Ratzinger, Joseph. Western Culture Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2019.
Part III: 'Responsibility for Peace', Chapter 2: 'Faith in the Triune God and Peace in the World’.
Text of a homily given by Cardinal Ratzinger at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Bayeux (Normandy, France), in June 2004, on the Feast of the Holy Trinity.
Background: commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Allies’ landing on Normandy in the final stages of the II World War.
Holy Trinity, a celebration of ‘the very mystery of God’1 in himself, his very existence.
In antiquity the God of Israel revealed himself as good, merciful and all-powerful, unlike pagan gods and idols, who were cruel mixtures of good and evil.
When Christianity came up it ‘proclaimed the God who, in Jesus, became man, the God who is Love and Reason...mightier than all the dark powers that the world can contain:’2
‘Even today this is a...liberating message with respect to all ancient, traditional religions: no longer is there reason to fear the spirits that surround us on all sides. Anyone who ‘dwells in the shadow of the Almighty (Ps 91:1) knows that he is safe, guarded tenderly by the One who welcomes him and offers him refuge.’3
‘In modern times’, or might we say, in Western societies trapped in the immanent frame, almost totally blocked to the supernatural and therefore to the experience of God, ‘[m]an does not feel free, he does not feel that he is truly himself, until God is set aside.’4 God is perceived as the enemy of man’s freedom and greatness.
But the world has not become brighter, freer and happier once God has been set aside. Man has been ‘stripped of his own dignity and reduced to an empty freedom that makes cruel and ruthless choices of all sorts.’5
In Dostoievsky’s Brothers Karamazov one of the main characters, Ivan, advances the idea that without the belief in God and immortality nothing would be immoral, everything would be permitted, man could with impunity do whatever harm he pleased and there would be no virtue or need of it.6 Sartre summarised this ideas by saying ‘If God does not exist, everything is permitted’ and made that the foundation of his atheistic existentialism philosophy.
And the results have been fully evident in the totalitarian regimes of the XX century and the growing meaninglessness tormenting large segments of affluent Western societies. Solitude and the lack of love affect people of all ages.
In this context God is relevant today too. Jesus has revealed who God is in a very close, human way (‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’, Jn 14:9). He had nurtured himself, studied, prayed, worked. He had a family, relatives, friends, a country. He got tired, upset, angry, happy. He suffered and died to save us and open forgiveness and heaven for us. He has promised to be with us till the end of time (Mt 28:20).
Jesus sent forth the Holy Spirit after his ascension (Acts 2). Ratzinger explains two valid explanations of what the Holy Spirit does by analysing the Latin and Greek translations of the Holy Spirit’s action, his role.
In Latin he is called Consolator,7 the Comforter, ‘the one who stays by us when we feel lonely’.8 ‘By the gift of the Holy Spirit God, God has entered into our loneliness and has shattered it’.9 Ratzinger explains how this understanding about the Holy Spirit motivated Christians to bring consolation to the sick, the suffering and the elderly and thus started hospices and hospitals.
In Greek, the Holy Spirit was described as Parakletos, the Advocate for all of us in contrast with the Slanderer, the Accuser (διάβολος) who is finally thrown down at the end of Salvation History (Rev 12:10). The Holy Spirit is a defender, an advocate of man and creation. God is with us, he shows himself throughout his revelation to Israel first, then fully in Jesus Christ especially through his Passion and Death, and now through the Holy Spirit who guides the Church and each of us if we are in a state of grace.
God the Trinity is ‘an eternal love...based in the reciprocity of the Persons, a love that is the first cause, the origin, and the foundation of all being and of every form of life’.10
You can see Andrei Rublev’s painting and an explanation matching that provided by Ratzinger on this website. For three beautiful encyclical letters on the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit respectively see: Dives in Misericordia, Redemptor Hominis and Dominum et Vivificantem by John Paul II.
Share with the group one idea or image that you thought relevant for our time and its challenges.
How easy or difficult is it to speak about God, and him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to our contemporaries?
Do we reflect on and consider ourselves capable of an experience with the Holy Trinity in our everyday lives?
Ratzinger, Joseph. Western Culture Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2019.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by David McDuff. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
John Paul II. Redemptor Hominis [The Redeemer of Man]. Encyclical letter, 4 March 1979. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
John Paul II. Dives in Misericordia [Rich in Mercy]. Encyclical letter, 30 November 1980. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
John Paul II. Dominum et Vivificantem [The Lord and Giver of Life]. Encyclical letter, 18 May 1986. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Martin, Michael, ed. "Veni, Sancte Spiritus." Translated by John Austin. Preces Latinae. Accessed 11 August 2026. https://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/VSS-2.html.
1 Ratzinger, Joseph. Western Culture Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2019, p. 125.
2 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 126.
3 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 126.
4 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 127.
5 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 127.
6 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by David McDuff. New York: Penguin Books, 2003, 86, 744, 790.
7 This is how the Church sings to the Holy Spirit in the beautiful sequence for the Mass of Pentecost Veni Sancte Spiritus, in which among other things he is called Consolator optime―’the best Consoler’. See: Martin, Michael, ed. "Veni, Sancte Spiritus." Translated by John Austin. Preces Latinae. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/VSS-2.html.
8 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 128.
9 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 129.
10 Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 131.