Trinity Sunday. The Gospel. Matthew 28:18. Monday Meditation Plaine Path-way to Heaven ~ THOMAS HILL 1634

 

Monday Meditation 

In the country of Offaly, at a city or town called Monte Falco, lies the body of the Blessed St. Clare, the first Foundress and Mother of the Nuns of the Order of St. Francis. When the body of this Saint was opened, there were found, as it were, three little round balls of equal bigness, of the substance of flesh or the like. These balls, being weighed one against two, each one weighed just as much as the other two—so that each one in ponderosity or weight was contained in the other two, and each two in the other one.

This miraculous spectacle being known throughout the country far and near, an infinite number of people of all sorts came to see it, who testify it to be true. Diverse pilgrims from foreign countries have likewise found it so.

This may be a notable emblem and example of the Blessed Trinity, unto which this Blessed Saint was exceedingly devoted. Therefore it is to be thought that God honoured her with this famous miracle thereof.

The main difficulty and miracle of the Blessed Trinity consists in this: that as each of those balls in weight, with the other two (and consequently in that respect each one contained in the other two, and each two in the other one), so each Person of the Blessed Trinity, being in nature and essence equal and all one with the other two, is contained in the other two, and each two in the other one. This agrees with those words of Christ to His disciples when they desired Him to show them His Father: “Do ye not believe that I am in my Father, and my Father in me?” (John 14:10–11). As if He should say, “If you believe not this, you believe not aright.” And the like is to be said of the Holy Ghost in respect of the Father and the Son, for they are all one.

To search further into this deep mystery than the Creed of St. Athanasius doth declare and express (unless it be to answer the impugners thereof) is vain curiosity and presumption. We are only to believe it for the authority of the Church, which proposeth it unto us to be believed, “captivating our understanding, as St. Paul termeth it, to the obedience of faith,” and to admire the height and profundity thereof.

Therefore our holy Mother the Church hath appointed for the Epistle of this festival day in the holy Mass these words of St. Paul, admiring this mystery: “O the height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and unsearchable His ways!” (Romans 11). If they are incomprehensible and unsearchable, then it is in vain to search them, but they are to be believed and admired, as St. Paul here does.

To admire it as a mystery far surpassing the reach of human reason (next to believing it) is the greatest honour we can do it.This did St. Jerome unto our Blessed Lady. Entering into a church and saluting diverse Saints whose pictures he passed by with some short salutation and prayer, making a little stand at every one of them, he passed by the picture of our Blessed Lady and never saluted her. There came a voice from the picture demanding of him why he left her unsaluted more than the rest. He burst forth into these words of admiration of her worth: “O sacred and immaculate virginity, with what praises I should extol thee I do not know, because Him whom the heavens cannot contain, thou in thy womb hast contained.”

These words our holy Mother the Church hath put into the Office of our Blessed Lady, making it a Responsory of the first lesson at Matins before Advent. As if by those words of admiration, our Blessed Lady was more honoured than by any words of praise, to the end we might do the like.

The Queen of Sheba could by no words honour and extol the order and majesty of Solomon’s house; nor Queen Esther the greatness and majesty of King Ahasuerus her husband, so much as by being astonished and out of themselves with admiration thereof. King David cried out with admiration: “O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in all the world!” And the Angels admire at the glorious Assumption of our Blessed Lady into heaven in body and soul, and say: “What is she that ascendeth out of the desert of the earth, abounding with such delights!”

Admiration goeth further than words or thoughts, beginning where they fail and can go no further.As St. Leo saith, to be overcome with the greatness and majesty of the mysteries of our Religion, that we cannot comprehend them, is a far greater honour unto us—to have such a high and excellent religion—than to have a religion that we can comprehend by natural reason.

Finally, as we do admire the depth of this mystery of the Blessed Trinity, so may we admire the infinite goodness of the same: that all three Persons would concur unto the salvation of such poor worms as we—the Father to create us of nothing, the Son to redeem us with His most precious Blood, the Holy Ghost to give us grace in the Sacraments and otherwise, to do those things which on our part are to be done.

And whereas we bear the lively image of the Blessed Trinity in our souls by the three-fold faculty of memory, understanding, and will, let us endeavour to employ them all in the honour and service of the Blessed and Glorious Trinity: our Memory to remember Him and all His works, our Understanding to know Him, and our Will to love Him.