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To enjoy and glorify God, the Holy Trinity, for ever is the supreme vocation and unique privilege of every believing sinner, who is born from above and made a child of God by adoption. So Trinity Sunday is a wonderful Feast Day when adoration of the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is the supreme duty of the children of God, as they join with the angels and archangels.
Trinity Sunday became a festival in the Christian Year in the West in 1334, although it had existed unofficially as such in various parts of the West since the tenth century. Before 1334 this Sunday was the final day of the octave [8 day period] of Whitsun/Pentecost and one of the four appointed days for ordinations.
This festival may be seen as an appropriate ending of the first half of the Christian Year and at the same time an introduction to the second half.
The events commemorated in the Gospel readings from Advent to Pentecost in the BCP (following the Sarum Lectionary) reveal the Father acting through His Son and by His Spirit. The content of the Gospel readings after Trinity Sunday until Advent focus on what Jesus taught, and underlying all He taught is the revelation of the Father through the Son and by the Holy Ghost.
Such was the enthusiasm in England for this Feast that the English Missals (see e.g., the Sarum Missal) reckoned the Sundays from then on and until Advent as Sundays after Trinity rather than (as in Rome) Sundays after Pentecost. At the Reformation Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in editing The Book of the Common Prayer [1549] for the reformed Church of England simply followed the English usage rather than that of Rome.
THE
COLLECT The Latin Collect in use in the Ecclesia Anglicana until 1549 was:
Cranmer’s translation in the 1549 BCP was:
The translation as amended by the revisers in 1661 for the 1662 BCP:
[Note: This 17th Century rendering changes the meaning of the original Latin from the beginning of the petition “we beseech thee…” In contrast to the original Latin [& 1549 BCP] where the church prays for protection from “all adversities” through steadfastly believing in the vital Reality of the Holy Trinity, the revision creates two petitions, one for steadfastness in the Faith and another for defense from adversities.]
The American 1928 BCP follows precisely the wording of the 1662 BCP. It will be noticed that the Collect in these instances is addressed to God who is the Holy Trinity. In contrast, the Rite I Collect of the 1979 Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church departs from the tradition of the BCP from 1549 – 1928 and has a certain oddity:
Here there is a major change from “we beseech thee.” While the second half is certainly addressed to the Father, the first half is probably addressed to the Holy Trinity as One God and a Unity in Trinity. Whether this makes doctrinal and theological sense is open to question.
To
whom prayers are addressed The normal way of Christian prayer is to address the Father through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to do so believing in the presence of the Holy Ghost to make the prayer effectual. However, to address prayer directly to the Lord Jesus Christ is permissible for he is not only “very God of very God” but also our Lord and Saviour. Thus we find that prayer to the Lord Jesus is central to the Litany in the western Church and thus in the BCP. Rarely but yet within the realms of orthodoxy it is right to pray to the Holy Ghost, especially when He is asked to descend upon God’s people (see the Prayer “Come Holy Ghost” BCP 1928 p. 543).
Addressing the One, Holy, Undivided and Blessed Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost is rare but is surely appropriate in public prayer when it is the Feast of the Same GOD!
The original Latin prayer and the English translation of 1549 (as well as the amended translation of 1662) are addressed to the Holy Trinity as Three Persons, One God. This is obvious because the prayer does not end – as is normal – “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is an instance of “worshipping the Unity” as the confession of Three Persons in One God, and One God in Three Persons is held clearly in mind.
To harmonise with this Collect, the Preface for Trinity Sunday in the Order for Holy Communion of the classic BCP (1549-1662) is also addressed to the Holy Trinity.
THE
PREFACE
In the Prayer of Consecration [ or The Eucharistic Prayer] there is after “Sursum Corde” [“Lift up your hearts…” etc.] a Proper Preface which is related to the time in the Christian Year. In the BCP (1549) Archbishop Cranmer provided for The Feast of the Trinity the following Preface (based on the Latin Preface which had been in use in England in the Sarum Rite) and it was preserved in 1662:
It will be noticed that this Preface is addressed to the Trinity as a Unity , the One God & Lord who is Three Persons in One Substance [= Deity/Godhead/Divinity]. As such it accords with the Collect for Trinity Sunday which is also addressed to the Trinity as a Unity, the One God who is a Trinity of Persons.
It is interesting to note that the Preface in the medieval Sarum Rite is actually addressed to the Father and in translation [*The Sarum Missal in English* (no author; anon.; London, 1868) reads:
So we note that the 1549 & 1662 editions of the English BCP the logic is as follows for Trinity Sunday: From “Lift up your hearts” until the end of the “Holy, Holy, Holy” the Prayer is addressed to the Holy Trinity as One Divinity, while the rest of the Prayer is addressed to the Father through the Son and with the Holy Ghost as One God. In contrast, in the Sarum Rite the whole is addressed to the Father through the Son and with the Holy Ghost, but with a theological doxology to the Trinity added.
The
Council of Trent In the Eucharistic Prayer of the Council of Trent (“The Tridentine Rite”) from the sixteenth century, the Preface is much the same as that of Sarum and is addressed to the Father in these words:
[It will be noticed that there is a switch to the third person from “so that…” in order to acclaim the dogma of the Trinity as a Mystery for doxology.]
The
American BCP The American edition of the BCP of 1928 makes certain changes in order to make the Preface for Trinity Sunday accord with the address to the Father through the Son which is found in the rest of the Prayer of Consecration. Thus it reads:
We may claim that both the 1549-1662 Preface and the 1928 Preface of the BCP are faithful to the received dogma of the Holy Trinity, but in different ways.
The Preface of 1549/1662 clearly warns us against modern “Modalism”, the doctrine that God is One Person with Three Primary Names and/or Modes of Being. God the LORD is not one Person with three names but THREE equal Persons, each possessing in whole the one Godhead!
The Preface of 1928 clearly reminds us of the divine order in the Trinity as we find this revealed in the New Testament --- the Father together with His only Son and His Holy Spirit.
1979 USA & 2001 England
In the American 1979 Prayer Book, the Preface is addressed to the Father and is as follows:
In the latest Church of England Prayer Book, “Common Worship” of 2001, the Preface addressed to the Father reads:
The 1979 Preface appears to have two important shifts from that of 1928. First, the shift from "believe" (which is connected to the idea of a "saving faith") to "celebrate" (which can be taken more metaphorically and avoids any specific, objective statement of belief). The second is a shift from the via negativa (without any difference of [ or in 1549- inequality]), which leaves room for mystery and the contemplation of the divine order, to the via positiva, so that a positive statement is made ("celebrated,") of "the one and equal glory."
Probably most people will not take notice of this second shift. What it permits in the long term is the "communal" and "egalitarian" "Trinity" (so common today in church literature and ecumenical reports) that we encounter in the application of the human rights agenda to theology. The statement does not necessitate a communal Trinity, but it does make it more possible, since the more hesitant "lack of difference" is ever so much more cautious than the plain statement of "equality" (the highest of all modern "values").
Returning to the 1549 Preface we may claim that, to what extent Cranmer recast the content of the Latin Sarum Rite, his instincts about the need to protect major dogmas were better than those of his successors. His objective Trinity is a bulwark against the subjectified Trinity that so many heretics have taught before and after his time. One should remove safety devices with great caution, especially if one is not completely clear about what is being guarded against. The only good argument for the 1928 adjustment made to the 1549 version is the consistency of the address to the Father. On the other hand, a special, once a year exception has its merits precisely because of its being unusual and startling, and thus having teaching and worship value.
GLORY BE TO THE FATHER AND TO THE SON AND TO THE HOLY GHOST; AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE. WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.
The Revd Dr Peter Toon Whit-Monday 2004 |
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