One God – Yes: 
One God, One Person – No:
One God, Three Persons – Yes:
Three Persons, One God – Yes;
A Trinity in Unity and a Unity
in Trinity – Yes!

We beseech thee, that through the steadfastness of this faith, we may evermore be defended against all adversity.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and for always, even unto ages of ages.

The Church in the West was very wise, and no doubt led by the Holy Ghost, to call the Sunday after Whitsuntide (Pentecost) by the name of Trinity Sunday, in order that the focus of worship and devotion be most particularly on that day the Triune LORD God himself—the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Three Persons One God, a Trinity in Unity and a Unity in Trinity.

The major festivals of the Christian Year before Trinity Sunday focus on (a) the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, his taking of our human nature and flesh as his own [Christmas & Epiphany]; (b) the sacrificial, atoning death of the Second Person for our sins and his rising again from the dead for our justification ; (c) the ascending into heaven with his assumed and now glorified human nature of the Second Person to be the High Priest and King of his people ; and (d) his sending, together with the Father, of the Holy Ghost to the Church in order for the Third Person of the Trinity to be the Paraclete of the Incarnate Son, a Counselor and Comforter to his sanctified people [Whitsuntide or Pentecost].

In the great work of divine revelation and redemption, salvation and sanctification, the Holy Trinity is sovereignly, supremely and wholly involved, as the Father sends the Son into the world where he assumed human nature by the presence of the Holy Ghost, and where the Holy Ghost acts in the Name of the Son.  So it is most fitting and most appropriate that after the sequence of the great festivals – Christmas & Epiphany, Easter, Ascension and Whitsuntide – there should be another festival pointing to the identity of the One LORD our God, the God of creation, revelation and redemption, by whom the divine reality of the great festivals is assured.

Jesus himself commanded that disciples be baptized “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” and the Early Church gave a lot of time and effort to the stating in the best possible and available terms the doctrine of the Holy, Blessed and Undivided Trinity of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  In the late medieval Church this act of praise was offered on Trinity Sunday after the recital of the Athanasian Creed:

Blessed and glorious Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thanks be to Thee, very and one Trinity, one and perfect Godhead. Thee, God the Father Unbegotten; Thee, the Only-begotten Son; Thee, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete; the Only and Undivided Trinity, do we confess and praise with heart and mouth; to Thee be glory for ever. Alleluia

In 1549 the traditional Latin Collect for Trinity Sunday was rendered into English by Archbishop Cranmer in this form:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of the 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 through the steadfastness of this faith, we may evermore be defended against all adversity, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

In the Book of Proverbs we read: “The Name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (18:10).

The Holy Trinity is NOT and has NEVER been a doctrine (although there is a doctrine of the Trinity). Rather it is the very Name of the LORD God, who is uniquely a Trinity in Unity and a Unity in Trinity.

One way to begin and end each day is reverently to make the sign of the Cross and say, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”  This sets the context for living the whole day and sleeping the whole night under the protection of the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. It also reminds us of our Baptism into the Triune Name and thus causes us to set aside the world, the flesh and the devil and devotedly to serve the LORD our God, whom we know experientially as the Father through the Son and by the Holy Ghost.

Visit www.anglicansatprayer.org for more meditations and www.churchofenglandcayman.com for further information and locally produced articles.