Trinity Sunday

 Among the great commemorations on the church calendar, Trinity Sunday is rather new.  It did not become a general feast on the Western calendar until a papal decree in 1334. The origins of the observance can be traced back to the 900's in what is now Belgium, and it became widespread in northwest Europe. As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket required the commemoration throughout England. In medieval English liturgical traditions, this Sunday was so important that it gave its name to the remaining Sundays of the church year. This way of naming Sundays during the summer and autumn continues in the traditional Books of Common Prayer. 

 Certainly, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is based on many passages in the Scriptures, and it is expressed in the decrees of the ancient Ecumenical Councils. It is the first of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion: I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity.  Anglicans have also affirmed the Trinity through the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. Such creedal affirmations are very important. They deserve more attention in our Christian instruction and devotion than they often receive. They are safeguards against much of the shallow theology that tends to permeate contemporary religious bodies. 

At first glance, the Gospel from John 3:1-15 may not seem closely related to high theological reflections on the theme of the Trinity. Nevertheless, the theme of being born again does have Trinitarian associations. For most Christians, a practical devotional approach to the doctrine of the Trinity is often more meaningful than theological abstractions, regardless of their truth or profundity. In John 3, we see the mystery of the Trinity at work in the context of personal salvation. Those who are born again through Christian Baptism and Faith are adopted as children of God, the heavenly Father. We look to Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, as the source of new and eternal life. And God the Holy Spirit grafts us into the Body of Christ, enables us to call God "Father," and continually gives us new life.