St Ignatius had a mystical experience of the Trinity as 3 musical keys… But I also remember something that I read in St Theresa of Avila book ‘The Interior Castle.’ How do you know when you have entered the 7th Mansion. You don’t know the Trinity by the intellect but by a mystical experience. St Augustine saw a little boy (his guardian angel) in a dream putting the ocean in a hole at the beach. St Augustine said that is impossible.. which the angel boy said ‘so is your trying to understand the Trinity.’ That is why Augustine can say ‘if you can understand the Trinity than it is not the Trinity you understand.’ But he does say ‘if you see love you see the Trinity.’ Which makes sense because the Trinity is Love itself. God is love.

So St Theresa writes ‘You know you have entered the 7Th mansion when God shows you by mystical experience the Trinity. She writes ‘ In the mansion everything is different. Our Good God now desires to remove the scales from the eyes of the soul….It is brought into this mansion by means of an intellectual vision, in which, by a representation of the truth in a particular way, the Most Holy Trinity reveals Itself, in all three persons. First of all the spirit becomes enkindled and is illuminated, as it were, by a cloud of the greatest brightness. It sees these three Persons, individually and yet, by a wonderful kind of knowledge which is given to it, the soul realizes that most certainly and truly all these three Persons are one Substance and One Power and One Knowledge and one God alone; so that what we hold by faith the soul may be said here to grasp by sight, although nothing is seen by the eyes, either of the body or of the soul, for it is no imaginary vision. Here all three Persons communicate Themselves to the soul and explain to it those words which the Gospel attributes to the Lord-namely, that He and the Father and the Holy Spirit will come to dwell with the soul which loves Him and keeps His Commandments.’ 

So if you ever wondered if you were in the 7th mansion.. Have you had this experience of the Trinity? If not you are not there yet..Most of trying by God Grace to get through the door.. and hopefully move to the 2nd or third mansion. When we get the 7th mansion we are only a thread always from what we will experience when we see God face to face in Heaven. St Theresa is says that we will experience by faith what we will experience in Heaven when we see God face to face.

We can read St Thomas Aquinas about the Trinity. In fact, I just finished reading a 700 page book of St Thomas study of the Trinity. And yes I learned a lot. But this study reading is only valuable if it helps pave the ground of the soul to experience in our own lives what St Theresa of Avila experience of the Trinity. Only than will we know the Trinity when God reveals himself to us as Father Son and Holy Spirit..Three Persons but One God..