WHOSOEVER WILL BE SAVED . . .

The Feast of the

MOST HOLY TRINITY

30 May, AD 2010

TEXT:  Various (Athanasian Creed)

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.  Amen.”  (St. Matthew 28:18-20).

The words of Jesus which we just heard, as taken from the Great Commission of St. Matthew’s Gospel, is one of the few places in Holy Scripture that reveals to us the eternal mystery of the Most Holy and Blessed Trinity of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  To be sure, we experience God working as Trinity in Unity and as Unity in Trinity, in the pages of Holy Scripture, yet the word “trinity”, itself, is never found.  So on this great Feast day we pause and celebrate who God is in toto; whom we have come to know through His self-revelation as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

As Feasts go, this was a relatively late Feast to be developed within the life of the Church.  It wasn’t until the tenth century that this celebration was even introduced, because the Church did not want to focus attention on one Feast day dedicated to God as Trinity when every Sunday and every Eucharist was a celebration of the Holy Trinity.  Yet, by 1334 the Roman Church finally proclaimed this Feast to be universal, which, by the way, had already been celebrated in England as early as 1162 at the consecration of St. Thomas Becket on Trinity Sunday (June 3rd) of that year; to whom Trinity Sunday’s popularity in England is dedicated.  So it is, for a moment, that we pause and look back from the perspective of this mid-point of the Christian Year and take note of how God has revealed Himself to us.    

It is through Our Lord’s earthly life that we come to know God.  The Annunciation by Gabriel to His mother, Mary; His Holy Incarnation in her womb by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, His blessed birth at Christmas, His revelation to the Gentiles at Epiphany, His Baptism, His time in the desert during Lent, His Crucifixion, Passion, and Resurrection at Easter, and finally, at Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended upon the Church, sent by the Father and promised by Jesus, God’s Son.  It is through these events that God’s Triune Nature has been fully revealed and we arrive at this point in our Christian journey.

But just how is God One and Three at the same time?  Gallons of ink have been spilled trying to reconcile that reality.  St. Patrick held up before the ancient pagans the simple shamrock – three leaves on one stem to explain the reality of the Holy Trinity.  Other symbols include the common pansy – viola tricolor, nicknamed the Trinity flower.  Still others include a lighted candle, the triangle, the trefoil, and three interlocking circles.  But as far as symbols go, they can only point to the reality which lies beyond them, not explain it.

Probably, the most concise and fundamental explanation of the Holy Trinity is found in a document called the Athanasian Creed, attributed to St. Athanasius, that great defender of Orthodox Faith and Practice of the Eastern Church.  I have reproduced a copy of that Creed in your bulletins this morning.  Although it is called a Creed and was said on no less than nineteen occasions according to our early Prayer Books, it really isn’t a creed at all, but a treatise on who God is as Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity and, likewise, who Jesus is as His Son, both Perfect God and Perfect Man.  It begins – “Whosoever will be saved, before all things, it is necessary that he hold (or believe) the Catholic Faith . . . And the Catholic Faith is this:  That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding (confusing) the Persons; nor dividing the Essence.”  The issues of who God was and is and who Jesus was and is were ones which the early Church had to formulate and then uphold and proclaim as she fought those who would have perverted or damaged the Faith during the time of the great Trinitarian heresies of the second and third centuries.  Now, as stiff and formal as the text may sound to us, it reveals a central and primary reality of our Faith; namely, that we do not, in the first place, assent to theological propositions, but that we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity.  All else flows from this orientation of worship.  Think about that for a moment as we turn to a legend about one of the most influential and powerful thinkers and philosophers of the Christian Church; St. Augustine of Hippo.

There is a story about this great saint, first recorded in a work about the saints of the Christian Church entitled, The Golden Legend, by Jacobus Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, dating from 1275.  It goes something like this:

One day, after spending many fruitless nights trying to fully comprehend the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, St. Augustine was walking along the beach in an attempt to clear and soothe his mind.  It might have been mid-morning when he went walking that day, with the sun almost at its height in the heavens, glancing off the crystal blue waves of one of God’s most awesome creations.  But he wasn’t noticing the beauty of God’s creation.  The question of how one being could be in three, and three in one, had the great saint so perplexed that he almost didn’t see the little child in front of him.  Thinking that it was just another little boy at play, he almost dismissed him until he saw what the little boy was trying to do.  The child had dug a small hole in the sand and was racing back and forth between the ocean and his hole filling his little bucket from the sea and emptying it into hole.  After watching the little boy for a few minutes, St. Augustine approached him and said, “My son, what is it that you are trying to accomplish?”  The boy looked up at him and said, “I am going to empty this entire ocean into this hole.”  St. Augustine laughed and said, “My dear child, you cannot possibly empty this great ocean into that small hole!”  The boy stopped, looked the great saint straight in the eye and said in a voice that struck St. Augustine to his soul, “I have a far better chance of emptying the oceans of the world into this tiny hole, than you have of completely understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Augustine.  For the Mystery of the Trinity is greater and larger to the comparison of your understanding and brain, than is this great sea to this little pit of mine.”  With that, the boy vanished, leaving St. Augustine alone on the beach.  He realized that he had been visited by an angel and that he had reached the limits of his finite comprehension of this Holy Mystery.  So here let every man take note; we can not be informed of our own understanding regarding the mysteries of the Godhead; save only by our faith.  For only our faith shall suffice us.”

While one aspect of our faith in God is our reason, which is a very important gift from God to be used to its fullest extent by our own intellect, combined with Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, and while God can be known partially by the gift of reason, our human ponderings, as great as they are, even by the likes of such men as St. Augustine, St. Basil, Claude Moss, Francis Hall, or Thomas Torrance, reason alone cannot breach the veil of the Mysteries of our Faith.  That is why they are called Holy Mysteries.  If we could understand them, then we would not need God, for we would then have the mind of God, Himself.  And that is simply not the case.  Knowing about God is not enough.  It is only a first step.  As the Athanasian Creed states, we are called to worship God.  For worship brings about relationship.  Relationship brings revelation.  And revelation brings about faith.  It is our faith which informs us about God and the way in which He acts in our personal salvation and in our world today.  We usually attribute Creation to God the Father, Redemption to the Son, Jesus Christ, and sanctification to God the Holy Ghost – all three working as One.  Because of their internal and eternal relationship with each other, none of them ever acts in isolation from the other two.  That revealed relationship of the workings of God as Trinity draws us into a Trinity of sorts with ourselves, with God, and with our neighbors.  For we have been created in the image and likeness of God and reflect His Trinitarian Essence.  This is how the Doctrine of the Holy and Most Blessed Trinity informs us about the kind of God we worship and the kind of people God calls us to be:  not an “EGO” principle of living which puts the individual at the center of his own universe and edges God out, but a God – I – and neighbor relationship which continually reflects God’s nature and strengthens our faith which leads to more worship of and revelation from God and ultimately to the salvation of our soul.  When we come to realize that and truly begin to live “trinitarily”, then the more we worship God and live our lives according to the promptings of God the Holy Ghost who indwells our hearts and fills the life of His Church today.  So it is that we hold to the Catholic Faith of worshipping God as Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, not only trying to comprehend what that means, but, more importantly, by truly living in relationship with God who has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost.  He is the God all that is; seen and unseen, and the God who envelopes us with a never-ending Love for all eternity.  “This is the Catholic Faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.”  Throughout Trinitytide and the rest of your life may you come to know more fully God who Created you, God who redeemed you, and God who loves you.  Let us pray.

O LORD God Almighty, Immortal, Invisible, the Mysteries of Whose Beings are unsearchable:  accept, we beseech Thee, our worship and praises for the revelation which Thou hast made of Thyself; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons, one God; and mercifully grant that, ever holding fast this faith, we may magnify thy Holy Name and attain the salvation of our souls; Who livest and reignest One God, world without end.  Amen.

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.

SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+