Sunday, June 4, 1950
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
Trinity Sunday
Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Trinity Sunday
Who, with your co-eternal Son and Holy Spirit, are one God, one Lord, in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Substance. For that which we believe of your glory, O Father, we believe the same of your Son, and of the Holy Spirit, without any difference or inequality.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Red Letter Day
Bishop of Rome, Ecumenist, and Reformer of the Church
Ecumenical Commemoration
The feast of the Holy Trinity — the one God in three Persons. The Church confesses the fullness of God as revealed through the mighty acts of salvation.
Trinity Sunday is the feast of the Holy Trinity — the one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It falls on the first Sunday after Pentecost, completing the great arc of the liturgical calendar: the Father sends the Son (Christmas), the Son accomplishes redemption (Easter), the Spirit is given to the Church (Pentecost), and on Trinity Sunday the Church confesses the fullness of God as revealed through these mighty acts. Unlike most feasts, Trinity Sunday commemorates not an event but a doctrine — the central mystery of the Christian faith. The feast is comparatively late in origin. While Trinitarian theology was definitively settled at Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), a distinct feast of the Trinity did not become widespread until the medieval period. Individual bishops promoted it — Thomas Becket, consecrated on Trinity Sunday 1162, established it at Canterbury. Pope John XXII made it universal for the Western church in 1334. The BCP tradition, however, gave Trinity Sunday a structural importance beyond Rome's: in the English Prayer Book tradition, the Sundays of the long season after Pentecost are numbered 'after Trinity' rather than 'after Pentecost,' making Trinity Sunday the hinge of the entire second half of the church year. The BCP 2019 lists it among the seven Principal Feasts, and the Athanasian Creed — the most detailed creedal exposition of Trinitarian doctrine — is traditionally appointed for this day.
Trinity Sunday's liturgical tradition reflects the challenge of celebrating a doctrine rather than a narrative. The appointed readings across the three-year lectionary cycle present different facets of Trinitarian revelation: Nicodemus's nighttime conversation with Jesus (John 3), the baptismal commission 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matthew 28), and Paul's Trinitarian benediction (2 Corinthians 13:14). The Athanasian Creed (Quicunque Vult), with its precise and paradoxical formulations — 'neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance' — has been associated with this feast since at least the ninth century in the West, and the BCP 2019 includes it among its historical documents. The collect for Trinity Sunday is among the most theologically careful in the Prayer Book: 'by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity.' Cranmer's 1549 language echoes here. The white or gold vestments used on this day reflect its status as a feast of the Godhead. In Anglican practice, numbering Sundays 'after Trinity' rather than 'after Pentecost' has given this feast a unique structural role — it names half the church year.
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, John XXIII, was Bishop of Rome from 1958 to 1963 and the pope who summoned the Second Vatican Council. A diplomat's son of the Bergamo peasantry in Italy, elected at seventy-six as a caretaker, he instead opened the Roman church toward the other Christian communions and toward the world. The affection in which he was held has long outlived him, and his impact on simplifying and unifying the Roman church still resonates today. The maxim he commended in his first encyclical was an old one: in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.
Pope John XXIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, 1881–1963) was an unexpected revolutionary pope. Born to a peasant family in Bergamo, Italy, he rose through diplomatic service as papal nuncio (ambassador) to Bulgaria, Turkey, France, and Venice before his election as pope at age 77 in 1958. As pope, he inaugurated the Second Vatican Council in 1962—a watershed moment for global Christianity. Vatican II (1962–1965) fundamentally reformed Catholic liturgy, theology, and ecumenical engagement, transitioning the church from institutional defensiveness to evangelical openness. His encyclicals Mater et Magistra (1961) and Pacem in Terris (1963) addressed social justice, human dignity, and peace during the Cold War. Pacem in Terris, issued just months before his death, called for disarmament, international cooperation, and respect for human rights in language that transcended confessional boundaries and influenced global statecraft. His pastoral gentleness and accessibility—evident in his Journal of a Soul (spiritual diary)—revealed a man of deep prayer and humble conviction. He reached out to Orthodox and Protestant churches, demonstrating concrete ecumenical friendship. Though he did not live to see Vatican II's conclusion, its trajectory was set by his vision. The Roman Catholic Church canonized him in 2014.
Pope John XXIII represents the possibility of institutional renewal grounded in pastoral gentleness and evangelical vision. He demonstrates that hierarchy and reform are not incompatible, and that ecclesial tradition can be reinterpreted for new times without being abandoned. His ecumenical openness presaged the modern trajectory toward Christian unity. His social encyclicals established the pope as a prophetic voice for justice and peace. For Anglicanism and other traditions, he embodies unexpected kinship across historic divisions.