Sunday was Trinity Sunday. The word Trinity refers to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - and is a word that is used to explain the relationship between the 3. To describe the Trinity as a ‘mystery’ really does not offer a decent explanation. However, a theological ‘mystery’ is defined as something that not only are we incapable of discovering except through divine revelation, but that even when its truth has been fully revealed, we are incapable of fully grasping it. Our understanding can never be any more than partial, even when we fully accept it. This is a concept with which our world struggles – that there is something that is not fully able to be known but it’s OK not to fully understand it.

In Sunday’s gospel, Jesus instructs the disciples to go out to all the nations and baptise them ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ is an instruction that is still being carried on today. Those precise words are used by the priest at every baptism. They are also the words used in the sign of the cross – whether that is a personal, private blessing of oneself or a blessing of a group as in the introductory and dismissal rites as part of a Eucharistic celebration. When we make the sign of the cross, naming each part of the Trinity, we use Jesus’ words.