Quotation of the Week and Trinity Sunday

Rublev: The Trinity (Icon)

This Sunday marks the beginning of Ordinary Time...not because it is ordinary per se, but because we count the Sundays that follow with ordinal numbers: The First Sunday After Trinity, The Second Sunday After Trinity, and so on, all the way to the "New Year" of the Christian Cycle: the First Sunday in Advent. So from now until the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we're in Ordinary Time.

 Trinity Sunday is a Feast Day for me, not just because it's the Sunday after Pentecost, which the Anglicans call "Whitsunday" as it's the day that the catechumens, garbed in white robes, are welcomed into the Church, but because it's the Feast of Title for Alpine Anglican Church of the Blessed Trinity. I don't usually attend Sunday services at Blessed Trinity, but I've been a regular at the Friday morning healing services for almost eight years, even before Blessed Trinity came into existence.

 Today I slipped into church just at ten o'clock, and Alice asked me to read the Epistle, my first time reading the Epistle at a Sunday service. I love reading God's Word aloud, so I gladly read from the Fourth Chapter of The Revelation to Saint John, verses 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 shew 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 living creatures full of eyes before and behind. And the first was like a lion, and the second like a calf, and the third had a face as a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures 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 living creatures 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.

Although we use the Book of Common Prayer 2011 on Friday mornings, on Sundays Blessed Trinity reverts to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, thus the more archaic language (which I love, of course, being the medievalist that I am).

The Collect for Trinity Sunday from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer:

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

So for this Trinity Sunday, it seems fitting to choose a verse from the Epistle I read to be my Quotation of the Week:

"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." --Revelation 4:11, 1928 Book of Common Prayer Propers

So as we enter Ordinary Time, may we focus on the worship of our Lord. The liturgical color of Ordinary Time, green, reminds us to be always growing in our faith in Christ and in our love for God and our fellow people. May we shine forth His Divine Love through the power and grace of Our Living God.

Soli Deo Gloria,