Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (2026)
There is an African folktale about three blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time. One grasps the elephant’s tail and declares, “This creature is very like a rope.” Another runs his hand along one of the tusks and insists, “This creature is very like a spear.” Finally, the third man places his hands against the broad side of the elephant and concludes, “This creature is surely a wall.”
Each of the men understood something true about the creature before them. But none of them understood the whole reality.
This classic story says something important about our celebration today. Because Trinity Sunday confronts us with mystery. And mystery is God’s way of keeping us humble. And that humility matters now more than ever.
We live in a world filled with noise—constant commentary, distraction, opinion, and performance. And sometimes all that noise makes it difficult not only to hear God, but even to hear one another.
But some realities are too deep to be mastered or explained away. They can only be received.
And that requires silence.
Not simply the absence of sound, but the kind of interior stillness that allows us to listen—to God, to one another, and even to the deeper longings of our own hearts. And that is important because the mystery of the Trinity is not ultimately a problem to be solved, but a relationship into which we are invited.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity reminds us that the God whom we worship is not solitude.
God is communion.
God exists eternally as relationship:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And that matters because we are created in the image and likeness of that God. Which means that human beings are not made for isolation.
We are made for relationship.
For communion.
For love.
We hear echoes of this throughout today’s Readings…
In the First Reading, Moses stands before God and asks the Lord to remain with his people despite their weakness and sinfulness, saying to God, “Do come along in our company.”
And in the Gospel, we hear some of the most well-known words in all of Scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”
Both Readings reveal something important about the mystery we celebrate today.
The God revealed in Scripture is not distant or indifferent. Again and again, God moves toward humanity in love. And the love we encounter within the life of God is never possessive or self-enclosed. It is always self-giving.
The Scripture scholar Sister Barbara Reid observes, within the life of God there is no “yours” and “mine,” but only “ours.” That vision stands in sharp contrast to so much of human life. Because human relationships can be fragile. We hurt one another. We misunderstand one another. Even people who love each other sometimes struggle to remain close, to remain honest, or to remain present.
Some people accompany us only for a season, yet their presence can continue shaping us long after our paths diverge.
As Henri Nouwen once wrote: “I am deeply convinced that most human suffering comes from broken relationships.” And yet, beneath so much of that suffering remains a deep human desire to be known, loved, and held in communion with others. That longing exists because we were created by a God who is himself communion. And the mystery of the Trinity reminds us that holiness is never merely individual. The longing for communion is deep within us, but communion also requires conversion.
Living the life of God means learning how to remain open to one another in love: to forgive, to listen, to remain present even when relationships become difficult. And this is not easy.
To live in communion requires us to move beyond possessiveness, fear, and the instinct to close in on ourselves. And the mystery of the Trinity reminds us that love remains at the center of reality. That means the quality of our love is never secondary in the Christian life. It reveals something essential about God.
At the same time, this celebration of Trinity Sunday is not simply an invitation to think about God. It is an invitation to live differently because of who God is.
And that is why mystery matters.
Not because mystery keeps God distant from us—but because mystery reminds us that God is always bigger than our categories, our explanations, and our certainties.
The blind men in the story each grasped something true, but none could fully comprehend the mystery before them alone. And wisdom begins when we finally recognize that we do not stand at the center of reality.
God does.
And it is love—not power, fear, or self-protection—that is the heart of the life of God.
God our Father, who by sending into the world
the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification
made known to the human race your wondrous mystery,
grant us, we pray, that in professing the true faith,
we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory
and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Homily prepared for Our Lady of Divine Providence Church and Old St. Mary’s Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
