Devotion for Trinity Sunday, Year C (Humes)

Above:  Icon of the Holy Trinity, by Andrei Rublev

Image in the Public Domain

A Glorious Mystery

MAY 30, 2021

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ,  who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

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Trinity Sunday is the only feast on the calendar of Western Christianity solely about a doctrine.  Other feasts have events, as in the life of Jesus, attached to them.

The three persons (“masks,” literally, in Nicene terminology) of the Trinity are present in the assigned readings for this feast.

1. Proverbs 8 offers Sophia, the divine wisdom personified as a woman.  Sophia influenced the Logos, identified as Jesus in John 1.  Portions of the text also sound as if they could refer to the Holy Spirit.  And does the Holy Spirit proceed from just the Father or from both the Father and the Son?  Trying to reason through the theology of the Holy Spirit makes my head hurt, figuratively, so I rarely delve too deeply into it.
2. YHWH is God in Psalm 8.  God is unitary in Jewish theology.  We humans are, according to the text, literally, “a little less than the gods,” not “a little lower than the angels.”  “The gods” are members of the court of YHWH.  The Hebrew word for “gods” is elohim.
3. Romans 5:105 mentions that the Holy Spirit does not act independently, and that it glorifies Christ.

By the way, “Holy Spirit” or “Spirit of God” is feminine in Hebrew and Arabic yet neuter in Greek.  The Holy Spirit is technically an “it,” not a “he,” in the New Testament.

My advice regarding the Trinity is to frolic in its glorious mystery, not to try to understand it.  One cannot understand the Trinity.  Attempts to do so have frequently yielded or reinforced heresies.  I try not to commit any of these.

How can God simultaneously be on the Earth, getting baptized, in Heaven, and descending from Heaven?  That is a mystery.  We can accept the findings of early Ecumenical Councils Nicea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, et cetera) while bowing in humility before God, who loves us.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MARCH 10, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF MARIE-JOSEPH LAGRANGE, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR

THE FEAST OF SAINT AGRIPINNUS OF AUTUN, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP; SAINT GERMANUS OF PARIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP; AND SAINT DROCTOVEUS OF AUTUN, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT

THE FEAST OF FOLLIOT SANDFORD PIERPOINT, ANGLICAN EDUCATOR, POET, AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN OGLIVIE, SCOTTISH ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MARTYR, 1615

THE FEAST OF SAINT MACARIUS OF JERUSALEM, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/a-glorious-mystery-part-iii/

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