God in Three Persons

You, therefore, God the Father, by whom as Creator we live; you, Wisdom of the Father, by whom we have been made anew and taught to live wisely; you, Holy Spirit whom and in whom we love and so live happily, and are to live yet more so; you, who are Three in one Substance, the one God, from whom we are, by whom we are, in whom we are; you, from whom we departed by sinning, to whom we were made unlike, but away from whom we have not been allowed to perish; you the Beginning to whom we are returning, the Pattern we are following, the Grace by which we are reconciled: you we worship and bless! To you be glory forever! Amen.

— William of St Thierry

(A beautiful act of adoration from this Sunday's local parish bulletin. I haven't read William of St Thierry for years, but it reminds me to return to his holy words.)

Farewell Whitsuntide, Paschaltide, and Regina cæli

This week I have striven to say some of the Breviary Hours, thus participating in some degree in the liturgy of Whitsuntide, the Octave of Pentecost, the last echo of the Paschal season. Just as in the Extraordinary Form, the traditional, immemorial form of the Roman Rite, Lent is preceded by Septuagesimatide, beginning 63 days before Easter Sunday, so the Octave of Pentecost follows on and continues the celebration of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, until the 56th day, Whit Saturday. (If, as is now common, Corpus Christi is kept on the Sunday after Trinity, the Solemnity of the Sacrament of the Altar falls on the 64th day, 63 days after Easter, exactly parallel to Septuagesima Sunday 63 days before Easter.)

At midday this Whit Saturday, walking back to my car after brunch, I prayed for the last time this year the Regina cæli, which I first repeated with the special Premonstratensian and Dominican forms:

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja,

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Spiritum misit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja. (O.Præm.) 

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja,

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Jam ascendit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja. (O.P.) 

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja,

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

("Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia, for He Whom thou didst merit to bear, alleluia, hath sent the Spirit / now ascended / risen again, as He said, alleluia: pray for us to God, alleluia.")

Eastertide ends after None; first Vespers of the Holy Trinity marks the beginning of the long Sundays per annum. This year, Trinity Sunday falls on the feast of St Philip Neri, and he will not be marked by any commemoration because of this (except among his sons the Oratorians, who transfer his feast to Monday); he will I am sure be pleased by this coincidence, being one who preferred to hide his sanctity, and who has now been "hidden with Christ in God" for over four hundred years. "Eternity!" – such he once cried; and what must that be like?

I will be serving at the parish vigil Mass this evening, and will be asking St Philip's prayers – not least for the Oratorians throughout the world, and specially for those in process of establishing a new Oratory in Brisbane. 

Nichols on Bulgakov on the Trihypostatic Divine Life

With quite some difficulty, for to comprehend the content, however lucidly put, is intellectually demanding, I have been reading Aidan Nichol’s book about the theology of the Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944).  In doing so, I feel a little like St Jerome reading Rufinus’ presentation of the thoughts of Origen – without the sad breakdown of friendship consequent upon that, I hasten to add! for I was greatly pleased to meet the easily approachable and utterly unpretentious Fr Aidan some years ago, a man who carries his great learning with unassuming humility – since the somewhat unusual sophiological ideas of Bulgakov, even when presented most irenically, do sound more than a bit unorthodox to this rather rigid amateur theologian-cum-heresy-hunter.  

That said, this volume is a marvellously just and charitable presentation of the deep and difficult work of Bulgakov, a writer whom I have often wished to understand better with the aid of a sure and reliable guide: and in Fr Aidan, my prayer has been answered.  To shew how ecumenically his presentation has been received, his tome contains a Foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury (no mean Patristic scholar and theologian, howsoever some of his pronouncements on morals and ecclesiology may be viewed by Catholics) and a Preface by the noted Orthodox prelate, Bishop Kallistos Ware.  

For Trinity Sunday, I present some apposite extracts:

Who and what?

Th greatest of the names for God in the Old Testament is surely that found in the Book of Exodus, 3:14.  The Lord reveals his name to Moses as ‘I am He who is’.  Bulgakov begins his theology of the triune God from here.  As he points out, this divine name already implies that God is both a personal subject – ‘I am He’ – and has an objective nature – ‘who is’.  The distinction between being a subject, a ‘who’, and having a nature, a ‘what’, is of course something we are highly familiar with… In the Church’s tradition, the Tradition of the Fathers and the early Councils, we are told that the divine personality is three ‘hypostases’, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But we are also told that the divine personality has a single, unique nature, shared by no one else.  In God there is one being or nature – in Greek, the main language of the Fathers, one ousia.  In his single unique nature, God is the personal subject of a tri-hypostatic life.

…

The trihypostatic divine life

… Bulgakov wants to say something more about the three persons in God.  … he wants to introduce his theology of the three persons who are nonetheless one single personal being, our divine Creator.  The Lord God is supremely personal because he unites in himself all the modes in which the personal principle can find expression.  Not only ‘I’ but ‘thou’ or ‘you’ in the singular, and ‘he’, ‘we’ and’you’ in the plural.  The Father, for example, can say ‘I’ about himself, and ‘thou’ to, for instance, the Son.  And he can say ‘he’ of, for example, the Holy Spirit.  Then again, the Father and the Son can say ‘we’ together or the Father can say ‘you’ to the Son and the Spirit.  And this would work as well for any of the divine Three.  God is thus the fullness of personal awareness, a single personality in three mutually related centres.  From all eternity, he affirms himself in a Trinitarian fashion, which is to say not as a ‘unipersonal “I”’ but by the affirmation of each hypostasis in the others.  The divine personality realizes itself as the ‘source of self-renouncing love, entering into ecstasy [goes out of itself to find itself again] in another “I”’.

— Aidan Nichols, O.P., Wisdom from Above: A Primer in the Theology of Father Sergei Bulgakov (Leominster: Gracewing, 2005) 11 and 17.

Baptism, Vespers and Benediction

"If Tristan turns out a priest, I'll know whom to blame!" - that's what his Dad said beforehand, explaining how having Fr Tattersall come down from Melbourne to Hobart to baptize young Tristan, and having various Traddie friends come too, meant that the Baptism according to the Traditional Rite was to have Vespers of Trinity Sunday and Benediction added on after it...

About forty relatives, friends and faithful assembled at St Joseph's church, Hobart (a handsome church, with original rood and high altar intact, albeit the former rood screen was taken down; at least there is some fine woodwork evident in the sanctuary panelling and forward altar; there are several valuable nineteenth century American paintings hanging in the sanctuary, of Our Lady, the Ascension and St Joseph, one being away for restoration; and there is also original Pugin stained glass in the church, the inscription begging one to pray for "the good estate of Augustus Welby Pugin") at 6 pm.  In due course the ceremonies of Baptism proceeded, preceded by a sermon; after little Tristan Michael Casimir was duly exorcised, christened and made a child of God, co-heir with Christ and temple of the Holy Ghost, the priest, servers and choir parati made ready for the highly appropriate Vespers in praise of our Triune God.  

Somewhat shakily, yours truly joined in the chanting, led by the two rulers of the choir on stools in the sanctuary, and after the Evening Office of the Church had been prosecuted another hiatus ensued while all remaining was made ready for Benediction, whereat the supreme worship of latria was paid to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament exposed, that we might love Him and desire Him yet more: O salutaris... Prayer for Christian Unity... Tantum ergo... Benediction itself... the Divine Praises... Adoremus in æternum...

The evening's great dose of sacramental worship concluded at half seven.

Trinity Sunday Mass

Yesterday I heard Mass at St Canice, with about 60 others including choir and servers; Fr Quinn reflected on the wonder that even the tiniest new-baptized child is sharer in the Divine Life of the Trinity: such the goodness and prodigality of God!  The choir was boosted by Steven Smyth from Sydney, who also played the organ with aplomb; we sang Missa XI (Orbis factor) and Credo I, while the Proper was well-executed.  Mass took a little over an hour, beginning a little after 11.30 am as Father heard confessions beforehand.

Here are some photographs I took before and after Mass (I felt uncomfortable taking pictures during the Dread Sacrifice):

(The original high altar being readied for Mass; note the atypically handsome fixed freestanding altar later installed in front of it.)

(The big six are lit; it's time to Introibo... note the side altars, Our Lady's being used as the credence, and the high ambo with its brass eagle readied for preaching...)

(The servers walk a little fast for Father!)

(My view of the priest and his ministers genuflecting upon their arrival at the altar step.)

Athanasian Creed

It's been good to begin using my new '62 Breviary from Nova et Vetera; and to celebrate, I've gone back to reading the full Office, Matins included (which Hour I find I can pray very pleasantly in bed before arising).  Yesterday being Trinity Sunday, Prime included - as once it did on every green Sunday - the great confession of Trinitarian faith known as the Athanasian Creed; here it is.

Imagine a certain clergyman of my acquaintance, who as a young Anglican choirboy would have sung this on sundry feasts as the BCP directs; I guess very few Anglicans would stomach it now.

(I am sorry to report a glaring misprint in this Nova et Vetera edition, by the way; on page 17 of volume II, it reads Aqualis Patri, instead of Æqualis Patri.)

Angelic Trisagion

The Angelic Trisagion is a highly appropriate official prayer of the Order of the Most Blessed Trinity. I am just about to go pray it, together with Vespers, in the chapel, and suggest any visitors might do the same, if the Spirit so move them, to join in the praise and worship of God in Three Persons, the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Low Mass for Trinity Sunday

Since the choir was all either absent or sick (as I am, with a cold), we had no sung Mass today, alas; on the positive side, the 9.15 am Mass only took 45 minutes including hymns at start and end, and Leonine prayers, which was good, especially for Fr Rowe, who's hurt his foot and was limping.

I did miss singing the glorious Introit for the feast, which I first learnt from my dear old choirmaster, Bede Dunne, back in Hobart when I was part of the Gregorian schola there in the mid-1990's:



It has always interested me how the Introit, Offertory and Communion today are all based on Tobit xii, 6 - reiterating the glorious truth that God the Trinity loves us and hath wrought for us mercy:

Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas atque indivisa Unitas: confitebimur ei, quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

Benedictus sit Deus Pater, unigenitusque Dei Filius, Sanctus quoque Spiritus: quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

Benedicimus Deum cæli, et coram omnibus viventibus confitebimur ei, quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.

(It is unsurprising that the Gradual and Alleluia are likewise from the Canticle of the Three Youths in Daniel iii.)

The Trinity Preface, said or sung, is always marvellous, and I have many green Sundays coming on which to enjoy it...

On an Eastern note, I took with me to Mass my copy of The [Byzantine] Divine Liturgy Explained, to pray its fine prayers after Communion, and as ever I savoured therein one of my favourite lines, a doxology from one of those prayers:

Σὺ γὰρ εἶ τὸ ὄντως ἐφετόν, καὶ ἀνέκφραστος εὐφροσύνη τῶν ἀγαπώντων σε, Χριστὲ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, καὶ σὲ ὑμνεῖ πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Ἀμήν.

(For Thou art the One truly sought for, and the unutterable gladness of those that love Thee, Christ our God, and Thee the whole creation hymneth unto the ages. Amen.)

After the 11.15 am Mass and necessary packing up, I chaffeured Fr, as agreed, since he needed someone to drive him down to Mandurah in his own car, to give him a chance to have a nap on the way. It took just over 45 minutes, and when we got there I dropped Fr off to take communion to a shut-in (giving me a chance to finish Matins almost, which BTW has fine readings from SS Fulgentius and Gregory Nazianzen). We then drove over to Gerard's house, where a roast beef lunch was waiting for us - on the way, Fr finished off Matins for me with its Te Deum and collect. That, apart from the Divine Mercy chaplet, was as much prayer as we managed to fit in!

Fr Rowe was to drive on to Bunbury for the 6 pm Mass there, but Gerard instead took me to the train station, where I caught the 3.07 train to Perth. It took just under an hour, and gave me a chance to say Lauds and the Little Hours (Athanasian Creed at Prime, yay!), plus get in a little reading of my own.

Now I'm off to visit a relative of mine...

Office Update

Well, the day's dose of Breviary is done, bar Compline: distractions abounded, with some moments of devotion, but in 50 minutes I got from Matins to Vespers inclusive - not that speed is anything to be proud of, but I don't have all the time in the world. Even with the short Matins of Whitsuntide, the Breviary is a big commitment, and on an ordinary feria I'd allow at least a good hour to say the all the Hours. But the flip side is one feels in continuity with all those who have thus worshipped God on earth down the centuries; the modern Divine Office is very good, I mainly use it in fact and have for over a decade, but when and if I have the time to pray the Breviary, it somehow feels right.

Although I used the 1962 Breviary, I observe, to aid devotion (rather as St Ignatius advises one to lift up one's mind to God while on the way to pray, for the space of an Our Father), the older rules about saying a Pater, Ave and Credo before Matins and Prime, and a Pater and Ave before Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers, plus a Pater and Dominus det nobis at the end of all, with the Marian anthem &c. to finish.

Of course, Paschaltide has therefore just ended for me, and it's the eve of Trinity Sunday; I noticed that I'd marked the third and fourth antiphons of 1st Vespers, for they are in fact in poetry, being doxologies in the metre 11.11.11.5., which I think is called the Sapphic metre. For this reason, I sang them to a tune I know, as I did the Vesper hymn; although I only sang the actual Gregorian for the marvellous Veni Creator at Terce.