinking of as you bring up all of these inexhaustible things we could say about the Holy Trinity. And sometimes, I’m a smart man when I stop trying to express in words my love to my wife, or to ask her, “Why do you this? Why do you love me like that? What do you mean by that?” But just to be with her. So I love your encouragement today. Maybe stop thinking so hard about this and just spend some time with the Holy Trinity. What was it you said earlier, that we can accomplish more with the Holy Trinity than what we set out to do on our own?
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah, it’s been said that if you truly, really, and sincerely involve the three divine persons in your daily life with willful, purposeful intent, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose. You know, I’ve experienced that time and time again. I think I’m running late to the airport for my next flight out to go preach somewhere. Whether it’s a parish mission or a weekend conference or a weekend retreat, and I get held up in traffic. Only to get a notification from my airline that my flight is postponed by 90 minutes. Everything ends up working out great. You know? So there you have it. Not that we don’t have our crosses. We do have our crosses. We have our trials, our tribulations. But you’d be surprised, if you really, with willful purposeful intent, proactively involve the three divine persons, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose. And that’s a beautiful thought.
You know, I say this as a point of transparent witness, not to boast or pat myself on the shoulder, but really truly, and sincerely I mean this. Ever since I was a layman, I’ve prayed a decade of Glory Be’s a day, for world peace and harmony among nations. Especially for no nuclear war. I’ve done that even since I was a layman, probably in my late teens early twenties. A decade a day of Glory Be’s for world peace and harmony among nations. And that’s just one example of a daily, committed trinitarian devotion that we can take on. The Trinity is such a beautiful doctrine, and the “Glory be to the Father” prayer expresses it beautifully: “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.” And so I’d like to encourage our listeners of this interview to think about taking on a devotion and honor the Trinity. There’s a nine-day novena, I’m sure, you can find online at any reputable Catholic website. There’s no particular one. Find one that appeals to you. There’s novenas to the Trinity. And really foster that love for the most Holy Trinity in your life.
Adam Wright:
Absolutely beautiful, Father. It’s all absolutely beautiful. You know what I’m gonna ask you to do next to close up our time together. Let’s invoke, in prayer, the Holy Trinity.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Amen. Amen. Absolutely. And I do so gladly. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, descend upon all of our Covenant Network radio listeners, and especially those of Roadmap to Heaven, and remain with each and every one of you this day and always. Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons,
Adam Wright:
Pray for us. Well, friends, if you have more questions for Father Wade Menezes, I encourage you to listen to Open Line Tuesday on Tuesday afternoons on EWTN Global Catholic Radio, right here on Covenant Network at 2 pm Central Time. You can call in and ask your question. In the meantime, be sure to check out all of our podcasts and videos with great priests like Father Wade, and great members of the lay faithful as well. You can find us at Our Catholic Media on YouTube or on social media, and, just look up Roadmap to Heaven on your favorite podcast player if you’re not listening to us on a podcast player right now.
In the meantime, Father Wade, thank you so much for being with us today.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Thank you, Adam. God bless you now.
Adam Wright:
Alright. We’re going to take a break here on Roadmap to Heaven. Stay tuned for more.
Adam Wright:
Father Wade Menezes is the author of Catholic Essentials, and before that book came out, in fact, a long while before that book came out, there was this book too, that could be called a Catholic Essentials. It’s Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed, and I brought it with me today because Frank Sheed shares with us the doctrine of the Trinity outlined. More on that in a moment because Trinity Sunday is coming up. And as I said on the show this past Tuesday, there is a lot I could say about the Holy Trinity, and there is a lot that I do not understand about the Holy Trinity, but I do know that per Frank Sheed here in the barest outline, the doctrine contains four truths.
In the one divine nature, there are three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. No one of the persons is either of the others, each is holy Himself. The father is God. The son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. They are not three Gods, but one God. That’s from our good friend, Frank Sheed here. Now if you’re like me and you’re hearing that and saying, “Hold on. There was a lot you just said there, and some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn’t.” Well, we couldn’t get Frank Sheed because he’s been dead for a while, but we could get Father Wade Menezes from the Fathers of Mercy to join us, host of EWTN’s Open Line Tuesday and, Father, it’s good to have you back with us. I imagine you’re going to get some phone calls this week about the Holy Trinity.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
I probably will, and I’m ready for it. You know, the church actually teaches that the doctrine of the most Holy Trinity is an inexhaustible mystery. So for example, if you claim to know everything there is about the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, three divine persons and one God, one God and three divine persons, you’re a heretic because the church teaches you can’t know everything about the Trinity. It’s an inexhaustible mystery. As we progress now through, really, this octave of Pentecost, Pentecost Sunday itself, being the first day of the eight-day celebration, what we call an octant, and Trinity Sunday, being the eighth day, as we traverse through this Octave celebration of Pentecost, it will culminate with the great Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. And that’s what I want to talk a little bit about today for our listeners.
It’s such a beautiful, beautiful doctrine. What we do know about the Blessed Trinity, what has been revealed through the Son, through the sacred scriptures, what the church fathers of the first eight centuries have expounded upon for us. You know, there’s a famous story, speaking of the church fathers, about Saint Augustine following his conversion. He was already made the Bishop of Hippo, of Northern Africa, and one doctrine that just really continued to stump him was the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. He just could not fathom fully the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So one day, he’s taking a walk along a beach and he’s just meditating on the Trinity and beautifully so. And way up ahead, he sees a young boy who has a shovel and a pail. And he sees the little boy going out to the lapping wave, when the wave of the ocean is lapping there on the sand, and he picks up, with his shovel, a scoop of water and then takes it to the pail and dumps it in, then he waits patiently for the next lapping wave to come in. And he takes his shovel again and he picks up some water and then he carries that little shovel of water to his pail, and he dumps it, and Augustine’s watching this as he keeps walking towards the little boy.
Finally, he approaches the little boy and he says, “Young lad, what are you doing?” And the little boy looks up at him and he says, “Why sir, I’m putting the entire ocean in this here bucket.” And Saint Agustine said, “Young man, there is no way ever that you will be able to put the entire ocean in this bucket.” And the little boy looks up at him and says, “And neither will you, sir, ever be able to comprehend fully the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity,” and the little boy vanished. So Saint Augustine believed that that was the adolescent Christ child, guiding him to understand that it is indeed an inexhaustible mystery. But it’s a beautiful story.
And so we may think of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity as something too complicated, or abstract even, to make much of a difference in our day-to-day life, but it is an important doctrine. After all, the church does teach the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is something very important for us because it’s our Triune Godhead that we worship. Yet the catechism states that: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith, and of Christian life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all other mysteries of the faith. The light that enlights all these other mysteries of the faith is the light of the Holy Trinity. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching.” That’s pretty powerful words, and that’s from number 234. Paragraph number 234 at the beginning of the universal catechism of the Catholic Church.
“The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that indeed enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching.” So very, very powerful. And yet it’s an inexhaustible mysterious teaching. In contemplating and loving the blessed Trinity, we behold the truth of who God really is, a communion of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is that mystery and that life that we are called to share in. And I’ll talk more about that in regards to the exitus and reditus doctrine, which I’ll define shortly. The Trinity is who God really is: a real, personal, wise, and loving God. And because He has revealed to us, literally through his Son, who He really is and through His word, we can really speak to Him and really truly love Him. He’s a revealed God.
Saint Turibius of Montenegro, a 16th-century saint, says this: “God is the infinitely perfect being who is the Most Holy Trinity.” Now what a great apologetical answer. If a protestant friend comes up to you, or even a non-Christian friend comes up to you and says, “Hey, Adam. I know you practice your faith really, really well, and you love your Catholic faith and you practice it. For you, Adam, as a Catholic Christian, a Christian specifically a Catholic, who is your God? Who is God for you?” And you can simply answer what Saint Turibius of Montenegro just told us. You would answer that friend, “Me? Personally? As a Catholic Christian? My God is the perfect infinite being who is the Most Holy Trinity.” Because that sums it up.
Adam Wright:
End of discussion, right there.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Right. The infinitely perfect being who is the Most Holy Trade. And Saint Columban, the great seventh-century Abbot, says this: “Who then, is God? I shall tell you who is God. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God. Therefore, do not look for any further answers concerning God.” Great quotes from the saints. That they’re not only summing it all up, they’re telling us, “Look, don’t make extra work for yourself. Alright?” And, I love this now. The famous Benedictine liturgist Dom Ciprian Vagaggini, who wrote beautifully on the liturgy. And, of course, the Benedictine school has given us some great liturgists over the decades.
But he says this: “The way by which God comes to us and we go to God, is left neither to our own, whim nor to our own device. No. But is positively pointed out for us by God himself. It is the law of objectivity. It is what it is. The primary basis of the liturgy, and indeed, of all prayer shows this truth to us. Why? Because God has made manifest to us through His divine revelation, in the sending of His Son, and in a quite detailed manner, how we are to approach this way of communion with Him. Indeed, the communion between God and men. Revelation teaches us in the first place that the God to whom we must go is a God of three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in the second place, this same revelation, the better to illuminate our path, discloses to us a wonderful beam of light which rests upon the whole cycles of what are called ‘relations’ between that trinitarian God and each one of us. To describe this cycle of relations in brief, we can say the following…”
And now I love this, okay? Everything is ordered to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. And we see this especially in the collect prayer at the beginning of Mass, right after the penitential where the priest says, “Let us pray.” And then he goes into the collect prayer after that pause. What was he doing during that pause, by the way, Adam? He was making a mental willed intention, a deliberately willed intention to collect, all the intentions that had been brought to this particular Mass. That’s why it’s called the collect prayer. He’s just collected all the intentions along with his own primary intention for that particular Mass. And here’s the thing. How is the collect prayer always worded if you listen to it? Also called the opening prayer of the Mass, but the official name of it is the collect prayer. It’s always ordered to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
Beautiful, beautiful prayer, the collect prayer. So here now is Dom Vaggagini, the great Benedictine liturgist, explaining these relations of the to, the through, and the in, that all liturgy and all prayer is based upon that God has revealed. He says this: “To describe this cycle in brief, we can say thus. Every good gift comes to us from the Father through the medium of Jesus Christ, His incarnate Son, in the presence of the most Holy Spirit. And, likewise, it is in the presence of the Holy Spirit through the medium of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, that everything must return to the Father. This is the Christological trinitarian activity of sacred history of salvation. Of the plan of God working in the world, a plan given to us by Him Himself. The whole structure of the liturgy presupposes this activity, and without which the liturgy would be incomprehensible.”
What do we mean by liturgy? The celebration of any of the seven sacraments, but in a way par excellence, the most Holy Eucharist and its celebration. Because where the other six sacraments affect the grace signify, the Eucharist not only affects the grace it signifies, the Eucharist is what it signifies. So without these relations of the to, the through, and the in, the three divine persons, to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, the liturgy would be incomprehensible. Okay. So would prayer. So would the sacred incarnation of the Son, right? So this is all very, very important.
Pope Saint Leo the Great says, “Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit.” See? To, through, and in. The church fathers got the memo. Saint Athanasius, 4th century, says this, “The grace and gift of the Trinity are given by the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, and all returns to the Father.” So in other words, the life of the Trinity is truly the whole point of the Christian faith. The goal of every single individual human life. We come from our trinitarian God, and we are called to return back to our trinitarian God. This is the great exitus (“coming out of or out from” in Latin) and reditus doctrine, the great returning to God. Exitus and reditus. Those who have studied theology know this phrase well. Everything comes from God, exitus, and in a certain way, everything returns to God, reditus. Isn’t that beautiful? So this gives us some indication of how we worship or the inner workings of our liturgical worship, and our prayer life: always to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.
Adam Wright:
And if you’re like me and you’re saying, “Wait a minute. Father, you just said a lot here, and this is all over my head. I mean, I think I’m picking up bits and pieces here.” I’m just going to rest assured in something Father said earlier, that these great saints that he quoted are all saying, “Don’t think too much about it. Don’t make yourself work harder than you have to. You’re not gonna fully understand it until, God willing, you experience beatific vision and you are a saint one day.” And then we’ll know.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Exactly. Very true. Very true. And in the meantime, we can do this, though. It’s been said that if you really, truly, sincerely, with purposeful willed intent, involve the three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in your daily life, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose. And I’m a living example of that, because of my schedule. If you truly, sincerely, with purposeful willed intent, involve the three divine persons in your daily life, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose.
So, how about offering the following to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit? For example, your prayer, your work, your recreation and leisure, your family life, your friendships, your marriage, your singlehood, your widowhood, your consecrated religious life. Your Diocesan priesthood, your employment – doctor, farmer, lawyer – doesn’t matter. Offering all things to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, daily with purposeful willed intent. A beautiful, beautiful reality, and a beautiful thought of what we can do to involve the Trinity in our daily life.
And I’d like to say this too, Adam. We’re gonna spend an eternity with God when we make it to Heaven. God willing, we remain faithful. Doesn’t it make sense that if this is going to be the same God you’re gonna spend eternity with that it makes sense, even on a natural plane, that you get to know Him well now, for this average of 78 years? The latest longevity statistics for those of us living in the west. Makes total perfect sense. If we’re going to spend an eternity with Him, we want to get to know Him well now. And that’s something that I often preach to my listeners.
Adam Wright:
I was thinking about our most recent recording. We were talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And how it’s like flexing a muscle. And do you want to wait until you fully understand the trainer, the Holy Spirit, training you in these gifts? Or would you just like to say, “Trainer, I don’t understand everything you’re telling me here, but please help me flex this muscle.” I think it’s good to just start working out now and you don’t have to understand everything fully to do what Father Wade just encouraged us to do. You can go to the Father, through the Son, in union with the Holy Spirit.
Father. actually, that’s a question I want to ask you right now. When we pray at home, say our kids have a test coming up. They’d be really surprised because they’re on summer vacation now, and they thought they were done with tests. But if we said, “Well, let’s pray for that test. Father, we ask you to pour out your graces upon this student who’s getting ready for this test. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, in union with the Holy Spirit.” Could we pray like that at home? Because that sounds an awful lot like how you would pray at Mass.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah. It’s the collect prayer. “Heavenly Father, we humbly ask you… We ask this through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.” The to, through, and in, what are called the relations, between the three divine persons. Three divine persons and one God. One God and three divine persons. Remember the old Baltimore catechism had the wonderful diagram of the Trinity. It had a shape of a shield in the middle, and it simply said, “God” in the middle. And then it said, “Father”, “Son”, and “Spirit” on the outer perimeter of that shield shape that had the word “God” in the middle. And then there was a line going from the “Son” and on the line was written “is” God. The “Holy Spirit” with the line pointing to the center “is” God. And the “Father” with an arrow pointing “is” God. But then, going back to the outer peripheries, there was a line connecting the “Father” to the “Son” and it said, “is not”. So the Father is not the Son. Then there was a line on the outer periphery connecting the “Son” to the “Holy Spirit” with a line, and it said the “Son is not the Holy Spirit”. And then there was that third and final one with the line connecting from the “Holy Spirit” to the “Father” with the “Holy Spirit is not the Father”. But yet each one is God. You know? I remember my young intellect – what was that, maybe eleven, twelve years old? I’m like, “This totally makes sense.”
Adam Wright:
You know, we have that. If you ever visit our beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, underneath the Baldacchino. It’s hard to see if you’re not a priest, or if you’re not the altar server, because of where it’s positioned, but we have that in the mosaics on the bottom side of the Baldacchino over the altar. A professor I had here in St. Louis reminded me of that very diagram and said, “Let’s remember those are two-way streets, that it’s not just the Son is God, but God is the Son.” But I love it. I love that image. I was going to bring it up and here you beat me to the punch, Father.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
A couple more saints quotes that I think are really, really good. We have a whole plethora of saint quotes from the first eight centuries because that’s when the trinitarian doctrine was being resolved and discussed and voted on in councils, in regards to its proper expression. It was believed in, but the question was how to properly express it. Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe, sixth-century bishop, he says, “The most Holy Trinity, the one true God is of its nature, unity, equality, and love. And by one divine activity, this Trinity sanctifies its adopted sons and daughters.” Again, beautiful imagery. And by this one divine activity, this Trinity sanctifies its adopted sons and daughters.
Saint Joannicius, ninth-century religious, says, “My hope is in the Father, my refuge is in the Son, and my shelter is in the Holy Spirit. O Holy Trinity, all glory be to you.” And Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity says, “Oh my three, oh my all, oh my beatitude, oh my three infinite solitude. Oh immensity, in which I lose myself because I cannot fully comprehend you. I bury myself in you and ask you, yourself, to bury yourself in me. I will never fully contemplate you until I finally reach your light, the light of your greatness.” And she’s referring to the beatific vision that you referred to earlier. Once we’re in Heaven, once we are saints, that’s the goal right there. To behold the beatific vision, eternal beatitude. Heaven for all eternity where eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it even dawned on the human mind and heart, what God has prepared for those who love Him.
A famous quote by Saint Catherine of Siena, we can kind of wrap it up with this one, which shows forth the fact that it’s an inexhaustible mystery. Catherine makes this very, very clear. She says this, “O eternal Trinity, you are a mystery as deep as the sea. The more I search, the more I find. And the more I find, the more I search for you. But I will never be left satisfied. No. Why? Because whatever I receive will lead me desiring even more of you.” So there you have it. A great quote that tells us that the trinitarian doctrine is an inexhaustible mystery.
And one final point: we Catholics are big on octaves, right? So this octave currently, from Pentecost Sunday, which closed the 50-day Easter season per se, to Trinity Sunday, is an octave. Then we’ll have the Trinity Sunday octave to Corpus Christi Sunday for those diocese that observe it on the Sunday following the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. We’ll close the octave of Trinity Sunday with the great celebration and Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord.
Adam Wright:
For those of you who are married, think of it like this: have you ever been able to fully express in words how much you love your spouse? If you’re like me, the answer is no. Have you ever been able to fully understand all of the ways your spouse loves you? If you’re like me, the answer to that is also no. And, Father Wade, that’s what I keep thinking of as you bring up all of these inexhaustible things we could say about the Holy Trinity. And sometimes, I’m a smart man when I stop trying to express in words my love to my wife, or to ask her, “Why do you this? Why do you love me like that? What do you mean by that?” But just to be with her. So I love your encouragement today. Maybe stop thinking so hard about this and just spend some time with the Holy Trinity. What was it you said earlier, that we can accomplish more with the Holy Trinity than what we set out to do on our own?
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Yeah, it’s been said that if you truly, really, and sincerely involve the three divine persons in your daily life with willful, purposeful intent, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose. You know, I’ve experienced that time and time again. I think I’m running late to the airport for my next flight out to go preach somewhere. Whether it’s a parish mission or a weekend conference or a weekend retreat, and I get held up in traffic. Only to get a notification from my airline that my flight is postponed by 90 minutes. Everything ends up working out great. You know? So there you have it. Not that we don’t have our crosses. We do have our crosses. We have our trials, our tribulations. But you’d be surprised, if you really, with willful purposeful intent, proactively involve the three divine persons, you can accomplish more by accident than what you set out to do on purpose. And that’s a beautiful thought.
You know, I say this as a point of transparent witness, not to boast or pat myself on the shoulder, but really truly, and sincerely I mean this. Ever since I was a layman, I’ve prayed a decade of Glory Be’s a day, for world peace and harmony among nations. Especially for no nuclear war. I’ve done that even since I was a layman, probably in my late teens early twenties. A decade a day of Glory Be’s for world peace and harmony among nations. And that’s just one example of a daily, committed trinitarian devotion that we can take on. The Trinity is such a beautiful doctrine, and the “Glory be to the Father” prayer expresses it beautifully: “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.” And so I’d like to encourage our listeners of this interview to think about taking on a devotion and honor the Trinity. There’s a nine-day novena, I’m sure, you can find online at any reputable Catholic website. There’s no particular one. Find one that appeals to you. There’s novenas to the Trinity. And really foster that love for the most Holy Trinity in your life.
Adam Wright:
Absolutely beautiful, Father. It’s all absolutely beautiful. You know what I’m gonna ask you to do next to close up our time together. Let’s invoke, in prayer, the Holy Trinity.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Amen. Amen. Absolutely. And I do so gladly. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, descend upon all of our Covenant Network radio listeners, and especially those of Roadmap to Heaven, and remain with each and every one of you this day and always. Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons,
Adam Wright:
Pray for us. Well, friends, if you have more questions for Father Wade Menezes, I encourage you to listen to Open Line Tuesday on Tuesday afternoons on EWTN Global Catholic Radio, right here on Covenant Network at 2 pm Central Time. You can call in and ask your question. In the meantime, be sure to check out all of our podcasts and videos with great priests like Father Wade, and great members of the lay faithful as well. You can find us at Our Catholic Media on YouTube or on social media, and, just look up Roadmap to Heaven on your favorite podcast player if you’re not listening to us on a podcast player right now.
In the meantime, Father Wade, thank you so much for being with us today.
Fr. Wade Menezes:
Thank you, Adam. God bless you now.
Adam Wright:
Alright. We’re going to take a break here on Roadmap to Heaven. Stay tuned for more.
In this episode of Roadmap to Heaven, host Adam Wright and special guest Father Wade Menezes delve into the profound doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Catholic Church. Father Wade emphasizes that the Trinity is an infinitely mysterious concept and cannot be fully understood or explained. He shares the story of Saint Augustine’s struggle to comprehend the Trinity and seeing a young boy on a beach trying to scoop the entire ocean into his bucket helped him realize its incomprehensibility.
Fr. Wade highlights the significance of the Holy Trinity as the central and fundamental teaching of the Christian faith. He explains that the Trinity represents a communion of persons – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and believers are called to share in this divine communion. Through Jesus and the Word, God has revealed Himself, allowing us to truly know and love Him.
Citing quotes from saints like Saint Turibius of Montenegro, Father Wade encourages listeners to involve the Holy Trinity in their daily lives. He suggests offering different aspects of life, such as prayer, work, relationships, and hobbies, to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. By doing so, individuals can accomplish more unintentionally than they would otherwise, aligning themselves with the divine will.
Reflecting on the limits of human understanding, Adam likens the understanding of the Holy Trinity to the love between spouses, acknowledging that fully expressing or comprehending that love is beyond our capabilities. He suggests that sometimes it’s best to cease trying to put love into words and simply spend time with the Holy Trinity.
In summary, this episode of Roadmap of Heaven explores the profound and mysterious nature of the Holy Trinity, with Father Wade Menezes shedding light on its significance in the Christian faith and offering guidance on how to involve the Trinity in daily life. Listeners are encouraged to deepen their understanding through various resources and to seek further enlightenment from Father Wade through EWTN’s Open Line Tuesday program.
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