ON THE SHARED LIFE OF THE TRINITY

The Traditional Western Diagram of the Holy Trinity,
Often Seen in Stained Glass, Seals and Episcopal Rings

A WESTERN ORTHODOX HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

INTRODUCTION 

Dearly beloved in Christ, faithful of the Orthodox Archdiocese and honored visitors, we greet you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, on this glorious feast of Trinity Sunday. Today we stand at the threshold of the Church’s long green season, known in our Western Orthodox Kalendar as Trinitytide or Ordinary Time—though there is nothing ordinary about it. This great season begins not with a feast of saints or martyrs, nor even with a commemoration of the events of our Lord’s earthly ministry, but with the adoration of God Himself: the Most Holy, Undivided, and Consubstantial Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, One God, world without end.

The origin of Trinity Sunday lies in the loving labor of the Western Church, especially under the influence of the Carolingian and Sarum Rites. While the Nicene Creed was proclaimed each Sunday, a day to give thanks specifically for the Holy Trinity took fuller shape in the 10th to 12th centuries, and was universally established in the West by Roman Patriarch John XXII. And though our Orthodox East celebrates the Trinity especially on Pentecost, we in the Ancient Church of the West keep this Sunday to contemplate not only the Spirit’s descent but the eternal mystery of Three in One, and One in Three in our holy Western Patrimony! 

From this day forth, every Sunday of the remainder of the Church year will be counted after Trinity. Just as Lent leads to the Cross, and Easter leads to the empty Tomb, Trinity leads to our spiritual growth in God, as we are drawn ever deeper into the life and light of the One who made us for Himself.

Today, then, we invite every heart present—whether long baptized or newly seeking—to behold the Holy Trinity not only with the mind but with the soul. In Christ, you are welcomed into the eternal love of the Father, and sealed with the grace of the Holy Ghost. This is no mere theological abstraction, but the very pattern of our salvation. As St. Gregory the Theologian declared: “When I say God, I mean Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” And as St. Athanasius taught: “The Father creates through the Son in the Holy Spirit.”

Therefore, in the Name of the Triune God, we bless you. We welcome you. And we invite you—children, elders, visitors, and pilgrims—to step into this holy mystery, not with presumption, but with joy and awe. You are not spectators. You are called to dwell in the life of God.

SCRIPTURES 

THE EPISTLE READING: REVELATION 4:1-11

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN 3:1-15

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

SERMON 

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up… and the seraphim cried one to another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” So spoke the prophet Isaiah, and so cry the angels and saints, age after age, from Sinai to Zion, from the Temple to the Apocalypse, from the altar of Iona to the firelit abbeys of Gaul, and now to the Holy Table before which we stand today.

THE MYSTERY ABOVE ALL MYSTERIES

Beloved, this is the Feast of Feasts in doctrine: the celebration of the ineffable, eternal, and indivisible Unity and Trinity of the one God. Not three gods, but one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Not three Lords, but one Lord. Not three Almighties, but one Almighty. Not one divine essence shared in parts, nor three gods in cooperation, but one Godhead in perfect communion, as the Athanasian Creed confesses and the Nicene Fathers defend.

St. Gregory the Theologian, that great Cappadocian luminary, said: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the radiance of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One.” In this mystery, thought breaks and language bends. Yet, as St. Augustine of Hippo tells us in De Trinitate, we do not speak to comprehend God, but because we are compelled to adore Him.

And so, in our weakness and adoration, we name what He has revealed. As at Sinai, so now: “The Lord descended in the cloud,” and as Moses was drawn up into the glory, so we too are drawn into mystery—not merely spectators of God’s majesty, but partakers of His divine life.

A GOD WHO SPEAKS IN COVENANT

Today’s Old Testament reading from Exodus 24 recalls that trembling moment on Mount Sinai. Moses ascends, and a cloud covers the mountain. The glory of the Lord appears like a devouring fire. There, amid thunder and sapphire light, a covenant is sealed in blood—half upon the altar, half upon the people. And what do they say? “All that the Lord hath said we will do, and be obedient.” So it is with every true doctrine: it is not to be debated as if it were human speculation, but obeyed, entered into, received with trembling love. The Trinity is not philosophy, but covenant.

And what is revealed in this covenant, this divine Self-giving? Not an abstract unity, but a God who speaks, who sends, who sanctifies—a Father who creates, a Son who redeems, and a Spirit who sanctifies. The voice on the mountain, the Word made flesh, and the Breath that gives life.

TRINITARIAN SALVATION AND EUCHARISTIC GLORY

In the Gospel, Nicodemus approaches Jesus by night. Christ, the Light of the world, declares that no man can see the Kingdom unless he be born again—γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν—born from above. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The same Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation now regenerates the soul through baptism, restoring it into the image of the Son, to be presented to the Father. As St. Maximos the Confessor writes, “The mystery of the Holy Trinity is manifest in the mystery of salvation. The Father sends the Son; the Son accomplishes the work; the Spirit perfects it in us.”

From the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit—we were created. And by the same Triune love, we are redeemed. The whole history of salvation is Trinitarian, as is every liturgy, every sacrament, every prayer offered with clean hands and a pure heart. When the Church baptizes, it is in the Name—one Name, not three—of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. When we chant the Sanctus, it is with the same tongues of flame as were seen by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John. The four living creatures of Revelation—lion, calf, man, eagle—cry “Holy, Holy, Holy,” echoing the triple holiness of the Triune God. The four-and-twenty elders cast down their crowns, not before an abstract force or faceless monad, but before Him who liveth forever and ever, the Throned God in Trinity.

TRADITION, NOT SPECULATION

St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” Here lies the heart of Orthodoxy: not innovation, but transmission. The Trinity is not our invention—it is the Apostolic inheritance, guarded by Councils, confirmed by miracles, defended by martyrs, adored by monks, preached by missionaries, and declared by every Christian tongue. St. Irenaeus of Lyons said it plainly: “The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, carefully guards the faith she has received from the apostles.”

The Council of Nicaea (AD 325) gave us the confession of the Son’s co-equality with the Father. The Council of Constantinople (AD 381) taught that the Spirit, too, is “the Lord and Giver of Life.” The great Doctors of the West, such as St. Ambrose and St. Leo the Great, defended these truths with equal fervor. “The true faith,” wrote Leo, “is that which teaches the unity of the Trinity and the equality of the Persons.”

The Caroline Divines, those noble confessors of the English Church, echoed this with clarity and reverence. Bishop Lancelot Andrewes summarized the Rule of Faith thus: “One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers therein.” These Fathers, he said, held the faith entire, and among their central doctrines was this: God is One in essence, Three in persons.

TRINITARIAN SAINTLINESS: BARNABAS AND THE SAINTS OF THE WEST

The feast of the Holy Trinity falls, too, in the week of saints: Barnabas the Apostle, and Medard, Bron, Columba, Ithamar, Ternan, and Trillo—luminaries of the Ancient Church of the West. Each in his way bore witness to the Triune God. St. Barnabas, “a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith,” labored that “much people should be added unto the Church.” St. Columba, burning with missionary zeal, crossed stormy seas not for adventure but for adoration—to make known the Name into which all are baptized.

And what do these saints teach us but this—that to confess the Trinity is to live the Trinity? To give one’s life to the glory of the Father, in imitation of the Son, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. The true doctrine is not static. It is fire. It is wind. It is life.

GLORY IN UNITY, HUMILITY IN MYSTERY

As we draw near to the altar, we are reminded by the Secret and the Postcommunion that to worship the Trinity is not mere thought but transformation. “That we may present ourselves unto thee to be an oblation”—we are drawn up like Moses into the cloud of glory, where the burning fire of divine love consumes pride, error, and sin.

St. John of Damascus wrote, “We adore the unity in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.” And St. Gregory the Great, first monk to become pope, reminds us, “What we believe about God we must seek to live in God.” The doctrine is meant to conform us—to burn away the dross of ego, to rebirth us by water and Spirit, and to draw us, like Moses, like Nicodemus, like Columba, into that high and holy fire which is the life of the Triune God.

POEM IN CONTEMPLATION 

One of the most beloved poems within the Western Orthodox patrimony for today is “Trinitie Sunday”by John Donne (AD 1572–1631)—priest, metaphysical poet, and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. This poem was composed specifically for the celebration of this day and is traditionally read or quoted in English circles on this day. It combines theological depth, penitence, and mysticism in Donne’s characteristic voice.

TRINITIE SUNDAY

by Fr. John Donne

O blessed glorious Trinity,

Bones to Philosophy, but milk to Faith;

Which, as wise serpents, diversely comment,

Yet all agree in their stability.

Physicians of the soul, three jointly may

Make up one medicine, and one sickness cure;

But they, great Trinity, which are but One,

Being three, do hold with just proportion

Our peace and welfare, and our sins endure.

So, since the world’s creation, Thou hast stood

Unmoved, though as the world’s self it did shake;

Yet when the world did sin, the world’s God died.

As if all things had stood in love’s fair tide,

So thy Son did not call His legions down,

But bled, and bowed, and passed the grave alone.

SUMMARY: THE SERAPHIC SONG IS OURS

Let us, then, with the angels, with the saints, with the hosts of heaven and the confessors of the West, fall down and cry: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.” To the Father unbegotten, to the Son eternally begotten, and to the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding, be all glory, majesty, dominion, and worship, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

Let us pray…

A COLLECT FOR TRINITY SUNDAY

Almighty and Everlasting God, who hast revealed Thyself as One God in Trinity of Persons, and in the mystery of Thine undivided Unity dost evermore both judge in holiness and redeem in mercy: Grant us grace steadfastly to confess the faith that was once delivered to the saints, and to rejoice in that love whereby Thy Son humbled Himself even unto death, and passed through the grave alone, that we through Him might draw near unto Thee in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.