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.

How can God take from what is Jesus’ and declare it to us. This seems impossible considering that Jesus is divine and we are not. How is it that we could do anything that Jesus’s did? But we can, and that in the end is God’s great desire. Imagine that! God is the source of all goodness truth and beauty, and He desires that we all join Him in Heaven for all eternity, and enter into relationship with Him forever. How is this possible?

Let me start by describing love. Love is a gift, freely given and freely recieved. There are many kinds of love, in fact, the greeks have 8 words for love. But the 4 higher loves are represented as an exchange between persons, and a relationship. The 4 high loves are philio, storge, eros, and agape. Philio is the the love among friends. Storge, is the love among family members, Eros, is the deeply intimate, romantic love shared between spouses, and finally Agape is the selfless, sacrificial love given without expectation of anything in return. But all of the first three are shared in relationship between members of those groups, but ultimately, in their highest form, are also in exchange with agape. All love starts as relationship, and as the love grows it becomes selfless, and sacrificial, to the point that the relationship is identified by the love exchanged between friends family, or spouse. But love is ultimately cemented in how it is exchanged with agape.

This exchange, and relationship, is how St. Augustine explained the trinity. The trinity is one of the hardest mysteries of God to understand, and in truth we will never fully comprehend it completely, but that does not mean that we cannot understand anything about it. St. Augustine said that in order to understand the trinity we must start with the mind. God in heaven is a mind and will. He has a perfect mind and a divine will. Thomas Aquinas described this mind and will as not just a being, but being itself. God is, in his most fundamental form, existence, and all things in the universe are held together in existence through His divine will and His perfect mind. This mind and will are what we humans have in common with God, and they are what it means to be made in His image. That we possess a will and a mind of our own but they exist only insofar at they are part of His divine mind and will.

But getting back to Augustine. The mind of God is the source of everything in the universe, it is perfect in every way, and everything that is good, true, or beautiful that we find in the world is poured out from that one source, God Himself. When God thought of Himself considered His being, using His perfect self knowledge of Himself, He recognized the ultimate goodness of Himself, the perfect truth of Himself, and the beauty of Himself and He instantly fell in love. We are talking here about perfect self love, which is actually the beginning of all love. This is NOT narcissism, or self-aggrandizing, We are talking about God acknowledging the good that is inside of His own mind and loving the goodness of it. This external projection of Himself is the second person of the trinity, Jesus, The word incarnate. Jesus is not any less than the Father, He is not created from the Father, He is the perfect, and total reflection of the father in every way. Jesus then, as a separate person, one in being with the father looked back at the Father and recognized the same perfect goodness, and poured out His love back on the Father. That love share between them is the Holy Spirit, the Third person of the Trinity.

The trinitarian relationship and exchange of love is the model for the perfection of love, because God at his ultimate core, is love and the source of all love. He is the perfection of love, and perfect love requires relationship. Love cannot exist without relationship. There must be a giver, a recipient, and the gift exchanged between them, or as Aquinas put it, the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love exchanged between them. If all three are not present, then it is not Love, it is something else, something less. Love without a gift exchanged, is selfishness. Love without a recipient, is just feelings. And love without a giver is just luck. This is why God is a trinity. Because if God is the source of all things, including love, He must exist as a trinity, because it is only in the perfection of this exchange and relationship, that we find real and true love.

So with all that said, here is the most amazing thing…, and this will completely blow your mind. Jesus says the the Holy Spirit will guide you to “all truth”? God, creator of the universe, loves you so much that He is going to send Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, to each and every one of us, to guide us to Himself. As He says in todays reading He is going to take those things that are Jesus’ and declare them to you. Do you know what that means? God, the trinity, the perfection of divine love is inviting you into that same relationship. He wants to pour his love out onto you, totally and completely, and He desires to recieve your love totally and completely in return. WOW!

We humans, instincutually reject that this might be possible. We often think of God like Zues, with his lighting bolts, and his capricious anger. We think to ourselves “How could God care about me?” But He does…, He created you, He knows every hair on your head, and wants only the best for you. He loves each of us so much that He came here to show us that love, and He ultimately died because many could not accept it. But make no mistake, He died for you!

Today, though Jesus is not here in flesh anymore, and so He sends us the Holy Spirit (His complete and total love) as a guide to lead us back into communion with Him. He is infinitely forgiving and merciful, He gives us one chance after another for reconciliation. What did we do to deserve such affection? I dont know, but I am grateful for it. But now that you know about this God, and His endless generosity, what are you going to do? Are you going to go about your day as if nothing has changed, are you going to ignore this, or are you going to radically change your life, and live in gratitude for His great gift and love? This is the call that we are all forced to encounter today, what will you do?

Oh lord, Help me hear the call of your holy spirit, and help me to bring it fully into my life.