Trinity Sunday

@1tm122n22m Atma Unum

Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s observed by various Christian denominations. 🙏✨ #TrinitySunday #Christianity #Faith #Blessings

Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity Mystery

By mystery the Church does not mean a riddle, but rather that the Trinity is a reality above our human comprehension that we may begin to grasp, but ultimately must come to know through worship, symbol, and faith. It has been said that mystery is not a wall to run up against, but an ocean in which to swim.

Common wisdom is that if you discuss the Trinity for longer than a few minutes, you will slip into heresy, because you are probing the depths of God too deeply. The Trinity is best described in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, commonly called the Nicene Creed.

Essentially the Trinity is the belief that God is one in essence (Greek ousia), but distinct in person (Greek hypostasis). The Greek word for person means “that which stands on its own,” or “individual reality,” and does not mean the persons of the Trinity are three human beings. Therefore Christians believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are somehow distinct from one another (although not divided), yet completely united in will and essence. How can this be? Well, think of the sight of two eyes. The eyes are distinct, yet one and undivided in their sight. Another illustration to compare the Trinity to a musical chord. Think of a C-chord. The C, E, and G notes are all distinct notes, but joined together as one chord the sound is richer and more dynamic than had the notes been played individually. The chords are all equally important in producing the rich sound, and the sound is lacking and thin if one of the notes is left out. Of course, all analogies and comparisons ultimately fall short when trying to understand this mystery, but they can be helpful in trying to get a better sense of this teaching.

The Son is said to be eternally begotten of the Father, while the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father through the Son. Each person of the Trinity interpenetrates one another, and each has a distinct role in creation and redemption, which is called the Divine Economy. For instance, God the Father created the world through the Son and the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters at creation.

The Nicene definition of the Trinity developed over time, based on Scripture and Tradition. The Scriptures call the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all “God,” yet the three are also clearly distinct. For instance, Saint John gives Jesus the titles theos and monogenes theos (God and Only-Begotten God) and has Jesus saying that the Father and Son are one, yet in John’s Gospel Jesus also states that the Father and Son are not one witness, but two (John 1:1, John 1:18; John 8:17-18; John 10:30). So John tells us that Jesus is God but not God the Father? Jesus is one with the Father, but they constitute two witnesses? It is scriptures such as these that led to the development of the Trinity doctrine. The Church had to reconcile the Divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit with Jewish monotheism. Over time, and with the aid of the Holy Spirit, the Church reflected on the implications of God’s nature, and began using the word Trinity by the middle of the second century to describe the relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit.

In the fourth century a presbyter named Arius denied the Father and Son were both true God and co-eternal, which caused his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria, to challenge and depose him. Nevertheless, this view, named “Arianism” in reference to Arius, began to spread. In AD 325 the emperor Constantine, newly fascinated with Christianity, convened a council of bishops in Nicaea to deal with Arianism. It is there that the Church drew up the beginnings of the current Nicene Creed. In the latter half of the fourth century the Church dealt with those who specifically denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, adding more text to the creed.

Ultimately, Trinitarianism posits a dynamic God, whose ultimate nature is beyond human conception, yet who voluntarily operates within the created world. Trinitarianism also shows a loving God that is willing to become as we are so that we may become like Him. The implications of believing in Arius’ God, a God who is unwilling to involve Himself in our redemption instead sent an angel of the highest order, did not escape the earliest Christians. As Saint Athanasius was fond of saying, “That which has not been assumed has not been redeemed,” meaning that unless God truly became completely human, we could not be fully redeemed, because only God Himself is capable of truly redeeming humanity; an angel does not have this ability. Thus, the Trinity is not about Greek philosophy or pointless metaphysical speculation, but about the heart of our salvation.

Western Christianity

Trinity Sunday is celebrated in all the Western liturgical churches: Latin Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Methodist.

History

In the early Church, no special Office or day was assigned for the Holy Trinity. When the Arian heresy was spreading, the Fathers prepared an Office with canticles, responses, a Preface, and hymns, to be recited on Sundays. In the Sacramentary of Gregory the Great there are prayers and the Preface of the Trinity. During the Middle Ages, especially during the Carolingian period, devotion to the Blessed Trinity was a highly important feature of private devotion and inspired several liturgical expressions. Sundays are traditionally dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

The Micrologies written during the pontificate of Gregory VII list no special Office for the Sunday after Pentecost, but add that in some places they recited the Office of the Holy Trinity composed by Bishop Stephen of Liège (903–920). By others the Office was said on the Sunday before Advent. Alexander II (1061–1073), refused a petition for a special feast on the grounds that such a feast was not customary in the Roman Church which daily honoured the Holy Trinity by the Gloria Patri, etc., but he did not forbid the celebration where it already existed. A new Office had been made by the Franciscan John Peckham, Canon of Lyons, later Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1292).

John XXII (1316–1334) ordered the feast for the entire Church on the first Sunday after Pentecost and established it as a Double of the Second Class. It was raised to the dignity of a primary of the first class, 24 July 1911, by Pope Pius X (Acta Ap. Sedis, III, 351). Since it was after the first great Pentecost that the doctrine of the Trinity was proclaimed to the world, the feast becomingly follows that of Pentecost.

Roman Catholicism

In the Roman Catholic Church, it is officially known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Prior to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, it marked the end of a three-week period during which church weddings were forbidden. The period began on Rogation Sunday, the fifth Sunday after Easter. The prescribed liturgical color is white.

In the traditional Divine Office, the Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult) is said on this day at Prime. Before 1960, it was said on all Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost which do not fall within Octaves or on which a feast of Double rank or higher was celebrated or commemorated, as well as on Trinity Sunday. The 1960 reforms reduced it to once a year, on this Sunday.

In the 1962 Missal, the Mass for the First Sunday After Pentecost is not said or commemorated on Sunday (it is permanently impeded there by Trinity Sunday), but is used during the week if the ferial Mass is being said.

The Thursday after Trinity Sunday is observed as the Feast of Corpus Christi. In some countries, including the United States, Canada, and Spain, it may be celebrated on the following Sunday, when the faithful are more likely to attend Mass and be able to celebrate the feast.

Lutheranism

A distinctive feature of Lutheran worship is the recitation of the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday during Matins. It may also supplant the Nicene Creed during the Mass. The Lutheran Book of Worship, Lutheran Worship, and Lutheran Service Book specify this.

Anglicanism

Trinity Sunday has the status of a Principal Feast in the Church of England and is one of seven principal feast days in the Episcopal Church (United States).

Thomas Becket (1118–1170) was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on the Sunday after Pentecost (Whitsun). His martyrdom may have influenced the popularity of the feast in England. This observance spread from Canterbury throughout the whole of western Christendom.

The Athanasian Creed, although not often used, is recited in certain Anglican churches, particularly those of High Church tendency. Its use is prescribed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England for use on certain Sundays at Morning Prayer, including Trinity Sunday, and it is found in many modern Anglican prayer books. It is in the Historical Documents section of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal Church), but its use is not specifically provided for in the rubrics of that prayer book.

Parishes with an Anglo-Catholic churchmanship follow a calendar where Corpus Christi is observed on the following Thursday, or in some cases the following Sunday.

Methodism

In traditional Methodist usage, The Book of Worship for Church and Home (1965) provides the following Collects for Trinity Sunday:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy 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: We beseech thee to keep us steadfast in this faith and evermore defend us from all adversities who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast revealed thyself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and dost ever live and reign in the perfect unity of love: Grant that we may always hold firmly and joyfully to this faith, and, living in praise of thy divine majesty, may finally be one in thee; who art three persons in one God, world without end. Amen.

Dates

Trinity Sunday is the Sunday following Pentecost, and eight weeks after Easter Sunday. The earliest possible date is 17 May (as in 1818 and 2285). The latest possible date is 20 June (as in 1943 and 2038).

Eastern Christianity

In the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, the Sunday of Pentecost itself is called Trinity Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost is All Saints Sunday). The Monday after Pentecost is called Monday of the Holy Spirit, and the next day is called the Third Day of the Trinity. In the Eastern practice, green is used for Pentecost and its Afterfeast.

Bach cantatas

Johann Sebastian Bach composed a number of cantatas for Trinity Sunday. Three of them are extant, including O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad, BWV 165, Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding, BWV 176, and Gelobet sei der Herr, mein Gott, BWV 129. The cantata Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194, composed for dedication of the church and organ at Störmthal, was performed again in Leipzig for Trinity Sunday, first on 4 June 1724, a shortened version in 1726, and the complete version in 1731.

Theosophy

“substance itself exists in three major categories, and that these three categories are the correspondences in substance to the three Persons of the Trinity or to the three bodies of incarnated man. They are also the analogy of the third aspect of divinity (the life of the third Person of the Trinity) to the quality of the three periodical vehicles through which manifestation takes place.
One division or type of this substance is dynamically electrified and from this all first ray egos choose the material needed in the three worlds. Another type of substance is magnetically electrified, and from it all second ray egos select what they require in order to manifest. The third type of substance is diffusively electrified (I know of no better word to express the intent), and all third ray egos take from it their needed quota of substance from which to build the forms for manifestation.”
Alice A. Bailey

We speak of God as a Person, of His Will, His nature and His form. Behind the manifested universe, however, stands the formless One. That which is not an individual existence. Therefore the Buddhist is right when he emphasises the non-individualised nature of Deity and refuses to personalise Divinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit of the Christian theology, embodying as they do the triplicities of all theologies, disappear also into the One when the period of manifestation is over. They remain as One, with quality and life untouched and undifferentiated, as they are when in manifestation.

An analogy to this appears when a man dies. Then his three aspects -mind or will, emotion or love, and physical appearance- vanish. There is then no person. Yet, if one accepts the fact of immortality, the conscious being remains, his quality and purpose and life are united with his undying soul. The outer form with its differentiations into a manifested trinity, has gone -never again to return in exactly the same form or expression in time and space.

The interplay of soul and mind produces the manifested universe, with all that is therein. When that interplay is persisting, either God or in man, we use (for hw else can we speak with clarity?) terms of human origin and therefore limiting, such is our present stage of enlightenment -or should we say, unenlightenment? Thus the idea of individuality, of personality, and of form is built up. When the interplay ceases and manifestation ends, such terms are no longer suitable, they have no meaning. Yet the undying one, whether God or man, persists.

Thus in human thought, preserved for us by the great Teacher of the East, the Buddha, we have the concept of the transcendent Deity, divorced from the triplicities, the dualities and the multiplicity of manifestation. There is but life, formless, freed from the individuality, unknown. In the teaching of the West, preserved for us and formulated for us by the Christ, the concept of God immanent is preserved, -God in us and in all forms. In the synthesis of the Eastern and the Western teachings, and in the merging of these two great schools of thought, something of the superlative Whole can be sensed -sensed merely- not known.

Trinity Ancient Symbols

Over the centuries artists have used various symbols to represent the Triune God, the Trinitarian God.

Trinity Knot, Triquetra

The symbol contains three leaf-like shapes that interlock, making three corners, and sometimes with a circle in the middle (representing eternal life). It is a simple representation of the Trinity and is most often associated with Celtic art, such as the Book of Kells.

Shield of the Trinity

A geometrical and abstract representation of the three persons of the Trinity used in a shield. It shows visually how each of the three persons are God, but distinct. It was used as a tool of catechesis or for protection in war.

Trefoil-Triangle

This triangle with rounded corners has different version. For example, we can see the father represented with a hand, the son with a fish, and the spirit with a dove. Other times, there is only a triangle without more additions.

Three-leaf Clover

Attributed to Saint Patrick, it has become one of the most easily depictions of the Trinity in spiritual art.

Fleur de lis

Commonly identified with French nobility and the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Fleur-de-lis was also used to represent the Holy Trinity.

References

• A Manual of Catholic Devotion: For Members of the Church of England. (1969) The Church Union. London: Church Literature Association.
• Bailey, Alice A. (1995) Esoteric Psychology. Lucis Publishing. NY
• Senn, Frank C. (2012). Introduction to Christian Liturgy. Fortress Press.

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