Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: May 31st 2026

Hildegard's vision of the Trinity - Wiki Image

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Lectionary: 164

A bit of History

I start on a slightly contentious note, because I find this feast somewhat superfluous as a distinct celebration. I can understand that it emerged out of devotion, but for the first millennium of the Church a specific, universal feast honouring the Trinity did not exist, there was a deeper and more pertinent understanding that the Trinity was honoured each and every day by invocations such as the sign of the cross, and doxologies at the end of hymns , prayers, and psalms. The Eastern Church has no defined feast, and understands both the Baptism of the Lord and Pentecost as a more direct revelation of the Triune nature of the One in Three.

A petition for the celebration of such a feast, was in fact rejected by Alexander II (Pope from 1061-1073) in the 11th century, who is claimed to have said it was not customary in the Roman Church because the Trinity was actively glorified in every Sunday liturgy and daily prayer. But he did not ban festal celebrations of the Trinity in Benedictine monasteries in France and in regions where local dioceses already celebrated it. It wasn't declared an official feast in the Latin Rite until 1334, when Pope John XXII officially ordered the Feast of the Holy Trinity for the entire Universal Church, and assigned it to the first Sunday after Pentecost.

A bit of meaning

We can get bogged down in the dogmatic formulation of who and what the Trinity is and that is fully justified, for bad theology as well as inarticulate expressions of it cause a lot of harm and muddle. There are a lot of dated and slightly dubious artistic expressions of the Trinity still about. Instinctively I shy away from any attempt to portray the Father in anthropomorphic style, although I can understand why this has been done, but it fails to encompass the unseen mystery revealed to Moses and as John of Damascus in his" Three Treatises on the Divine Images",points out it is something to do with what we can see before us, the matter of life :" Previously God, who has neither a body nor a face, absolutely could not be represented by an image. But now that he has made himself visible in the flesh and has lived with men, I can make an image of what I have of God... and contemplate the glory òf the Lord, his face unveiled'.( John of Damascus)

But take heed, what he also warns us about the impossibility of portraying the unseen Father :" "You see that He forbids the making of images because of idolatry, and that it is impossible to make an image of the immeasurable, uncircumscribed, invisible God". (John of Damascus) And this is important because he is warning us not to try and create a God in our own image but let the Triune God into our own lives.

I tend to think a lot like this, if we understand that God is a relationship, the divine mystery of love between Father, Son and Spirit and that this is shared with us, and into which we are drawn, then each day, in fact each moment is a celebration of the presence of the God we seek, a drawing closer not to understanding of dogma, but revealing the love of God for us in a relationship deeper than our words can adequately express. The Benedictine abbess, mystic, and now doctor of the Church, Hildegard of Bingen wrote this evocation of the dynamic of the Trinity :

" Praise to the Trinity-the sound and life
and creativity of all within their life,
the praise of the angelic host
and wondrous, brilliant splendour hid,
unknown to human minds, it is,
and life within all things".

Allowing the Trinity to come to us

There is much to unpack in Hildegard's words but the key is in understanding the Trinity as ',life'. This comes across in our second reading from 2 Corinthians 13, where Paul encourages us to live together in peace by mending our ways and urges us to 'rejoice' and then encounter each other in friendship ;" Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you.'(v12) Then gives us that all encompassing blessing ( and one we should use daily) which draws down upon us, grace, love and fellowship: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you."(v13) Here is one manner in which we can enter into the relationship of the Trinity, firstly by making ourselves ready and open to receive the gift of loving presence in our making peace with each other, then in making those short poignant invocations of doxology part of our daily prayer, and finally by creating a space of quiet to simply be before the presence of the Trinity and to share in their life. This is very much part of the inner meaning of our Gospel today:

"For God so loved the world that he gave* his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life".(Jn 3:16)

Lectio

Hildegard's vision of the Trinity

Then I saw a bright, serene light (serenissima lux), and in this light a human figure the color of sapphire (sapphirini coloris species hominis), which was all blazing with a gentle, red-glowing fire (suavissimus rutilans ignis). And that bright light bathed the whole of the red-glowing fire, and the red-glowing fire bathed the bright light; and the bright light and the red-glowing fire poured over the whole human figure, so that the three were one light in one power of potential.

St Elizabeth of the Trinity

"Abyss calls to abyss." It is there in the very depths that the divine impact takes place, where the abyss of our nothingness encounters the Abyss of mercy, the immensity of the all of God. There we will find the strength to die to ourselves and, losing all vestige of self, we will be changed into love."