An image of the Trinity in Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
Throughout the Western Church, we are marking Sunday next [16 June 2019] as Trinity Sunday.
The doctrine of the Trinity was proclaimed to the world after the first great Pentecost. So, it is fitting that the feast of the Trinity follows immediately after that of Pentecost. However, this tradition of observing the First Sunday after Pentecost as Trinity Sunday has unique roots in the Anglican tradition.
The
Book of Common Prayer (2004) says Trinity Sunday is marked in the Church of Ireland as one of the ‘principal holy days which are to be observed.’ On this day, ‘it is fitting that the Holy Communion be celebrated in every cathedral and parish church or in a church within a parochial union or group of parishes.’ It says the liturgical provisions for this day ‘may not be displaced by any other observance’ (p. 18).
The appointed readings for Trinity Sunday [Year C] are:
The Readings: Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5: 1-5; John 16: 12-15.
There is a link to the readings
HERE.
Inside the chapel in Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Observing Trinity Sunday
Following the pre-Reformation Sarum use, both the Church of Ireland and the Church of England name the Sundays that follow this Sunday as ‘Sundays after Trinity.’ However, in the US the Episcopal Church (TEC) now follows Roman Catholic usage and calls these the ‘Sundays after Pentecost.’
Although liturgically we are now in Ordinary Time, the liturgical colours change from green to white on Trinity Sunday. The
Book of Common Prayer (pp 771-773) places ‘The Creed (commonly called) of Saint Athanasius, also known as the
Quicunque Vult,’ between the Catechism and the Preamble to the Constitution. But it makes no provision for its use. However, some churches in the Church of Ireland and the Church of England have a tradition of using this creed on Trinity Sunday.
The early Church had no special Office or day to honour the Holy Trinity. However, with the spread of the Arian heresy, the Church Fathers prepared an Office with canticles, responses, a Preface, and hymns, to be recited on Sundays.
There are prayers and the Preface of the Trinity in the
Sacramentary of Saint Gregory the Great. However, the
Micrologies, written when Gregory VII was Pope, call the Sunday after Pentecost a
Dominica vacans, or an ordinary Sunday, when there was no special office, although it did note that the Office of the Holy Trinity composed by Bishop Stephen or Liège (903-920) was recited in some places on this Sunday, and in other places on the Sunday before Advent.
Pope Alexander II (1061-1073) refused a petition for a special feast on this day. He pointed out that such a feast was not customary and that the Church honoured the Holy Trinity every day with the use of the doxology,
Gloria Patri.
Two plaques on a street corner in London recall Saint Thomas Becket … he introduced Trinity Sunday to the Church Calendar (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)
When Saint Thomas Becket (1118-1170) was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on the Sunday after Pentecost, his first act was to decree that the day of his consecration should be held as a new festival in honour of the Holy Trinity.
This observance spread from Canterbury throughout the Western Church. In the following century, a new Office for the Holy Trinity was written by the Franciscan friar, John Peckham (died 1292), who later became Archbishop of Canterbury.
Pope John XXII (1316-1334) ordered the feast for the entire Church on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
Surprisingly, this feast day never spread to the Orthodox Church. In the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, the Sunday of Pentecost itself is called Trinity Sunday, and instead the Sunday after Pentecost is celebrated as All Saints’ Sunday. The Monday after Pentecost is called the Monday of the Holy Spirit, and the next day is called the Third Day of the Trinity.
The Visitation of Abraham or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’ … a fresco in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, interprets a Trinitarian and Eucharistic theme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Preaching on Trinity Sunday
The late Professor Thomas Hopko (1939-2015) of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary has argued that if God were not Trinity, God could not have loved prior to creating other beings on whom to bestow God’s love. This love or communion of God as Trinity is extended to us in the communion of the Church. It is not just the Trinitarian faith into which we are baptised, but the love or fellowship of the Trinity.
Yet many clergy tell me how they are frightened of getting into the pulpit on Trinity Sunday and some will use any excuse to avoid preaching that day.
Perhaps their difficulties and fears are well explained by Dorothy Sayers, the playwright, translator of Dante, and author of the
Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, who was also a respected Anglican theologian and writer on spirituality in her own right.
It was she who came up with a whimsical definition of the Trinity: ‘The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible – the whole thing incomprehensible. Something put in by theologians to make it more difficult.’
For many Christians, the Trinity is incomprehensible, and has nothing to do with daily life.
It appears that many Christians behave as Unitarians when it comes to their spiritual and prayer life:
There are those who see God in Christ but in Christ only, and address all their prayers to Jesus, even in the Eucharist, when they should be addressed to the Father through the Son.
Or there are those who appear to reduce the role of Christ to that of a super logos, who frustrates the plans of a vengeful but distant God. Their Christology owes more to Arius than the orthodox understanding of the Trinity.
And there are those who criticise – and rightly criticise – others for neglecting the Holy Spirit, but who are in danger of neglecting the other two persons of the Trinity.
For many more, it appears, the Son and the Spirit are merely manifestations of – or masks for – the Father, a concept condemned in the early Church as Modalism or Sabellianism.
Each separate emphasis is fraught with danger and is symptomatic of a drift away from appreciating the centrality of the Trinity to faith and life.
A ‘Father-only’ image of God is in danger of reflecting power-lust and a need to dominate on the right, reducing God to an idol or mere totem; or, on the left, of reducing God to a mere metaphor for goodness, however one decides to define ‘goodness.’
Similarly, ‘Jesus-only’ images lead to moralistic action by Christians on the theological left or individualistic pietism on the theological right.
For its part, a ‘Spirit-only’ emphasis brings real dangers of either introspective escapism or charismatic excesses.
Yet these images are real throughout the Church, because the concept of the Trinity often appears irrelevant, due to poor teaching in many churches and what many be a prevailing anti-intellectual climate.
Those who venture bravely into the pulpit on Trinity Sunday are often reduced to explaining away the Trinity as a ‘mystery’ that they expect ‘mere’ lay people not to grapple with.
As Christians, we are baptised in the name of the Trinity. But there may reasons to fear that there has been a visible and audible decline in Trinitarian emphases in worship and liturgy. Many of our prayers, canticles and psalms should end with praise to the Trinity. But when they do, the doxology or
Gloria often provides a liturgical but thoughtless full stop rather than a statement of faith.
Worship that becomes Unitarian in this way becomes a transaction between an external deity and an autonomous worshipper. And it is not possible for a collection of separated and disconnected individuals to become the community of faith, to enter into the life of the Trinity.
The general decline in the Trinitarian character of worship, theology and life in the Church today parallels a decline in rigorous intellectual thinking. This is typified in the decline in social emphasis in our time, typified in the infamous claim by one politician some decades ago that there is no society, that there are only individuals.
But we can only be human through our relationships; we can only have self-respect when we know what it is to respect others.
The Church is primarily communion, a set of relationships, exactly as we find in the Trinitarian God. Christianity is not a private religion for individuals; personal piety is only truly pious and personal when it relates to others and to creation.
Trinitarian truths expressed in a stained-glass window in Michaelhouse, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
In today’s anti-intellectual climate, it is hard to imagine the passions raised by the earlier debates on the Trinity, which led to patriarchs being deposed, priests banished, and a Pope such as Honorius I being declared a heretic. Arguments about the Trinity evoked deep passions at Nicaea, Constantinople and Chalcedon, and they continue to be the most divisive issue separating the Eastern and Western Churches.
Today, the Church needs to recover a teaching of the Trinity that is not divisive and yet is relevant. There is a certain truth in the adage that man has created God in his own image and likeness. Our attitudes to the Trinity shape our models of God, and our models of God either shape or are shaped by our attitudes to the world: a unipolar God is an authoritarian model; the Trinity is a communitarian, inclusive, embracing, co-operative model.
Authoritarian or monist models have dominated the Church for centuries, providing male, authoritarian images of God. But in the New Testament and in the Early Church, the words used for the Spirit (
pneuma, πνευμα), wisdom (
Sophia, Σoφíα) and the Holy Trinity (
Aghia Triadha, Αγία Τριάδα) are neuter and feminine nouns.
Monist models of God help to confirm men, particularly men with power in the Church, in their prejudices. The Trinity is inclusive rather than exclusive of human images.
During the Nazi era, the German theologian Erik Peterson (1890-1960) argued that monist theologies tend to legitimise absolutist and totalitarian political and social orders, while Trinitarian theologies challenge them.
The Trinity means that as humanity is created in the image and likeness of God, then it is not just as individuals that we reflect God’s image, but that when we are a community we are most human and most God-like. In the true community, each is valued, each takes account of the other, each has an equal place, contribution and voice. True community cannot concentrate sole authority, privilege and infallibility in one gender alone, let alone one member.
A recovery of the reality of the Trinity has radical implications for our models of the Church, for authority, service and inclusiveness in the Church. It implies respect for diversity and seeks a communal form of unity that respects, desires and even encourages diversity in the community of faith.
Compared with the great social and political challenges facing the Church, discussing the Trinity may seem to many to be as relevant as debating the number of angels on the head of a pin. Yet the Trinity is not only the archetype of all created reality, but without a fuller understanding of the nature of the Trinity, the Church will never be able to apprehend the truth of the infinite goodness of God.
The love and coinherence or
perichoresis of the Trinity is a joyful dance that is at the heart of our understanding of God’s love for us and for creation, of our fellowship with God and one another, and of our understanding of our ministry and mission. Without a proper teaching on the Trinity, the Church will continue to provide answers to social and political questions that make God more like an idol than like our model for a loving community.
The Church of Aghia Sophia, dedicated to Divine Wisdom, in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Looking at the readings:
Have you reluctance to preach on Trinity Sunday?
Would you have considered the Old Testament passage (Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31) for a sermon on Trinity Sunday?
Do you find a difficulty in shifting from an approach of explanation to one of celebration?
How would a Trinitarian approach change your understanding of the Old Testament reading?
Are you comfortable with or challenged by feminine images of God in the Bible?
Do you have a Trinitarian understanding of the creation account in Genesis 1?
Have you made a connection between this understanding and the Gospel accounts of the Baptism of Christ?
Wisdom cries out ‘beside the way … at the crossroads … beside the gates in … the town, at the entrance’ (Proverbs 8: 2-3) … Toby jugs in the image of town criers once displayed in a front window in Beacon Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31
Lichfield has a traditional town crier. Ken Knowles, a retired teacher, dresses in the traditional town-crier’s red frock coat and tricorn hat, and goes around the town centre ringing his bell to proclaim the great news of the day. When he was living on Beacon Street, I enjoyed the row of Toby jugs, all dressed like town criers, he had on display in his front window.
The beginning of our Old Testament reading provides an instant image of a town crier calling out aloud at the gates and through the streets of the city. But in this case, Wisdom is proclaiming the good news of God’s creation, and the role of the Holy Spirit in that creation.
This Old Testament reading gives us part or all of three stanzas of a seven-stanza poem in which Wisdom is personified as a woman.
Verses 1-5 are the first stanza, and verses 22-31 are the fifth and sixth stanza.
Wisdom ‘cries out’ (verse 3) to ‘all that live’ (verse 4), to all people everywhere. But her message is primarily to young people.
Verses 22-31 tell of Wisdom’s relationship with creation. God created her at the beginning of his work, as ‘the first of his acts,’ ‘before the beginning of the earth’ (verse 23), before he created the depths (verse 24).
She was ‘brought forth’ (verse 24). The Hebrew word here presents an image of birth, as in begot or formed.
In verses 24-26, Canaanite mythological motifs, such as ‘depths,’ ‘springs,’ shaping the ‘mountains,’ are drawn on to say that Wisdom existed before creation began.
Verse 27 tells us that Wisdom pre-exists the world. She was present at creation, as a witness.
Wisdom came to know God’s secrets in creating the heavens and the earth, as in limiting the extent of the sea (verse 29).
She was ‘beside him’ at the time of creation (verse 30). Later writers, including the authors of Sirach and Wisdom, show that Wisdom had an active role in creation.
Wisdom was either was ‘like a master worker’ (verse 30), a craftsperson, in creative acts, or the Hebrew can mean little child. This notion which fits well with ‘brought forth’ (see verses 24 and 25) and with the rest of verse 30, where Wisdom is God’s ‘daily … delight’ and she delights in God’s creation of humanity (verse 31).
In other words, Wisdom rejoices both in God and in those created by God.
When later trans-culturated into the Greek world, Wisdom becomes the logos, the pre-existent divine Word: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ He ‘became flesh and lived among us’ (John 1: 1, 14). However, in this case I relate the images of Wisdom in Creation to the opening of the creation account in Genesis 1, where the Spirit of God hovers over formless void and darkness (Genesis 1: 2;
cf John 1: 32).
‘You have set your glory above the heavens’ (Psalm 8: 1) … on the beach in Ballybunion, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Psalm 8:
Psalm 8 provides a picture in which God is praised for his glory (verses 1a and 9), reflected in his creation. God fashions creation, and is greater than all creation.
Once again, we have images of infants and children (verse 2). God is also a craftsman (compare ‘the work of your fingers’ in verse 4 with the master craftsman or worker in Proverbs 8: 30).
This psalm recalls the first creation story. God has given us a share in his power by conferring on us authority over the rest of all that he has created.
The Holy Trinity … an image in a side chapel in the Mezquita-Catedral or Mosque-Cathedral in Cordoba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Romans 5: 1-5
Our Epistle reading is one of the great and succinct Trinitarian passages in the New Testament. In Romans 5: 1-5, the Apostle Paul writes that union with God comes through faith, and Christ is our entry point to God’s grace (verse 1).
We are not going to be disappointed, for God has given us the Holy Spirit, who is given to us, and who continually pours God’s love into our hearts (verse 5).
A mediaeval fresco of the Holy Trinity in the south choir aisle in Lichfield Cathedral … severely damaged by 17th century Puritans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)
John 16: 12-15:
After the Last Supper, Jesus continues to tell the disciples about the mission they are to undertake. The Gospel reading (John 16: 12-15) is a natural continuation from the Gospel reading from the previous Sunday (9 June 2019), the Day of Pentecost (John 14: 8-17).
In this Gospel reading, once again we have a succinct Trinitarian passage. We are at that moment after the Last Supper when Christ promises the disciples that the ‘Spirit of truth’ is coming (verse 13).
The Spirit will guide them into all truth giving glory to Christ (verse 14), and they will receive all this from the Father (verse 15).
The former Trinity Episcopal Church on Catherine Street, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 16: 12-15 (NRSVA):
12 ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
Andrei Rublev’s icon, the Old Testament Trinity or the Hospitality of Abraham
Andrei Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity
One of the best-known presentations of the Trinity is found in Andrei Rublev’s icon, the
Old Testament Trinity or the
Hospitality of Abraham. This icon recalls the passage in Genesis 18, in which God visits Abraham and Sarah at Mamre. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Abraham’s guests – now only a single guest – is God.
Rublev’s icon itself is a masterpiece of composition: The viewer is being invited to join the meal; the doctrine of the Trinity as a community of Love into which the believer is invited to enter is depicted with clarity and simplicity; the icon communicates the idea that basis of the divine life is hospitality. The vanishing point in the sacred space is placed in front of the icon, inviting the viewer to enter into the holy mystery.
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews picks up the theme of the Hospitality of Abraham at the end of his epistle when he advises Christians not to neglect hospitality: ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it’ (Hebrews 13: 2).
Trinity College, Cambridge, where George Herbert was a student, fellow and then Reader in Rhetoric (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
George Herbert and ‘Trinitie Sunday’
When I was first preparing these notes for Trinity Sunday, I found myself re-reading the poem ‘Trinitie Sunday’ from
The Temple (1633) by the Welsh-born English priest and poet George Herbert (1593-1633).
Lord, who hast form’d me out of mud,
And hast redeem’d me through thy bloud,
And sanctifi’d me to do good;
Purge all my sinnes done heretofore:
For I confesse my heavie score,
And I will strive to sinne no more.
Enrich my heart, mouth, hands in me,
With faith, with hope, with charitie;
That I may runne, rise, rest with thee.
George Herbert’s response to the mystery of the Holy Trinity is a response of heart, mouth, and hands. In this poem, he is creative, evocative and imaginative in his use of Trinitarian images, prayers and motifs in rhymes, alliteration and ideas throughout the three stanzas, which give wonderful glimpses, prayers and insights into our Trinitarian faith.
The poem is a delightful use of word, rhythm and structure, inviting the reader to become familiar with the concept of three, reminding us of the threefold nature of God as Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Each stanza is three lines long, and each is in triple rhyme.
Stanza 1 is a prayer of invocation, with Line1 addressing God the Father as Creator, Line 2 addressing God the Son as Redeemer, and Line 3 addressing God the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier.
Stanza 2 is a confession. Line 1 refers to sins committed in the past, Line 2 to the present act of confessing, and Line 3 to the firm intention not to sin in the future.
Stanza 3 is an expression of expectation, and each line refers to three things. Line 1 speaks of heart, mouth and hands being enriched. Line 2 outlines that which will do the enriching – the three Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Line 3 expresses a desire to run, rise and rest with God. In the third stanza, Herbert continues with three little triplets of petitions.
A modern copy of Andrei Rublev’s icon, the Old Testament Trinity or the Hospitality of Abraham, by Eileen McGuckin
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: White (Green in the weekdays)
Penitential Kyries:
Father, you come to meet us when we return to you.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Jesus, you died on the cross for our sins.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Holy Spirit, you give us life and peace.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you have given us your servants grace,
by the confession of a true faith,
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity:
Keep us steadfast in this faith,
that we may evermore be defended from all adversities;
for you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever.
Introduction to the Peace:
Peace to you from God our heavenly Father.
Peace from his Son Jesus Christ who is our peace.
Peace from the Holy Spirit the Life-giver.
The peace of the Triune God be always with you.
And also with you.
Preface:
You have revealed your glory
as the glory of your Son and of the Holy Spirit:
three persons equal in majesty, undivided in splendour,
yet one Lord, one God,
ever to be worshipped and adored:
Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
may we who have received this holy communion,
worship you with lips and lives
proclaiming your majesty
and finally see you in your eternal glory:
Holy and Eternal Trinity,
one God, now and for ever.
Blessing:
God the Holy Trinity
make you strong in faith and love,
defend you on every side,
and guide you in truth and peace:
The east end of Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, with the vestry on the south side (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Suggested Hymns:
The hymns suggested for Trinity Sunday (Year C), in
Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling, include:
Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31:
84, Alleluia! raise the anthem
537, O God, our help in ages past
Psalm 8:
316, Bright the vision that delighted
6, Immortal, invisible, God only wise
362, O God beyond all praising
32, O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
33, O Lord of every shining constellation
Romans 5: 1-5:
294, Come down, O Love divine
652, Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
429, Lord Jesus Christ, you have come to us
618, Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy
634, Love divine, all loves excelling
636, May the mind of Christ my Saviour
305, O Breath of life, come sweeping through us
306, O Spirit of the living God
John 16: 12-15:
295, Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove
324, God, whose almighty word
299, Holy Spirit, come, confirm us
300, Holy Spirit, truth divine
112, There is a Redeemer
A copy of Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Scripture quotations are from the
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
http://nrsvbibles.org
The hymns suggestions are provided in
Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s
Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000)
Material from the
Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
