Some Notes for the Feast of Corpus Christi (mostly for St Matthias')

The Feast

The Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi, was first instituted in the diocese of Liège in 1246 in response to the petitions of Juliana of Liège, an Augustinian nun. It was popularly felt that a feast solely in honour of the Holy Eucharist was needed in addition to the day of its institution, Maundy Thursday, which has other, less joyful associations. In 1264 Pope Urban IV made it a feast for the whole western church. The feast was appointed for the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. In recent years it has been kept on the Sunday next following the feast.
At the Reformation the English Book of Common Prayer abolished the feast of Corpus Christ, most likely because of its association with the doctrine of transubstantiation, but it was one of the elements reclaimed by the Catholic revival in Anglicanism.. In the new service book Common Worship, the Church of England provides that “The Thursday after Trinity Sunday may be observed as ‘The Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion’ (Corpus Christi)”. The American Prayer Book provides a collect “of the Holy Eucharist, Especially suited for Thursdays”. No provision for this feast is made in the Canadian Book of Alternative Services, but it is kept by many Canadian parishes, and propers are provided in the annual McCausland’s Order of Divine Service, though this is not an official liturgical publication of the Church.

The Notes on the Readings provided were for the wrong year and have been removed. I apologize for any inconvenience.

May 29th

I've often thought it might be fun to do a "This Day in History" series (or at least a good mental exercise), but the information is readily available on Wikipedia and various websites. Even sticking to dates I find curious or significant would get to be more of a chore quite quickly. From time to time there are days worthy of notice, and May 29th is one of them.

On this day happened what I feel were one of the saddest and one of the happiest events in history.

In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. The armies of the Sultan Mehmed II Fatih captured Constantinople after a siege; the last Roman Emperor in the east, Constantine XI Palaeologus, died in the battle. We add nothing to these bare facts.

In 1660 Charles II returned to England, entering London on his birthday. John Evelyn wrote in his Dairy:

This day, his Majesty, Charles the Second came to London, after a sad and long exile and calamitous suffering both of the King and the Church, being seventeen years. This was also his birth-day, and with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foot, brandishing their swords, and shouting with inexpressible joy; the ways strewed with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapestry, fountains running with wine; the Mayor, Aldermen, and all the Companies, in their liveries, chains of silver, gold, and velvet; the windows and balconies, all set with ladies; trumpets, music and myriads of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven hours in passing the city, even from two in the afternoon till nine at night.
I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and blessed God. And all this was done without one drop of blood shed, and by that very army which rebelled against him; but it was the Lord’s doing, for such a restoration was never mentioned in any history, ancient or modern, since the return of the Jews from their Babylonish captivity; nor so joyful a day and so bright ever seen in this nation, this happening when to expect or effect it was past all human policy.

Here is a smattering of other things, sublime and ridiculous, that happened on 29 May:
1886 - Chemist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, the ad appearing in the Atlanta Journal.
1913 - Igor Stravinsky's ballet score The Rite of Spring is premiered in Paris.
1942 - Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's White Christmas, the best-selling Christmas album in history, for Decca Records in Los Angeles.
1950 - St. Roch, first ship to circumnavigate North America, arrives in Halifax, Nova Scotia .
1953 - Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay are the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.
1982 First visit of a Roman Pope (John Paul II) to Canterbury Cathedral.

People born today include the writers G. K. Chesterton and T. H White, the composer Eric Korngold, and President J. F. Kennedy. For a list of other birthdays and of people who died on May 29th, and other events on this day, see :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_29#Births

Tales From the Slippery Slope VII: Dancing on the Heads of Pins

The weather was so fine this Sunday that I went down to Alicubi straightway after mass, hoping that some of my friends might be on the deck behind The Slippery Slope enjoying the day and the river. With this and that I hadn’t made it out much in the past few weeks, and was looking forward to a good talk. When I got to the Slope, I found that the doors were open onto the deck, and a brilliant light and a fresh breeze were pouring into a pub that was unusally dark and empty. David was there alone, holding the fort. He looked up as I came in, and noticed my puzzled expression. We spoke almost at once.
“Hello,” he said, sounding relieved. “Don’t worry, they should be here in a few minutes”
“Hello. Where is everyone?” I said, and then waited.
“At the meeting.”
“What meeting, I said”
“The meeting to save the lookout,” said David. “What other meetings are there in Alicubi?”
I should tell you about the lookout. Over the stone bridge from the main part of town and up a hill to the right, juts out some rock, from which there is a pleasant view of the town. Sometime in the 1800s someone — who it was is forgotten — built a structure on the edge of the rock from the windows of old buildings, giving the general effect of a poor cousin to Mackenzie King’s ruins in Gatineau Park. Opinion in the town was that the view was lovely, but the structure hideous. It was known officially (and always in lowercase) as ‘the lookout’; Tom Chillingworth dubbed it ‘the Appalling Belvedere’. Every couple of years some public minded individual objected to it on grounds of aesthetics or safety, and a public meeting was held, where inertia always won.
Just then Canon Hawker, Tom, John Strype, and Keith the landlord came in, laughing.
They all greeted me and Keith said, “Alicubi has once again demonstrated that it has community spirit. We may blindly trust the municipality in everything else, but we will always defend the Appalling Belvedere. David, help me get these fine gentlemen their drinks. I may need you on the bar for a while if business picks up.”
We got our pints and went to a nice table on the deck, and talked as the river flowed past. A few of the public spirited people of Alicubi began to wander in, and the pub grew more cheerful.
“A normal meeting?” I asked, “What was the complaint this time?”
“They thought it was ugly. And it was quite normal,” said John, “except that somebody was rude to the good Canon.”
“No!”
“Indeed yes,” said Hawker, “I was patiently explaining that while the lookout is truly ugly, we could be sure that anything else that was put up would be worse, and some fellow asked why he should listen to a man who debates angels on the heads of pins. He really made very little sense.” After a pause he said to Tom Chillingworth, “Did you know, Tom, that what is probably the earliest instance of that canard is in a book by a namesake of yours?”
“No, I didn’t”, said Tom
Hawker went on, “I have always been intrigued by the fact that though it is often said that mediaeval theologians used to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, or more correctly, the point of a needle, no one seemed to know where the charge came from. But recently I found both the earliest known instance and an older joke that might have something to do with it. Perhaps the joke, short as it is can be our story for today.”
“What about my namesake?” asked Tom.
“As we all know, there is no instance in known mediaeval philosophy or theology of this question being debated. St Thomas does ask in the Summa "whether several angels can be in the same place at the same time", but that doesn’t sound as silly (the answer is no, by the way).[1] I found a reference online from the Australian Mathematical Society Gazette, of all places, which cited the preface to William Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation (1638). In this passage Chillingworth is replying to a Roman opponent says that to charge that divines of the Church of England have only a superficial talent in philosophy, far below the standard of the ‘school divinity’, is to say ‘because they dispute not eternally — utrum chimera bombinans in vacuo, possit comedere secundas intentiones[2] — whether a million of angels may not sit upon a needle’s point …. therefore they have no deep knowledge …’"
“Well!” said Tom, “that doesn’t really help much, does it? The quip about angels seems to be a quotation or a commonplace, like the bombinating chimera of Rabelais. So where did my namesake get it?”
“That I don’t know,” answered the Canon, “but there is a story in A Hundred Merry Tales, which is obviously working on the same idea. That collection was published in about 1525, more than a century before Chillingworth. It was told then to make the point that you can’t preach to the stupid.”

The Story of the Friar that Preached what men’s souls were
A friar was in the pulpit preaching the word of God, and among other matters spoke of men’s souls. He said that the soul was so subtle that a thousand souls might dance on the space of the nail of a man’s finger. A merry conceited fellow of small devotion in the congregation answered back: “Master Doctor, if a thousand souls may dance on a man’s nail, I pray you then, where shall the piper stand?”

"Then the moral is given: that 'by this tale a man may see, that it is but folly to show or to teach virtue to them, that have no pleasure nor mind thereto.' Not very helpful, really. And I suppose it doesn’t really get us any further towards knowing who first made the dig against scholastics.

I said, "At any rate, the joke is obviously connected with the angel quip, and shows that a similar point was floating around early in the sixteenth century. I suppose we keep looking."

"Just so," said Hawker, and we called David over to ask what Mike was cooking for dinner.

[1] ST I.lii. 3
[2] “Whether a Chimera making a nuisance of itself in a vacuum is able to consume the indirect objects of thought” Rabelais, Pantagruel, cap vii

Some Notes for the Patronal Festival of Saint Matthias

SAINT MATTHIAS THE APOSTLE

In the Western Church the feast of Saint Matthias was traditionally kept on 24 February, a date which frequently falls in Lent. For this reason his feast was transferred by the Roman Church in recent liturgical revisions to 14 May, “so as to celebrate it in Eastertide close to the Solemnity of the Ascension" (The Roman Calendar, 1969). Revised Angican Calendars have tended to follow this practice, with the result that at St Matthias’, Bellwoods, this year the Patronal Festival has fallen into conflict with Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi, which is why we are keeping our Patronal Festival two Sundays after the feast rather than one.

Almost nothing is known of St Matthias. It might even be said that he is more obscure than SS Simon and Jude, as they are mentioned in the Gospels, and Jude has to be distinguished from Judas Iscariot! Perhaps he is most important because his election to the apostolate shows the way the that Church would continue to choose its pastors and guides, by bringing forward members as the Spirit led.

Our Patron Saint’s name is the Greek form of Mattathias, Hebrew Mattithiah, signifying "gift of Yahweh." The late mediaeval Golden Legend says “Matthias in Hebrew is as much to say as given to our Lord, or a gift of our Lord, or else humble or little.” St Matthias is certainly humble in terms of personal fame! He is not mentioned in the Gospels, but according to Acts 1.21 was one of the disciples of Jesus, and had been with Him from His baptism by John to the Ascension. Indeed the lack of definite information has led some people to identify him with this or that little-known figure, including Nathaniel, Barnabas, and even Zacchaeus. The Syriac version of the historian Eusebius apparently calls him ‘Tolmai’ for some reason.

St Matthias is only mentioned in the New Testament in Acts 1.21-26, when he was one of the two disciples selected as candidates to fill the place among the Twelve Apostles left by Judas. After prayer lots were cast and Matthias was chosen. There is a charming note in the life of St Matthias in the Golden Legend that “the holy Saint Denis saith that the lot was a ray and a shining which came and shone upon him.” Nothing else is said of him in the canonical scriptures.

Where the canonical sources fail us, the legends more than make up for. The Synopsis of Dorotheus of Tyre (c. 300?) reports that “Matthias preached the Gospel to barbarians and cannibals in the interior of Ethiopia, at the harbour of the sea of Hyssus, at the mouth of the river Phasis. He died at Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun.” Ethiopia here was really Colchis on the Black Sea, where Jason and the Argonauts went to win the Golden Fleece. Sebastopolis, by the way, is the modern Sukhumi, capital of Abkhazia. The fourteenth century Greek historian Nicephorus says that Matthias preached the Gospel in Judaea and then in Ethiopia, (this also meant Colchis), where he was crucified; his grave is shown there in the ruins of a Roman fortress. Other sources simply put his mission in "the city of the cannibals" in Ethiopia, which may or may not mean Colchis.
A different tradition was that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem and then beheaded with an axe. This tradition gained the most popularity in the Latin Church, and was included in the Golden Legend. There we learn that Matthias was a native of Bethlehem, where he was trained in the Law and the Prophets. After he had been elected to the apostolate, he preached in Jerusalem and worked miracles of healing in the name of Jesus. For this he was accused before the high priest (at least that what I take the Legend to mean by “the Bishop of Jerusalem”), but refused to answer, saying, “to be a Christian is nothing criminal but it is a glorious life”. Offered a chance to repent, Matthias said “God forbid that I should repent of the truth that I have truly found, and become an apostate” (was he perhaps thinking of Judas whom he had replaced?). He returned to preaching by word and example, converting many, until finally his enemies got two false witnesses to accuse him, and the flase witnesses cast the first stones against him. Matthias “prayed that the stones might be buried that the false witnesses had cast upon him, for to bear witness against them that stoned him,” and in the end they beheaded him with an axe, in the Roman manner. He died commending his spirit to God.
Finally we should note a tradition that St Matthias died of old age. Hippolytus of Rome (d. 235) said that “Matthias, who was one of the seventy, was numbered along with the eleven apostles, and preached in Jerusalem, and fell asleep and was buried there.”
These stories have no historical value, although the words “to be a Christian is nothing criminal but it is a glorious life” are well worth remembering. It is very likely that he never went to the country we call Ethiopia.

THE READINGS

The First Reading: Acts 1.15-26
The account of the election of Matthias to the apostleship presents us with certain historical difficulties which we cannot treat in any detail here. Since we have no other account, we cannot check the accuracy of the one we do have. However, the fact that neither Barsabbas nor Matthias is ever mentioned again would appear to confirm the fact that a choice was made to fill Judas’ place: it is hard to see any motive for inventing a story in honour of one who is not mentioned again in the historical tradition.
Notice that St Peter takes the lead among among the Twelve and the wider community, as he was to do on the day of Pentecost (2.14) and as he had done in response to the Lord’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16.16; Luke 9.20).
The concern of the Apostles to complete the number is interesting; for the institution of Twelve Apostles was not maintained in the Church. There is no account of a further election when St James the brother of John was executed (Acts 12:2). This is a matter we cannot enter into here.
Verses 18-19, in which Peter appears to narrate the death of Judas are another problem. It is strange that a person speaking in Jerusalem to Jerusalemites would refer to “the dwellers at Jerusalem” as if he were hundreds of miles away, or translate “Akeldama” for people who spoke Aramaic. It has been suggested that St Luke, to whom the book of Acts is ascribed, might well have inserted these details for Theophilus (see 1.1), and perhaps the verses shouldbe printed in parentheses. Then there is the problem that this account differs from the one in Matthew 27.3-8, about which we can only note here that two tradiitons of Judas’ end had developed before the Gospels were written down, and urge readers to examine the various commentaries.
The choice between Barsabbas and Matthias was made by casting lots, not ballots: voting by ballot was not a Jewish custom; the mthod of discerning the Lord’s will in the Old Testament was by lot. Moreover a ballot would not harmonize with thr prayer “show which of these two thou hast chosen”. What they did was to give each candidate a tablet, bearing his name, to place in the urn; and that which fell out, on the urn being shaken, determined which was successful. This is the only known occasion on which the early Church used lots to ascertain God’s will; it is not stated by what method of choice was used when the Twelve told he brethren to “pick out from among you” the seven to assist in the service(6.3-5).

Psalm 15.
As the first reading tells of the choice of Matthias, who has been steadfast from the beginning, to take the the place of Judas, who turned away to his own place, a contrast between the just and unjust, the faithful and the enemy, and the fruitful and unfruitful branches runs through the rest of the readings. Psalm 15 is a liturgy for admission to the temple. The question is posed in verse 1: who is worthy to enter the congregation? Verses 2-7 answer it: only the one with the moral qualities required. The description of what this persoan does not do establishes the contreast with the wicked.
Some cross-references. Ps 24.3-6 is a parallel to Ps 15. On verse 2, see Isaiah 33.15 On v. 5 (He has sworn to do no wrong, and does not go back on his word), see Ps 24:4. The BAS version of this verse is flat and seemingly uninspired compared to that in the Prayer Book Psalter (He that sweareth unto his neighbour and disappointeth him not, though it were to his own hindrance); another translation from the Hebrew gives: “he swears to [his own] hurt and does not retract” [from The Judaica Press Complete Tanach, which may be found at http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/16236/jewish/Chapter-15.htm].
Again, v. 6 seems a trifle weak, rendering “who does not put out his money at interest” [RSV] with “he does not give his money in hope of gain”. The Biblical teaching about usury (see Exodus 22.35, Leviticus 25.35-37) is not always clear, and it has been a thorny issue for centuries. Nonetheless we need to make sure that it continues to be a problem for us.
This is a psalm well-suited for use in examnation of conscience.

The Epistle: Philippians 3.13b-21. (For some reason the lectionary in the BAS and For All the Saints gives this reading as 3:13b-22; Philippians 3 has only 21 verses).
St Paul has just finished a glorious passage [3.4-12] in which he recounts his reasons for confidence in the Lord, culminating in the exclamation that though he has not yet achieved the goal, the resurrection from the dead, he can say “I press on to make it my own, becasue Christ Jesus has made me his own”. Nw he calls on his hearers and readers to imitate him in pressing toward the goal of God’s call in Christ (see Romans 5.2). This is the sign of a mature Christian, holding fast to the faith. It is at this point that we meet the contrast: there are those who do not strive for the upward call. There is some disagreement as to just who the “many” are. Some refer to verses 2-4 of this chapter and a ‘circumcision party” in the early church that demanded fill adherence to old law. In this case the references to the “belly” would be to the dietary laws and to “their glory is their shame” to circumcision; others disagree, seeing in the “belly” rather general greed and selfishness, and in “shame” perhaps teh general dissolutness of life that St Paul saw as rampant in the Gentile world. This is a question on which I can only refer you to the variety of Bible commentaries for a variety of answers. For this feast, and in the context of its readings, the “many” include all who having been Christians turn away to seek salvation somewhaere or in something other than the cross of Jesus. They must be Christians who have fallen away or pose a split in the community; otherwise Paul would have no reason to mention them “with tears”. In the last verses he recalls his readers and hearers to “the upward call” and the promise of life in Christ.

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint John, 15.1-6-16
With Judas’ end in mind, the contrast between the branches of the Christ-vine that bear fruit and the ones that do not, and the warning to all his disciples of the fate of the unfruitful branch might be uppermost in our minds as we read this passage from St John. Like the one who is fit to enter the tabernacle, and like the mature Christian imitating St Paul, the fruitful branches will abide in Christ’s love, and.their joy will be complete. However, the last words of this passage reflect clearly the election of Matthias: “You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give you.” For if Matthias had followed Christ from the baptism of John, he was called by Christ; he was sent out with the seventy to proclaim the good news. When a new apostle was needed, the choice was put into the hands of the Lord. Nowhere do we hear of Matthias applying for the position. Through the voice of the brethren, and then by the lot, it was the Spirit of Christ that chose him. Where he went and where he preached is of little importance, as long as he remained faithful (though if he did go to the real Ethiopia it would be pretty cool). I doubt that I need to suggest how we may apply all this to our own lives and callings

RECENT ITEMS WORTHY OF NOTE

The Week of Trinity Sunday, 18 May 2008.
The CRTC and the Internet
There has been much in the news recently about threats to the internet. This comment in Andrew Coyne's Blog has particular reference to Canada:
http://andrewcoyne.com/2008/05/who-will-rid-us-of-these-meddlesome.php

Keep your eyes on this post; new items (if there are any) will be added.

Noticed Before Breakfast

Proposed Reductions of Speed Limits in Britain

The London Times reported today that

the speed limit on thousands of residential roads will be reduced to 20mph under government moves designed to cut road deaths by a third over the next decade.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the Road Safety Minister, told The Times that the government would consider setting a challenging target for cutting road deaths. “We get some criticism for not being ambitious enough,” he said, conceding that measuring deaths alone, rather than together with serious injuries, would provide absolute clarity.

One of the main ways of achieving the target, he said, would be to reduce the speed of traffic on residential roads.

It was also reported that

The minister quoted a Transport Research Laboratory study of 250 20mph schemes across Britain, which found that, after the limit was reduced, crashes fell by 60 per cent, child casualties by 67 per cent and average speeds by 9mph.
He said that his department was conducting a further study of the benefits of 20mph zones to persuade local authorities to introduce them more quickly.

[This item was found at:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3941769.ece?&EMC-Bltn=QORC09.]

This item caught my attention because just the other day I read the text of a radio talk that Max Beerbohm delivered on the BBC on April 26 1936, called “Speed”. Max Beerbohm was a great caricaturist and a fine writer, but he has seldom been called a prophet. His talk on speed could have been delivered today as a comment on the British Government’s new plans, and to that degree seems prophetic. Addressing the point that “speed itself is no danger, Beerbohm said

A cannon-ball fired from a canon is not in itself dangerous. It is dangerous only if you happen to be in the way of it. You would like to step out of its way; but there is no time for you to do so. Perhaps it would like to stop short of you; but it can’t; it is going too fast. That is what motorists are doing even when in ‘built-up areas’ they obey the speed limit of thirty miles an hour. They are going too fast. It would be unreasonable to expect them to impose on themselves a speed-limit of twenty miles an hour. But this is the limit which should — and sooner or later will be — imposed on them. Whether this slowing-down of traffic will cause a great or a small loss of national income, is, I am told, a point on which expert economists are not agreed. What is certain in that it will save a vast number of lives. (‘Speed’, in Mainly on the Air, 2nd edition, London: Heinemann, 1957, p. 20)

Seventy-two years is indeed “sooner or later."
Beerbohm made a comment earlier in the talk that should also be taken to heart. If people in his day felt shame about abuses and barbarities of the past, he asked, What do you think posterity will think of this age?

‘Perhaps,’ you will say, ‘posterity will be worse than we are.’ Well, then, let us set a good example to posterity. Let us persuade our legislators that we are shocked by the present state of things. Let us suggest to them that they may lose votes if they are not as shocked as we are. Let us insinuate that tests far more exacting than the present tests should be imposed on anyone who desires a licence to drive a motor-car. Let us whisper that the system by which a motorist can insure himself against loss by his own carelessness is not a very good system. Let us, slightly raising our voices, demand that a driver convicted of dangerous driving should be liable to a much longer term of imprisonment than he is now. Let us—but this is all merely tinkering with the problem. The main root of the mischief is that great fetish of ours, Speed. (p. 19.)

No further comment seems necessary.

Some notes for the First Sunday after Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday (principally for St Matthias')

The Doctrine of the Trinity
Eric Mascall once wrote that the Trinity is not a doctrine, though there is a doctrine of the Trinity. The Trinity is the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now the doctrine about the Trinity is easily stated: we need only quote the Quicunque Vult, commonly called the Athanasian Creed:

And the Catholic Faith is this: That 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, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. …

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity 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 Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other; none is greater, or less than another;
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.

Easily stated it may be, but a whole life can be spent contemplating what it means. The Trinity is not a doctrine we are called to know about but the living God whom we are invited to know. A Christian is baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity and signed with the sign of the Cross; at the time of death, the Christian is sent from the world in the name of the Holy Trinity (BAS, p. 564). The whole Christian life is marked “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, and our hope is for the fulfilment of that life in eternity.
In many parts of Scripture, as in today’s reading from Genesis, or in the Gospel account of the Baptism of the Lord, we meet a revelation of the Three Persons who are One God working in creation, salvation, renewal and sanctification. The full meaning of this revelation is a mystery that leaves all human wisdom lagging behind. Nonetheless, God gave us our minds and calls us to use them in knowing and loving him. It is irresponsible to avoid thinking about our life and calling. Eric Mascall puts all this in balance. Speaking of the “simple faithful” he suggests that

… through participation in the tradition of Christian life and worship, they have come to experience God as he is. There is a knowledge by ‘connaturality’through faith and love’ which is more intimate than merely conceptual knowledge, and it is vital that intellectuals should remember this. Nevertheless, when intellectual issues are raised they must be faced, and it is disreputable for the intellectual to put on the mask of the charcoal-burner whenever he finds himself in a corner [The Triune God, 1986, p. 26].

(Blaise Pascal referred to simple Christian as the “charcoal-burner”.)

The First Reading, Genesis 1:1-2:4a. Among the myths of the ancient Near East can be found many variations on a common account of the world’s origin. the creation story in Genesis is clearly part of this world agreeing in many details, such as the sequence of events. The places where the Hebrew account differs from others in the tradition tells us how the people of Israel thought of God, and we believe, are points where we especially learn what God wants us to know from these stories. To learn how the Genesis account differs from a Mesopotamian creation story, see the “Clippings” section in the Revised Common Lectionary notes for Trinity Sunday http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/atrinl.shtml.
Why do we read this passage on Trinity Sunday? Quite simply, to keep us from thinking that the Trinity somehow begins in the New Testament. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the Persons of the Trinity as a kind of committee or team taking turns in the work of creation, salvation, and sanctification. But this is to think of them as three Gods and not one. Christian theology holds that the Persons work together in all these things. So we see as it were in retrospect in the first three verses of Genesis the three Persons united in the work. This understanding is undergirded by the opening verses of John’s Gospel, which speak of God creating all things through the Word. A further vestige of the Trinity has traditionally been seen in verse 26, the plural “Let us make”. Modern scholars place less emphasis on this, but I agree with Robert Farrar Capon:

In the old days, when theologians were less uptight about their respectability in the eyes of biblical critics, the odd majestic plural of that fateful "Let us make" was always taken as one of the Old Testament evidences for the doctrine of the Trinity. Nowadays you lose your union card if you do things like that, but I still think it's nice. You don't have to be dead earnest about it all and work up a theory that the Jewish writer who put the first chapter of Genesis together was some kind of crypto-Christian, or that the Holy Spirit was deliberately trying to Tell Us Something.

Psalm 8

is a psalm of praise of God as creator and of mankind as the head of creation. Does not seem to contain an obvious trinitarian reference, but retrospectively, we cannot read of “the son of man” without thinking of Christ, or to his being made a little lower than the angels without thinking of the incarnation. .It is for this reason perhaps that the liturgical psalter has retained the translation “son of man” in verse 5, where some contemporary versions opt for “mortals”. As Haslam notes at RCL, this is not just being “politically correct” His note shows that this is not simply a question of inclusive or exclusive language in the modern sense. He writes:

The Hebrew, ben ‘adam, literally son of proto-human, is a Jewish idiom meaning mortal or human being. Some scholars consider Son of Man, as used in the New Testament, to be a Christian technical term. [NOAB] Ben ‘adam can also be translated as “children of earth". Before Eve was created Adam was of no gender; he was simply “earth-creature”, a literal translation; after the rib was removed they became man and woman. So ben ‘adam is more inclusive, referring back to the pre-gendered humanity.

The Epistle, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13.

In this reading we have Paul’s fervent wish for the congregation iin Corinth. He mentions the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God related to us and for our salvation. The order, “Lord Jesus Christ … God … Holy Spirit,” is significant: the grace of Christ expresses and leads one toward the love of God, and the love of God when actualized through the Spirit, produces communion with God and with one another. Compare to this the trintarian formula in 1 Corinthians 12.4-5: “Spirit … Lord … God.” In calling Jesus “Lord” (Greek, Κύριος) the first Christians, who were Jews, named him as God, for this word was used in translations of the Hebrew Scriptures to render the divine name YHWH (often incorrectly rendered as “Jehovah”). For converts from paganism, the same word was used of their deities.
Although there is no formal doctrinal statement of the Trinity in the New Testament, triadic or trinitarian formulas like the one in today’s epistle reading run through it as a golden thread. Such passages include Rom 5.1-4, 8:9-11, 14-17, 15:16 and 30; 1 Cor 2:6-16, 8:6; 2 Cor 1.21-22; Phil 3:3; Eph 4:5-7; 1 Thess 1:2-7; Titus 3:4-6; Heb 9:14 1 Peter 1.2; 1 John 4:13-14, 5:5-12.

The Holy Gospel.

St Matthew 28:16-20 is the conclusion of the Gospel, narrating Jesus’s final command and promise to his disciples, known as the Great Commission. As Haslam puts it, the Lord Jesus “now sends out his followers to “all nations” (v. 19, not just Israel) to: baptise in the possession and protection (“name”) of the Trinity, and to carry on his teaching ministry. To help in this daunting task, he is, and will be, with them until the Kingdom of God comes fully.” This passage is read today because of the form of the command, to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.