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Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the Scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, friends, welcome to Unpacking the Mass. My name is Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we are going to dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Mass. And this week we'll be looking at the readings for the solemnity of the most Holy Trinity. Awesome. And let's begin with what I think is an incredible text. It's found in the book of Proverbs, chapter 8. And this could really, to me, like, I look at this and I think, this is like poetry. This could be song lyrics. This stuff is so cool. How Solomon, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, presents this attribute of God, of wisdom, as though wisdom is like incarnate, like a person. Check this out. This is amazing. Thus says the wisdom of God. The Lord possessed me, the beginning of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago. From of old I was poured forth at first before the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no fountains or springs of water, before the mountains were settled into place, before the hills, I was brought forth. While as yet the earth and fields were not made, nor the first clods of the world. When the Lord established the heavens, I was there when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth, when he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command. Then was I beside him as his craftsman. And I was his delight, day by day, playing before him, all the while playing on the surface of his earth. And I found delight in the human race. That is, I'm telling you, that is super cool. And this attribute of God, wisdom, this idea of wisdom, recognizing that before any of us were even thought of, before the universe was made, before there was a skeptic to say God isn't real. God had already designed everything. God was working. God existed. And I love again how Solomon personifies wisdom in this text. And I just think this is cool. The Bible is cool. Like, this is poetry. It's incredible. Now what this means ultimately, is that nothing is done by accident. When we see the creation and the intricacies of life and we talk about the. The laws of physics and we look at different things that are happening in this world. We recognize how powerful God is and how smart God is. He's bigger than we can ever possibly ask or imagine, my friends. And we recognize the wisdom of God. It all comes from the mind of God. And we get so caught up in little things, my friends, don't we? But God's greatness and wisdom precede it all. And this reminds me of a text in job, chapter 38. Have you ever read this? Where Job is and his friends, they're questioning God and they're. They're basically like God, why is this happening? And Job, you know, of course he's going through this horrible time. And when you go through a horrible time and the universe just doesn't seem right, you can sometimes question, hey, is God even there? If there is a loving God who's all powerful and all knowing, why do these things happen? I don't get it. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever struggled with whether or not God's real? It's one of the fundamental questions that oftentimes drives people away from a belief in God. It's when they look at their circumstances around them or when they filter their recognition or lack of recognition about who God is, when they filter that through their own personal experience. And what I find to be the case is that for some people, when they experience something tough, it just doesn't compute with this idea. That was what was going on with Job. Now, he didn't doubt God's existence, but here's how it says the Lord answers him in job 38, okay, basically he says, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding, who determined its measurements? Surely you know, you know. And then it goes on and on. I won't read all, but if you want to take a look at it, look at at job, chapter 38. It's pretty powerful. It's like God is basically saying, look, you weren't there when I created all of this. You weren't there when I figured out how the universe was going to be. Now, when that comes to our own lives, oftentimes we can say, look, God, I don't get it. But God can say to us, look, my ways are higher than your ways. And when I designed what was going to happen providentially in your life, you know, that was done without your input, really. And you don't have to understand. See, friends, this is where we have to rest in the wisdom of God. This is why, in the solemnity of the most Holy Trinity, we have to recognize the greatness of God and the fact that he's just super smart and things that don't make sense to us will make sense to God because he is wisdom personified. Now, in essence, what is God saying here? He's saying, who are you to question me? That. That can sound kind of harsh, can't it? I mean, it sounds like one of those things where. Because I said so and because I'm your dad and whatever, whatever. And when we experience that in our human relationships, of course that's never something that we go, yeah, okay, that makes sense. No, that's something that we're told when the answer is perceived to be beyond our ability to grasp. You know, like when I was dealing with my kids when they were young and they would say, well, but why can't I do xyz? If I would try to explain it to them, sometimes they could understand it, but sometimes they couldn't. You know, kids sometimes can just think that there's an unlimited supply of money in the world and whatever they want to do, they should be able to do. Why? Because their friends can do it. And when you try to explain it to them and they don't get it, sometimes you fall back on just the truth of because I said so, I know better, and you have to trust me. Now, here's why. Ultimately, that is comforting and not harsh. Because what do we know? Okay, we know that God has made certain things known to us. There are certain things that are unknown to us, like how it all works out, that there's suffering in the world, but that's unknown. But there are certain things that are known to us. And this is what I want to key in on today. What is known to us about God. Hey, God is love. And as we see here in Proverbs, God is wisdom. So if we can't understand how all of the wisdom works, we can fall back on knowing that God ultimately is love. So think about the significance of the things that God allows us to know. Now, it doesn't have to be that way or didn't have to be that way. Okay? Think about how things would be if it were different. If we could understand that there's suffering and whatever, but we didn't understand that God loved us. God is like this. God knew there would be certain things in creation and certain ways of how his wisdom works its way out. That is going to be beyond the scope of humanity and humanity's understanding. And God was okay with that. But what God wasn't okay with was having there be Any ambiguity that he loves us. That's why the Bible tells us plainly God is love. That's why in Romans 8:28, it says, all things work to the good for those who love God and, and are called according to his purposes. And my friends, sometimes when we fall into these things that we don't understand, we have to fall back onto those things that we do understand. I don't understand why God allows mass shootings and disease and abuse and corruption in the church. There are a lot of things I look at and I go, if I was in charge, I probably wouldn't do it that way. But I also know that God is a lot smarter than me and that God loves me and that God loves the world. Now, I could make this personal and talk about things in my own life. You know, things that have happened in my life where I just look at God and say, what is up with this? You know, why did my mom get cancer and die? Why have certain things happened in my life that were just horrible? And I, you know, God might say to me, keith, those answers are beyond your ability to comprehend. But what I want you to understand in the midst of that is that I love you, friend. Can you do that today with whatever you're struggling with? When you think about the Holy Trinity, you have to think about the Trinity not just as this. Oh, well, God's nice. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. But the attributes of God in and of themselves are beyond our ability to comprehend. Built into who God is, is mystery and greatness beyond our ability to grasp. Friends. Okay, but what do we know? We know that God loves us. That is clear as day. So, okay, let's look at our responsorial psalm. Responsorial psalm. It comes from Psalm 8. Oh Lord our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth. When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place. What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the Son of man, that you should care for him? O Lord our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth. You have made him little less than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet. O Lord our God, how wonderful your name. And all the earth, all sheep and oxen. Yes, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, and whatever swims the path of the seas. O Lord our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth. You know, people say, oh, well, how do I know God's real? How do I know what God's like? Look at creation. Look at the intricacies of what he's created. His glory and his power and his wonder are made manifest there. You know, scientists are all the time looking for intelligence out in the universe. They're looking for a signature that shows that there's something out there that's not random. And it's interesting. You know, you ask them, well, how would you know if you discovered intelligent life outside of the universe in the midst of all of this randomness? And they'd say, well, if we ever heard a radio signal or saw something that had some kind of ordered sequence to it, then we would know that we've encountered intelligence. Because in the universe, you don't see all this ordered sequence in these things, you see things that are kind of scattered or whatever. And so they decide that that's the mark of intelligence is ordered sequence patterns, things that aren't. That aren't random. But what's interesting is if you look in a microscope at the helix strand of DNA, what do you see? You see within life, within humanity, you see ordered sequence. You see in this world how things are set up. And it's not by accident. It's not random chance. It's the design of an intelligent creator. I know that's kind of like we're getting into philosophy and all that kind of stuff. That's, that's, that's what I studied in school, you know, and, and. But I think it matters, right? How wonderful is God's name in all the earth? When we see how amazing creation is, it testifies to not just the. And it's beautiful, right? Not just the, the wisdom of God, but the beauty and the creativity of God. Okay, let's look at our second reading, my friends, from the book of Romans, chapter five. I love this stuff. St. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes these words, brothers and sisters. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand. And we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions. Knowing that affliction produces endurance and endurance, proven character and proven character, hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the. Through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Wow. Now, how can we relate to this infinitely wise God? Through faith in Jesus. That's where it comes from, right? We boast in the hope that even in our struggles, because we can see that these struggles will produce good in us. Okay, this is what St. Paul's talking about. He's like, look, we have peace with God through Christ. The Son has come to bring us peace with the Father through faith, friends. But yet in the middle of that, we can rejoice and have hope even when things are tough, because we can see. And this is again, part of the wisdom of God. God allows afflictions and things into our lives to mold us into saints. And how does this work? St. Paul kind of walks us through it, doesn't he? He says that affliction produces endurance. Now, I would say, and I think this is consistent with Paul, with what Paul would say, that that is optional. Just because you encounter affliction does not therefore mean that you will have endurance. You have to persevere. Lots of people encounter affliction, but they don't grow. It's like one of my friends used to say to me all the time, he'd say, pain is mandatory. Growth is optional. And if you think about that in the context of our life and our faith, it's true. We are going to deal with suffering, we're going to deal with affliction. But if we can persevere, then we will get better at it. And that's what endurance is. Endurance is the ability to persevere and to handle that type of affliction. But you can never get to that place where you have endurance if you've never struggled. Just like you can't become a person who is muscular and strong. If you've never broken down your muscle, if you've never put it under stress, if you've never worked, you won't become strong. You'll never be able to run a long race if you've never pushed yourself in pain, right? You might say, well, I've avoided pain. Okay, you can avoid pain to a certain degree, but you're never going to have endurance if you do that. And what St. Paul is saying is, look, this is actually something that we can boast in the fact that this has happened because of why? Because of the glory of God. Okay, we can boast in our affliction. St. Paul said, Now I know we're supposed to be humble, and I'm not. It's not like boasting in how we do. It's like saying, yes, even in this, I can follow God and trust the process here that God is working through us. So endurance is the Result of affliction. And what does endurance do? Okay, it says that it produces proven character. And you just know that to be true, whether you're even a believer in God or not. Someone who has endurance is an inspiration to others. People who have gone through difficult things or who have found a way to endure a tough thing, to accomplish something great, have the respect of people. That is an admirable quality, my friends. It produces that character, the kind of person that stays faithful in trials and can make it through. That's who we all want to be, isn't it? Well, we're never going to get there if we haven't gone through some stuff and endured and figured out a way to do that. Okay, now what's the way to do that? According to this? It's not just by our own personal willpower. It's by faith in Jesus Christ and the inward working of the Holy Spirit in us. This is how we can see this happen, my friends. So character, then. That's the kind of person you are when you have that, that then will produce hope. Now, what does that mean? How can you have hope as a result of this character? Okay, think about the kind of person in your life who, you know, that just has this attitude that is unrelenting, that nothing can stop them. You ever meet somebody like that? Right? When you. When you find a person in your life who they just have this thing going on that they recognize that no one can stop them, friends. That is a powerful thing, isn't it? That's who we want to be. Right? You want to be a person of great hope because that encourages other people around them, first of all. And also that type of hope is going to sustain you all the more through these difficulties, okay? And he says, and that hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Okay? When you have that kind of hope, when you have that kind of relationship with God where you can say, no matter what I'm going through right now, I have hope that this is going to work out. Why? Because my faith is in Jesus Christ. Because the love of God comes to us through the Holy Spirit, friend. This is the Trinity in action, my friends, and it's powerful stuff. Alleluia. Alleluia. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, to God, who is, who was and who is to come. Alleluia. Alleluia. Okay, my friends, let's take a look at the Gospel Today, From John, chapter 16, verses 12 through 15. Jesus said to his disciples, I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it. Now, hold on a minute. I wonder how often God says that to us. I have a lot of stuff I want to tell you, but you're not ready to hear it, man. You're not ready to hear it. Okay, I digress. But when he comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own, but. But he will speak what he hears and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason, I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Now, here we see the inner workings of the Trinity in a powerful way, right? The Son receives what he has from the Father, and the Holy Spirit receives what he has from the Son. And there's this interplay. And I keep track of this. I love this, how the Trinity is referred to. You know, God's preferred pronouns here are rocking with the Trinity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Okay? So when you see this, you recognize the Holy Spirit is not an it. Sometimes people treat the Holy Spirit as though he were some sort of inanimate object or some force that God gives to us. Oh, the Holy Spirit is here and its power. Blah. Don't think of the Holy Spirit that way. The Holy Spirit is a person, a member of the Trinity of God. The Holy Spirit has a personality, has a will, has. Has an interaction with us, okay? That's what Jesus says when he comes. The Spirit of Truth, he will guide you into all truth. So this is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, keep in mind, a lot of people mess this up and they think, well, okay, they read John 16. They're sitting in their bedroom, and they're like, all right, I want to know the truth about Christianity and about faith. And. And Jesus just told me that the Holy Spirit is going to come to me and guide me into all truth. So then they read the Bible, they think about things, they filter everything. They read through their own experience, through what they've been told by others, and they may come up with some stuff that's kind of out there. And when you talk about it with them, they can create their own doctrine and theology and their perspective. And then when you show them, well, you know, what you're talking about here is not really consistent with what Christianity has taught for 2000 years. Well, I Have the Holy Spirit. So therefore, I know the Holy Spirit came to guide me personally into all truth. So, you know, on you. Well, that would. That would be okay if whenever somebody got by themselves and had this moment where they experienced the Holy Spirit, if everything that came to them was consistent with everybody else. But see, that's not what happens. And that's what. That's not what Jesus was doing here. By the way, the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, was given to these apostles, to these people who were the beginning and foundation of the Church. This message was not given to every Joe Schmo who opens her Bible and says a prayer and says, God, show me the truth. Now, that isn't to say that there's nothing valuable about seeking the Lord on your own, but you've got to filter everything through not just your own thoughts, but through what the Holy Spirit has revealed to the Church and through the Church. And this is very important. This is how we as Catholics understand that we have the fullness of faith. Because we connect this with the historical revelation of God to the apostles and the Church that they founded, right, by that Jesus founded through them. They're the foundation of that, my friends. And this is why we know that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth, because this was the promise that Jesus gave them, Right? Think about that. That's so important. So the work of the Holy Spirit is to guide the Church into truth. But then also it says that the Holy Spirit will speak only what he hears. Now, that's like what Jesus said. Remember, he said, he who hears you to the apostles hears me. And. And here's me. Here's the one who sent me. Jesus said, I didn't come to speak my own word. I came to speak the word of the Father. What. What we see in this interplay with the Trinity is this mutual need and this mutual connection, not just in terms of, like, the way that God appears. Remember, this isn't the heresy of modalism, where God just appears in this way over here and appears over here. No, we see this interplay of who God really, truly is and the connection that exists there. So the Holy Spirit is going to testify unto Jesus, Right? It's funny how you see this. Jesus testifies about the Father and the Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and Jesus testifies about the Holy Spirit, and the Father testifies about Jesus. Right? You see how this goes around? I mean, God the Father speaks out at the baptism of Jesus at the transfiguration. This is my beloved Son. So you have the Father giving testimony About Jesus. Jesus, of course, giving testimony about the Father and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit giving testimony about Jesus. Right. This is powerful stuff, my friends. When you think about the Trinity, you have to understand that the Trinity is beyond our ability to comprehend, but in its intricacy and how it all works. But in the same way it, it's right there for us to experience. Right. This understanding. Right. The Trinity is, is not something that we were meant to solve like a puzzle or explain in a children's time in church. You know, we've all seen those things. Oh, you know, God, the Trinity is like an egg. You've got the shell, the yolk and the white. Well, all right. I mean, every time you've, you've heard some kind of explanation like that to simplify it, ultimately you're going to wind up, if you follow that all the way to the logical extent, into some form of heresy. The Trinity isn't an idea for you to study. The Trinity is a person for you to have relationship with. And I think that's important. Remember, this is all about who God is and how God has revealed himself to all of us so that we can have fellowship with God. Now, what does that look like for you and I to experience that? You know, why does God reveal Himself in this way? Well, obviously because it's what's true and because this is ultimately what we need to help us. So what does it look like for you? You know, you may encounter times in your life when it's when you find a greater need for an emphasis on God the Father. And there may be times when you relate to God more through the second Person of the Trinity, of course, through the Son who was given for us as a ransom. And then there may be times in your life when you feel most connected to God, the Holy Spirit. Friends, recognize this. These aren't separate Gods. Okay? This is all working together. And you don't pit the Trinity against itself or himself, however you want to describe that. And you don't pit the Trinity against himself. It doesn't work that way. But God has given to us this understanding of the Trinity as a way for us to relate more to who God is. So are you a person today who needs to recognize what we read in the first reading today that, hey, I don't get it, but God is infinitely wise, I need that. Or are you a person today that needs to have peace with God through faith in Jesus like our second reading talked about? Look, this is. We're justified by faith, so I need peace with God. You're out of sorts and you're like, how can I have peace with God through Jesus Christ? Put your faith in him and help him build you up as saints? Or are you in a place in your life where you're like, man, I just need to know that what I believe is the truth. Lean on the Holy Spirit. It's all going to work together, my friends, Powerful stuff. And I give thanks to God that our God isn't able to be contained within the minds of human beings. I mean, if that were true, that we could comprehend God fully, then what would that prove? It would prove that we're just as smart as God is. Okay, which, that isn't the kind of God I want to serve. What about you? But the fact that God in and of himself, even in the nature of God's existence as a Trinity, is beyond our finite human minds to comprehend. Friends, what person would have made up a religion like that? You know, you'd want to explain everything perfectly, but that's not where this came from. It's been revealed to us. Friends, let that strengthen your faith today. Let that reality of the Trinity cause you to fall more deeply in love with God. And may God bless you today and open your mind to the realities of who God is. My friends, thank you so much for joining me here on Unpacking the Mass. I hope this has been helpful to you. I'm so thankful that we've had this time together. Please share this video or podcast, leave a rating for us and let people know about it, my friends, so that we can together see more and more people opening the word of God and having ears to hear and a heart to receive what the Lord would speak to us as we encounter God in the Mass. Thank you so much, my friends. Take care and God bless.