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Trinity Sunday 2020

Dear Friends,
 

If, like all good communicant members of the Church of England, you picked up your Book of Common Prayer, blew off the dust and recited the Athanasian Creed (as instructed), you would have stumbled across these words:

 

And the Catholick Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; 

Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance. 

For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost. 

 

And on it goes, drawing us into a vision of what God is, attempting to put into words what is both impenetrably mysterious and real, active, dynamic: this is the deepest Truth at the heart of all things which set the universe thrumming and brought us into being. Here is the God who speaks creation into life, who saves it through the passion and resurrection of our Blessed Lord and Saviour, who ignites it with the power and energy of the Spirit at Pentecost. It is this Truth, this Life, into which we, as Christians, are reborn, furnished with the means of grace to continue on the Way. So today - Trinity Sunday - is a day not for confusion or perplexity, but for prayer and adoration. What better prayer than this: 

 

Libera nos, salva nos, justifica nos, O beata Trinitas.

Free us, save us, defend us, O blessed Trinity. 

 

John Sheppard’s second setting of this text is less well known than his first, but is (I think) the sublimer creation. The brevity of the text is drawn to its limits in a rendering that can only be described in terms of deep yearning, of a longing for that life and love which sits at the heart of the Godhead, through long and ever-ascending phrases. There is a repetitive aspect to it that always strikes me as trying to depict something of that eternal conversation between the Blessed Trinity, a conversation into which we have been drawn and from which we cannot be parted. You can listen to it here, sung by a group called the Gesualdo Six. You may recognise some faces, as a number of them have sung regularly at St Pancras in recent years .Click here to listen 
 

Our hymn for the day invites us to join in the praise of the angels, as they forever sing around that glorious throne of light. Click here to listen.
 

With love,
Simon
 
Our Lady, S.Pancras and all the Saints Pray For Us
Copyright © 2020 All Hallows Gospel Oak, All rights reserved.


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