SOLEMNITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI!

What Is Trinity Sunday? By Scott P. Richert

Honoring the Most Fundament Christian Belief
Source: ThoughtCo

The Hospitality of Abraham (Old Testament Trinity), c. 1380. Found in the collection of the Benaki Museum, Athens. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

by Scott P. Richert
Updated May 11, 2017

Trinity Sunday is a moveable feast celebrated a week after Pentecost Sunday. Also known as Holy Trinity Sunday, Trinity Sunday honors the most fundamental of Christian beliefs—belief in the Holy Trinity. The human mind can never fully understand the mystery of the Trinity, but we can sum it up in the following formula: God is three Persons in one Nature. There is only one God, and the three Persons of God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—are all equally God, and They cannot be divided.

Quick Facts About Trinity Sunday

• Date: The Sunday after Pentecost Sunday. See When Is Trinity Sunday? for the date in this and future years.

• Type of Feast: Solemnity.

• Readings (Year A): Exodus 34:4B-6, 8-9; Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18 (full text here)

• Readings (Year B): Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Psalm 33:4-5, 6-9, 18-19, 20-22; Romans 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20

• Readings (Year C): Proverbs 8:22-31; Psalm 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

• Prayers: The Sign of the Cross; The Glory Be; The Athanasian Creed

• Other Names for the Feast: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Holy Trinity Sunday

The History of Trinity Sunday

As Fr. John Hardon points out in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, the origins of the celebration of Trinity Sunday go all they way back to the Arian heresy of the fourth century. Arius, a Catholic priest, believed that Jesus Christ was a created being rather than God.

In denying the divinity of Christ, Arius denied that there are three Persons in God. Arius' chief opponent, Athanasius, upheld the orthodox doctrine that there are three Persons in one God, and the orthodox view prevailed at the Council of Nicaea, from which we get the Nicene Creed, recited in most Christian churches every Sunday.

(The Council of Nicaea also gives us a wonderful example of how a real bishop deals with a heretic: Confronted with Arius' blasphemous views, Saint Nicholas of Myra—the man best known today as Santa Claus—marched across the council floor and slapped Arius across the face. See the biography of Saint Nicholas of Myra for the whole story.)

To stress the doctrine of the Trinity, other Fathers of the Church, such as St. Ephrem the Syrian, composed prayers and hymns that were recited in the Church's liturgies and on Sundays as part of the Divine Office, the official prayer of the Church. Eventually, a special version of this office began to be celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost, and the Church in England, at the request of St. Thomas à Becket (1118-70), was granted permission to celebrate Trinity Sunday. The celebration of Trinity Sunday was extended to the entire Church by Pope John XXII (1316-34).

For many centuries, the Athanasian Creed, traditionally ascribed to Saint Athanasius, was recited at Mass on Trinity Sunday. While seldom read today, this beautiful and theologically rich exposition of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity can be read privately or recited with your family on Trinity Sunday to revive this ancient tradition.

[Please read the OFFICIAL CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH]

LIFESITENEWS: Polish bishops end Year of Mercy by enthroning Christ as King in presence of president

KRAKOW- ŁAGIEWNIKI, Poland, November 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — On November 19, at the end of the Jubilee of Mercy, Poland celebrated a historical Act of Acceptance of Christ as King and Lord with a Mass at the Shrine of Divine Mercy, with the Polish bishops, government authorities, and many faithful in attendance. President Andrzej Duda from the Law and Justice Party took part in the event, thus attracting international media attention.

More than 100,000 Poles in Krakow recited the solemn pledge: “O Immortal King of Ages, Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior! In the Jubilee Year of the 1,050th anniversary of Poland’s baptism, in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, we Poles stand here before you to acknowledge your reign, to submit ourselves to your law, to entrust and consecrate to you our Fatherland and our whole people.”

The ceremony was organized by the Polish Bishops’ Conference, inspired by Pope Francis’ papal bull Misericordiae Vultus. In relation to the closing of the Holy Door of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, the Holy Father wrote, “We will entrust the life of the Church, all humanity, and the entire cosmos to the Lordship of Christ, asking him to pour out his mercy upon us like the morning dew, so that everyone may work together to build a brighter future.”

During the Mass, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, Archbishop of Krakow and the president of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate, said, “We invite Jesus into our hearts, families, communities, and surroundings … and to all which constitutes Poland.” The Cardinal added that all persons should not be afraid to proclaim such things.

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The idea for this proclamation came from the Commission for the Movements of Christ’s Enthronement. In an October pastoral letter, the Polish Bishops explained, “There is no need to enthrone Christ in the sense of placing him on the throne and giving him the power or proclaiming him king.” However, “there is an urgent need to enthrone Christ in the hearts of the faithful, by reviving living faith and the life of faith.” Therefore, the Act contains a profession of faith and renunciation of evil.

Bishop Andrzej Czaja, president of the Groups for Enthronement, said that the primary purpose of the Act is “faithful recognition of Jesus, surrendering and entrusting our personal, family, and national lives to Him in all dimensions, and living according to God’s law.” He added, “As such, it should therefore also be an act of justice, in the sense of devoting what is due to God, and at the same time an act of obedience to God in response to His Love.”

Most of the people were not able to enter the Shrine of Divine Mercy and stood outside in the rain. Among them were members of the Right to Life Foundation, who were holding pro-life posters. Many participants interviewed by Polonia Christiana TV mentioned that they wanted Poland to ban abortion, which the ruling party Law and Justice is unwilling to do.

It appears that the Church authorities hinted at that. During the homily, Bishop Czaja said, “There is a need for clear respect for God’s law, so that man’s law does not supercede it.” He clarified that this respect would assure that “what’s morally good and ethical would not be neglected.” Bishop Czaja also talked about giving the first place to Christ in all aspects of life, including professional.

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However, Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin commented that the enthronement had no political meaning and that politicians present accepted Christ as King and Lord only as private citizens.

The Saturday celebration in the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Krakow preceded the feast of the Solemnity of Christ the King in the Catholic liturgical year. Last Sunday, the Act of Acceptance of Christ as King and Lord was recited in all Catholic churches in Poland.

A short video from the celebration can be viewed here:

The full text of the Jubilee Act of Acceptance of Jesus Christ as King and Lord as translated by the Bishops’ Conference:

O Immortal King of Ages, Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior! In the Jubilee Year of the 1050th anniversary of Poland’s Baptism, in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, we Poles stand here before you [together with our authorities, clergy and laity] to acknowledge your reign, to submit ourselves to your law, to entrust and consecrate to you our Fatherland and our whole people.

SOLEMNITY SUNDAY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY!

A traditional diagram that explains in simple terms about the Blessed Trinity

Islam's mistaken view on Trinity say that we, Catholics invented the Holy Trinity by making Allah (God), Isa (Jesus) and Mariam (Mary /Mariam) as equal with that ONE GODHEAD (see Wikipedia).

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity makes Christianity UNIQUE among all the religions in the world. It kept Christianity INTACT and DIVIDED. And it produced various dissenting groups among the Protestants and different dissenting groups keep on multiplying but not populating in numbers.

What is the HOLY TRINITY? Where is it in the Bible? And why it is THE GOD we know and we worship?

Here is from Catholic Education Resource Center written by a Jesuit priest, Rev. Fr. John a. Hardon, S.J.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the most fundamental of our faith. On it everything else depends and from it everything else derives. Hence the Churchs constant concern to safeguard the revealed truth that God is One in nature and Three in Persons.

In order to do some justice to this sublime subject, we shall look only briefly at the heretical positions that at various periods of the Church's history challenged the revealed Trinitarian faith. Our principal intention is to see in sequence the development of the doctrine, with emphasis on how the Church's authority has contributed to the progress in understanding the plurality of persons in the one true God.

There is also great value in seeing some of the implications of the doctrine for our personal and social lives, since the mystery was most extensively revealed by Christ during the same discourse at the Last Supper when He taught us the "New Commandment" by which we are to love one another as He has been loving us.

Trinitarian Heresies

There is a certain logic in the adversative positions assumed by those who called into question one or another aspect of the Trinity. Not surprisingly the human mind has wrestled with what God revealed about Himself in His inner Trinitarian existence. And depending on the willingness to recognize its limitations, the intellect has been enlightened by what God says about His mysterious being.

Thus we have, on the one hand, such extensive treatises as St. Augustine's De Trinitate that show how perfectly compatible is the mystery of the Triune God with the deepest reaches of human intelligence. Indeed, the better the Trinity is understood, the more the human mind expands its horizons and the better it understands the world that the Trinity has created.

At the same time, we have the spectacle of another phenomenon. Minds that are not fully docile to the faith have, in greater or less measure, resisted the unquestioning acceptance of the Trinity. From apostolic times to the present, they have struggled with themselves and in their misguided effort to "explain" the mystery have only rationalized their own ideas of what the mystery should be.

For the sake of convenience, we can capsulize the leading anti-Trinitarian teachings of Christian history. Although given here somewhat chronologically, they are all very current because one or another, or a combination of several, may be found in contemporary writings in nominally Christian sources. There is no such thing as an antiquated doctrinal error, as correspondingly there is no such thing as an entirely new heresy. Error has its own remarkable consistency.

Monarchianism

By the end of the first century, certain Judaizing Christians lapsed into a pre-Christian notion of God. According to them God is simply unipersonal. Such were the Corinthians and the Ebionites.

Within the next hundred years these theories were systemized into what has since become known as Monarchianism, i.e., monos = one + archein = to rule, which postulates only one person in God. In practice, however, Monarchianism affected certain positions regarding the nature and person of Christ; and these were the ones that finally had to be countered by the Church's Magisterium.

Feast of the Archangels

Photo Source: EWTN

St. Michael, St. Gabriel, & St. Raphael

ARCHANGELS

The Sacred Scriptures have revealed the proper names of only three Angels, all of whom belong to the Choir of the Archangels. The names are well known to all, namely: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael. Ancient apocryphal literature of the Old Testament contains several other names of Archangels in addition to the three just mentioned. Like the sources themselves, these other names are spurious. Names like Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, and Jeremiel are not found in the canonical books of Sacred Scripture, but in the apocryphal book of Enoch, fourth book of Esdras, and in rabbinical literature. The Church does not permit proper names of Angels that are not found in the canonical books of the Bible. All such names that were taken from apocryphal writings were rejected under Pope Zachary, in 745. There must have been danger of serious abuses in this regard during that century, because a similar step was taken in a synod held at Aix-la-Chapelle in 789. Read more here...)

Happy Birthday Mama Mary!

(Photo source: EWTN)

Today, the Catholic Church celebrates the solemnity of the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holy Mother of Jesus our Lord. As a Catholic, I have fondness devotion to Mama Mary. In as much as I loved how my mother cared for me, so thus the Blessed Mother cares for each and every Christian.

For all the blessings I received through her intercession, thank you and please continue pray for us sinners now until the expiation of our earthly life.

Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with you, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

"Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the Person of Christ manifested in His mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first "magnifies" the Lord for the "great things" He did for His lowly servant and through her for all human beings. The second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused."

- from the Catechism of the Catholic Church; 2675.

CHRIST THE KING! May He Reign Over Us!

Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King. This feast was declared Solemn by Pope Pius XI to commemorate the last Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Liturgical Calendar of the Church. This also signals the faithful that Christmas is almost at hand preceded by the Advent Season.

Christ, the Son of God is declared the King of the Universe in the Holy Scripture as we read in all Catholic Churches today in different rites and languages reflected in the First Reading taken from Ezekiel 34; the second reading taken from I Corinthians 15 and the Gospel taken from Matthew 25.

May all who confess belief in Christ find this day fitting to make good their faith in him and pledge faithfulness to his honor and splendor as our King and Savior. Amen!


Picture Credit: Thanks to EWTN.com