Trinitytide: An Extraordinary Time For Ordinary Catholics

[ Expanded from a 2019 post ]

As one somewhat familiar with the counting of days according to Pentecost, an appreciation of the sequence of days that rubbed off from time served in the Latin Mass community, this blogger has become acquainted with the Ordinariate experience of - or discipline of, or happy encounter of - numbering days according to the Most Holy Trinity.

The Ordinariate, you will recall dear Reader, has preserved the Octave of Pentecost, as is appropriate for the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.

Here we are in the midst of Trinitytide; Trinity XVII, to be exact.

Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always precede and follow us: and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for Trinity XVII, Divine Worship: The Missal

A wise pastor reminds us that "(t)his prayer from the Gregorian Sacramentary is in effect a shorter form of the collect of Easter Day, the latter half of which was also composed by Gregory. It gives us the doctrine of grace in a nutshell."

The same pastor offers the following beautiful expansion.

We pray that God’s grace may do two things for us. First, that it may prevent us. This word, which also occurs in the Easter Day Collect, means simply ‘go in front of’. One may go in front of another for two quite distinct and opposite reasons. One may do it in order to block the other man’s path, to prevent him, as we say, from going further. That is our modern usage of the word. But in the Prayer Book and our older English versions of the Bible it still preserves its other sense of going in front of a man to smooth the way ahead for him and enable him to advance the more easily. That is the meaning here. It is almost a military word, and describes the work of a pioneer who hacks his way through a jungle in order to facilitate the movement of troops in that direction. It is interesting that Christ is described in Hebrews 12.2 as ‘the pioneer of our faith’.

The liturgical seasons are signposts on the road to eternity with God.

The phrase Ordinary Time, the ordering (in part) of the Church Year common to the New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo Missae), hardly locates the Christian in liturgical time in a way that suggests to the believer that to be fully Christian one must live with one foot in time and the other firmly planted in eternity. And so, the label "ordinary" has conditioned diocesan Catholics to think in ordinary terms, i.e., bland terms.

Diocesan Catholics have become quite ordinary - ho hum, complacent, and dare we say worldly? - in that they have become, generally speaking, indifferent to the differentiation of days in the liturgical year, days and seasons which communicate specific aspects of the Faith. We see this in many lives untouched by the richness of the Faith, the Faith hidden under a bushel of utilitarian terminology that confines the imagination to a spiritual drought.

The point being that, with less awareness of theological nuance aided by a calendar articulated with greater specificity and depth, Catholics have become less nuanced in their understanding and ability to live liturgically (theologically), and are therefore less sensitive to the movement of the Holy Spirit Who expresses Himself in time, drawing all into the Love (God the Holy Spirit, the Love-Person) uniting God the Father and God the Son.

If, as is properly understood, the Father is he who kisses, the Son he who is kissed, then it cannot be wrong to see in the kiss the Holy Spirit, for he is the imperturbable peace of the Father and the Son, their unshakable bond, their undivided love, their indivisible unity. - St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 8, Sermons on the Song of Songs

The discipline of being fashioned into the Liturgy, i.e., of being fashioned into a liturgical Christian, a Catholic, is greatly enhanced through being grafted into a calendar - the seasonal acts or chapters in the drama of the liturgical year - that uses theologically specific and rich terms that help us personalize (adapt to) the Mass and that enhance awareness of the assumption of time into eternity and the descent of eternity into time. Which is to say that, by ordering the Liturgical Year with greater specificity and artful language and by living in that refined calendar, the Church can be pedagogically more effective in forming better disciples.

To be Catholic is to be liturgical.

Observing the rhythm of the liturgical seasons - Advent, the Octave of Christmas, Epiphanytide, Shrovetide or Gesimatide (Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima), Lent, Holy Week and Easter, Ascensiontide, the Octave of Pentecost, Trinitytide - establishes in the soul inclined to grace the rhythm of the graced year, of graced time, a horizon toward which the temporal vision of man is oriented to the eternal by the grace of God. Time, then, becomes a gift of God; His Presence in the Sacraments opens man to the life of grace.

Solemnities which occur within the seasons are themes in each movement of the liturgical symphony.

Speaking of a symphony... the Athanasian Creed - a choral symphony of the Holy Trinity.

Quicumque Vult*

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

And the Catholic Faith is this:

1. That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
2. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
3. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
4. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
5. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
6. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible,and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
7. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.
8. And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
9. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
10. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty.
11. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
12. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
13. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
14. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord.
15. And yet not three Lords, but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be both God and Lord,
16. So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion, to say, here be three Gods, or three Lords.
17. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten.
18. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten.
19. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
20. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
21. And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other; none is greater, or less than another;
22. But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.
23. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.

He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
2. God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world;
3. Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;
4. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood.
5. Who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;
6. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God;
7. One altogether, not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.
8. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ;
9. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead.
10. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
11. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies and shall give account for their own works.
12. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

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* The Creed has here been formatted by the Blog Author. No such numbering occurs in the original.