Trinity Sunday

[icarlytradcath]

On the Feast of the Holy Trinity

From the Concordantiae Caritatis of Udalricus Campililiensis

(AI translation)

God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit; not three gods, but one God and three persons. For God the Father is a satisfying sweetness, that is, to the hungry and empty; he is the rain-water and the sweetness of the heart of mercy, and especially of charity. The Son is the light illuminating miserable and blind eyes; from whom proceeds the ray of understanding, wisdom, and knowledge. The Holy Spirit is also the joy making glad the sorrowful and afflicted, from whom comes freedom of conscience, the security of joy, and the fidelity of friendship. For there are three things in wine: substance, juice, and flavor; and though these are three in their diversity of equality, they are nevertheless one in the substance of unity. For just as the juice comes from its first substance, so the Son comes from the Father's substance; and just as the flavor comes from the first substance and its juice, so the Holy Spirit proceeds from the united nature of the Father and the Son.



Old Testament (Left)

In Genesis 18 it is read that Abraham saw three angels and worshiped one. For just as three were seen by the patriarch but one was worshiped, so according to the truth of the faith, God is judged by all the faithful as one in Godhead and three in personality, to be worshipped. Abraham, according to the scriptures, means a "multitude of mercy," and signifies any just person who instructs and guides the multitude of his senses and thoughts, as if they were children. When one has pleased God in the faith of Abraham, the Lord will reveal and show Himself to him as threefold in persons: namely, like a Father in effective protection, like a Son in wise nourishment, and like the Holy Spirit in graceful consolation. And then he will worship One; that is, he will rejoice in the praises of God alone, here in grace, and in the future perpetually in glory.



Old Testament (Right)

In Genesis 40, it is written that the king's cupbearer saw three vines and branches with fruit on a single trunk. For just as God is believed to be one in Godhead and three in persons, so a threefold fruitful branch is shown on one vine trunk. The king's cupbearer is any devout soul who, when free for contemplation, rests as if taking his fill of wine. Through this, he sees three vines; that is, the distinct qualities of the personalities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, arising from one trunk — that is, existing from the one essence and same quality of God — the fruit of whose branches gladdens the soul itself and provides a saving taste of eternal sweetness.



Nature (Left)

Pliny says that elephants gather at the full moon, bathe in the river, and, bowing toward heaven at the moon, return in this manner. The elephants signify us: living by the works of justice with a clean and robust mind, let us bow with diligent devotion at the sight of the full moon — that is, the incarnation of the Lord, which was made full by the power of the Father, the wisdom of the Son, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, out of the darkness of the Godhead — and let us bathe in the cleansing river of our tears, so that we may joyfully return anew to our heavenly places, which were previously stained by sins, through the help of the divinity and the trinity of personhood.



Nature (Right)

The Liber Rerum says that if anyone eats three fireflies all stirrings of lust are extinguished in them. The three fireflies are the three persons in the single essence of the divinity, which shine in the night; that is, they illuminate sinful and dark hearts. And whoever eats these — that is, whoever places the works of the Holy Trinity into their memory with fervent devotion — will, by God's grace, very easily overcome temptation by extinguishing all the heat of lustful temptations within themselves. Because the foundation of our faith will always stand firm against deception, based upon the threefold personality of the one divinity and the inseparable equality of the Godhead of that same trinity.



HQ IMAGE: https://imgur.com/8jW4w2I