By the Rev’d Lucy Nguyen
Season: Trinity Sunday | Disability Awareness Sunday
Readings: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31| Romans 5:1-5 | John 16:12-15
Trinity Sunday commemorates the Christian understanding of God: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit | te Matua, te Tama, me te Wairua Tapu — three persons in one substance, an eternal community of love.
Observed on the first Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday marks the beginning of the Trinity Season (or Trinity-tide), also called the Season after Pentecost or Ordinary Time.
Our focus shifts from the great feasts of sacred history:
Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Easter, and Pentecost to the ongoing life of Christian growth in the love of our Trinitarian God.
It is also, in the Province of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, NZ and Polynesia, Disability Awareness Sunday which links in well to fullness of God in all people and the call we are to be in right and “loving” relationship with all people.
You see, the Trinity gives us a pattern for our relationships with each other so there is love that is mutual, with equality, self-giving and looking out for each other.
Within the Trinity, there are three persons with their different roles, within the relationship, there is unity and harmony. The Trinity is an eternal circle of love.
Today and every day we are called to recognise how many disabled people are excluded from full participation in our society because there are barriers in the environment such as stairs, information not being in a format that is accessible or no invitation to come along. At times attitudes can be hurtful because of low expectations, ignorance and fear of difference.
This potential of disconnect for people comes when we do not see or consider the world through the lens of another. What looks fine for me, may not be fine for someone else.
But, you know, it’s hard keeping track of the needs of others, and we may not feel up for the task – in fact we’re probably not up to the task, sigh, can’t we just circle quickly back to Advent and Christmas – just have a cycle of festivals and parties?
Let’s skip this in between season of Trinity-tide.
Well, no we can’t and nor should we – we need this season after Pentecost to immerse ourselves fully into the practice and experience of being Spirit filled, and Spirit led. It is said that we are Christian insofar as we live in a relationship of love with God and other people.
We need to step into this season with eyes, hearts and minds open to God and the Triune fullness of God.
A word of caution, there is a saying that “anyone who preaches on the Trinity for more than three minutes will likely lapse into heresy.”
This is because the Trinity is a mystery we can name – but cannot fully comprehend.
As soon as we begin speaking about the Trinity, human language, inadequate for revealing let alone explaining this mystery, opens us to making statements that are neither true nor reflective of more than 2,000 years of faith and Church teaching.
So, I may keep this short or let you do the talking – with a 3-minute time limit each – together we could cover a lot of ground on the topic of the Trinity!
To warm you up for talking “Trinity talk” …
When I say, … two heads are …
You might say … better than one.
When I say, Two’s company, …
You might say … three’s a crowd.
Sometimes it’s just hard to get the numbers and metaphors right.
What are three things in general that go well together …
I’d like you to take a minute of quiet reflection to consider your best matching of three things which for you hold an essence of God as Trinity …
Okay as we come back together, how did that go for you?
Anything new or perhaps a faithful understanding affirmed?
Perhaps you had …
Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life.
St. Augustine of Hippo is credited with the illustration of the Trinity as Father – the Lover, Son – the Beloved, and Spirit – the Love that is exchanged between the Lover and the Beloved.
Gregory of Nyssa contributed the imagery of the rainbow – light from light in which the distinction between the colours is non-discernible – each colour blending gently into the next, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit blend one into the other in the eternal unconditional love of God.
I returned to Jan Richardson for her reflections on Trinity Sunday.
She writes: “I suspect that God takes delight in our desire to know, to understand, to articulate—to “eff the ineffable,” (indefinable, indescribable) as my Franciscan friend Father Robert says.”
Yet the real gift of Trinity Sunday may lie in how it invites us to acknowledge the mystery in which the Trinity lives, and to open ourselves to the love that is the nature and essence of the Trinity— the love that imbues and defines every action and aspect of the Divine, which Paul evokes so beautifully in the Epistle reading for this day. Even as we stretch our minds in our continual quest to know, to glimpse, to perceive, how will we also open our hearts to the love that is the Trinity’s ultimate gift to us?”
The Anglican Disability Network suggested this collect for us today:
Holy Wisdom,
through the ages you call us through your gateway of love.
You are our guide, willing to tread through the way of peace for us to follow.
You are the bearer of grace, who turns our suffering into hope.
Make us your holy people: whole in our loving,
caring for all of your creation.
With Jesus we pray.
Amen.
How may we better understand and experience God’s love?
For it is more than a 3-leaf clover or ice water and steam or a mallow puff of rich chocolate, pillowy marshmallow and crunchy biscuit.
And, as we deepen our understandings, how do we more fully embody that love in our daily lives?
We cannot be all people to everyone, but in God the Trinity, we can be exactly who God needs us to be.
Poured Into Our Hearts
A Blessing for Trinity Sunday
Like a cup
like a chalice
like a basin
like a bowl
when the Spirit comes
let it find our heart
like this
shaped like something
that knows how to receive
what is given
that knows how to hold
what comes to fill
that knows how to gather itself
around what arrives as
unbidden
unsought
unmeasured
love.
Sources included:
The Anglican Disability Network Material June 2025 (Harrison J & McAlpine J; Our daily bread:2011: page 26. https://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/05/20/trinity-sunday-poured-into-our-hearts/