FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

Taken from THE LITURGICAL YEAR
by
Abbot Guéranger

From Volume X: Time After Pentecost Book I

ON the day of Pentecost the holy Apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their Divine Master, [St. Matt. xxviii. 19.] they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations and baptizing men in the name of the Holy Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honor the mystery of one God in three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not until after many centuries that it was inserted in the cycle of the liturgical year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church's liturgy has the holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our redemption center in It. The feasts of the blessed Virgin and the Saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons . . . This explains to us how it is that the Church was so long in instituting a special feast in honor of the Holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at a certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and the influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? From all eternity, before any created being existed, God liveth and reigneth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honor of that mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by fixing some one day in the year, whereon the faithful would assemble for offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same Divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favored from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honor of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Alcuin's writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to private devotion, which no one ever thought would lead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however, became a great favorite, and was gradually circulated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.

In the previous century, however, a feast properly so called of Holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium-----the very same that was to have the honor, later on, of procuring to the Church's calendar one of the richest of its solemnities.

Stephen, bishop of Liege, solemnly instituted the feast of Holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honor of the mystery. The Church's law, which now reserves to the Holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen's successor in the See of Liege, kept up what his predecessor had begun.

The feast was gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the abbot of Reichna, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated monastery, drawn up in 1091, in which we find mention of Holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Under the pontificate of Alexander II, who reigned from 1061 to 1073, the Church of Rome, which has frequently sanctioned the usages of particular Churches by herself adopting them, was led to pass judgment upon this new institution. In one of his decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason: that the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasingly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui sancto; as likewise by several formulas expressive of praise. [De feriis. Cap. Quoniam. This decretal has been erroneously attributed to Alexander lII.]

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground, as we gather from the Micrologus; and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a doctor in liturgical science, explaining the appropriateness of that feast's institution in these words: 'Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at once, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the Holy Trinity; and rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of the same holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, immediately began to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism.' [De divinis, Officiis. Lib. xi. Cap. 1.]

In England, it was the glorious Martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, that established the feast of Holy Trinity. He introduced it into his archdiocese, in the year 1162, in memory of his having been consecrated bishop on the first Sunday after Pentecost. As regards France, we find a Council of ArIes, held in 1260 under the presidency of archbishop Florentinus, solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of Holy Trinity to be observed with an octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its houses, as far back. as the year 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that, during the thirteenth century, the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last, Sunday after Pentecost; others kept it twice: once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost solemnity, and a second time on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent.

It was evident, from all this, that the Apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice, whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII, who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as the year 1334, completed the work by a decree, wherein the Church of Rome accepted the feast of Holy Trinity, and extended its observance to all Churches.

As to the motive which induced the Church, led as she is in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering of a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our petitions, are ever being presented to It: such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced, at that period, into the liturgical calendar.

Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of Saints marked on the general calendar, and universally kept, were very few. From that time, they began to be more numerous; and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come, when the Sunday's Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the Saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this celebration of the memory of God's servants on the very day which was sacred to the Holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of one God in three Persons. This is the mystery whence all others flow. Our faith centers in this as in the master truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite object whose vision is to form our eternal happiness; and yet, we know it only because it has pleased God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, Who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible. [1 Tim. vi. 15.]

Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings; it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works; but the knowledge of God's intimate Being can come to us only by means of His own gracious revelation.

It was God's good pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends to give us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seemed intent on inculcating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind; and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced from the earth, had not the infinite goodness of God watched over its preservation.

Not that the old Testament Books were altogether silent on the three Divine Persons, Whose ineffable relations are eternal; only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large; whereas, in the Christian Church, a child of seven will answer those who ask him, that, in God, the three Divine Persons have but one and the same Nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural, and said: 'Let Us make man to Our image and likeness;' [Gen. i. 26.] the Jew bows down and believes, but he understands not the sacred text; the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this expression, the three Persons acting together in the formation of man; the light of faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is a likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, understanding, and will, are three faculties within him, and yet he himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, Solomon speaks, in sublime language, of Him Who is eternal Wisdom; he tells us-----and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us-----of the Divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being a distinct Person in the Godhead; but how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil! Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God's throne; he heard them singing in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: 'Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord!' [Is. vi. 3.] But who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals give praise to our Creator? So, again, in the Psalms, and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us; a brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us; out it passes away, and obscurity returns seemingly all the more palpable; we have but the sentiment of the Divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the sovereign Being.

The world had to wait for the fullness of time to be completed; and then, God would send into this world His only Son, begotten of Him from all eternity. This His most merciful purpose has been carried out, and the Word made Flesh hath dwelt among us.  [St. John i. 14.]  By seeing His glory, the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father, [Ibid.] we have come to know that, in God, there is Father and Son. The Son's mission to our earth, by the very revelation it gave us of Himself, taught us that God is eternally Father, for whatsoever is in God is eternal. But for this merciful revelation, which is an anticipation of the light awaiting us in the next life, our knowledge of God would have been too imperfect. It was fitting that there should be some proportion between the light of faith, and that of the vision reserved for the future; it was not enough for man to know that God is One.

So that, we now know the Father, from whom comes, as the Apostle tells us, all paternity, even on earth. [Eph. iii. 15.]  We know Him not only as the creative power, Which has produced every being outside Himself; but, guided as it is by faith, our soul's eye respectfully penetrates into the very essence of the Godhead, and there beholds the Father begetting a Son like unto Himself. But, in order to teach us the mystery, that Son came down upon our earth. He Himself has told us expressly that no one knoweth the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him. [St. Matt. xi. 27.] Glory, then, be to the Son, Who has vouchsafed to show us the Father! and glory to the Father, Whom the Son hath revealed unto us!

The intimate knowledge of God has come to us by the Son, Whom the Father, in His love, has given to us. [St. John iii. 16.]  And this Son of God, Who, in order to raise up our minds even to His own
Divine Nature, has clad Himself, by His Incarnation, with our human nature, has taught us that He and His Father are one; [St. John xvii. 22.] that They are one and the same Essence, in distinction of Persons. One begets, the Other is begotten ; the One is named Power; the Other, Wisdom, or
Intelligence. The Power cannot be without the Intelligence, nor the Intelligence without the Power, in the sovereignly perfect Being: but, both the One and the Other produce a third Term.

The Son, Who had been sent by the Father, had ascended into Heaven, with the human Nature which He had united to Himself for all future eternity; and lo! the Father and the Son send into this world the Spirit Who proceeds from Them both. It was a new Gift, and it taught man that the Lord God was in three Persons. The Spirit, the eternal link of the first two, is Will, He is Love, in the Divine Essence. In God, then, is the fullness of Being, without beginning, without succession, without increase; for there is nothing which He has not. In these three eternal Terms of His uncreated Substance, is the Act, pure and infinite.

The sacred liturgy, whose object is the glorification of God and the commemoration of His works, follows, each year, the sublime phases of these manifestations, whereby the sovereign Lord has made known His whole self to mortals. Under the somber colors of Advent, we commemorated the period of expectation, during which the radiant Trinity sent forth but few of Its rays to mankind. The world, during those four thousand years, was praying Heaven for a Liberator, a Messiah; and God's own Son was to be this Liberator, this Messiah. That we might have the full knowledge of the prophecies which foretold Him, it was necessary that He Himself should actually come: a Child was born unto us [Is. ix. 6.] and then we had the key to the Scriptures. When we adored that Son, we adored also the Father, Who sent Him to us in the Flesh, and with Whom He is consubstantial. This Word of life, Whom we have seen, Whom we have heard, Whom our hands have handled [1 St. John i. 1.] in the Humanity Which He deigned to assume, has proved Himself to be truly a Person, a Person distinct from the Father, for One sends, and the Other is sent. In this second Divine Person, we have found our Mediator, Who has reunited the creation to its Creator; we have found the Redeemer of our sins, the Light of our souls, the Spouse we had so long desired.

Having passed through the mysteries which He Himself wrought, we next celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit, Who had been announced as coming to perfect the work of the Son of God. We adored Him, and acknowledged Him to be distinct from the Father and the Son, Who had sent Him to us with the mission of abiding with us. [St. John xiv. 16.] He manifested Himself by Divine operations which are peculiarly His Own, and were the object of His coming. He is the soul of the Church; He keeps her in the truth taught her by the Son. He is the source, the principle of the sanctification of our souls; and in them He wishes to make His dwelling. In a word, the mystery of the Trinity has become to us, not only a dogma made known to our mind by revelation, but, moreover, a practical truth given to us by the unheard-of munificence of the three Divine Persons: the Father, Who has adopted us; the Son, Whose brethren and joint-heirs we are; and the Holy Ghost, Who governs us, and dwells within us.

Let us, then, begin this day, by giving glory to the one God in three Persons. For this end, we will unite with holy Church, who in her Office of Prime recites on this solemnity, as also on every Sunday not taken up by a feast, the magnificent Symbol known as the Athanasian Creed. It gives us, in a summary of much majesty and precision, the doctrine of the Holy Doctor St. Athanasius, regarding the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Now the Catholic Faith is this: We worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is One, the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit; the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; the father infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Spirit infinite; the Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet not three eternals but one eternal, as also not three infinites, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one infinite. So, likewise, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty; and yet not three almighties but one almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; and yet not three Gods but one God. So the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; and yet not three Lords but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be both God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, there be three Gods or three Lords.

The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding.

So there is one Father not three Fathers, one Son not three Sons, and Holy Spirit not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less, but the whole three Persons are coeternal together and coequal.

So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped. He therefore who wills to be in a state of salvation,
let him think thus of the Trinity.

But it is necessary to eternal salvation that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The right faith therefore is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God
and Man.

He is God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds, and He is man of the substance of His mother born in the world; perfect God, perfect man subsisting of a reasoning soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood.

Who although He be God and Man yet He is not two but one Christ; one however not by conversion of the GodHead in the flesh, but by taking of the Manhood in God; one altogether not by confusion of substance but by unity of Person. For as the reasoning soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.

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