‘It is customary on Trinity Sunday for bishops to issue a pastoral letter to be read in place of the homily. It is said that this is because bishops fear their priests will lapse into heresy if left to preach themselves. Many priests, true, have a dread of today’s feast, not because they do not believe that God is three-in-one, not because they do not love the trinitarian mystery, but because it is so hard to talk about it. This shouldn’t surprise us. God is by definition greater than anything we can think up or imagine. It is his nature to be transcendent. He reveals himself to us for love, but our minds are inadequate to grasp what is revealed. St Augustine, one of the acutest minds the Church has known, wrote at the end of his treatise on the Trinity: ‘Free me, Lord, from a multitude of words!’ Having written that immortal book, he looked back over it and thought: it would be better to say nothing than to speak so inadequately. We know how he felt. Yet we crave illumination. We wish to comprehend. We have to say something.’ From Entering the Twofold Mystery.