TRINITY SUNDAY
I am always amused at how the priests struggle to explain the Trinity. The end line is always the same: it is unknowable.
Glorious Trinity. Unknowable. Distinct. Separate. Together. What gods are there? When or where the source? We cannot tell or know.
MONDAY
Someone in our parish wants to have a mass in the Extraordinary (Tridentine) Form. Actually the Novus Ordo Latin Mass is very simple, shorn of the fiddly bits and silences. I always think the sung Latin Novus Ordo Mass in Westminster Cathedral on Saturday morning is the most beautiful of the week. It is short too, only fifty minutes. We should have just moved to this type of mass after Vatican II and spared ourselves a lot of trouble.
TUESDAY
We went down to Downside for Father Philip Jebb’s funeral. These monastic funerals are simple affairs. Sung by the monks, no hymns – a short tribute. It is the way they would like to go.
Father Philip was close to us. He gave us marriage counselling thirty years ago this summer. I remember it well, sitting in his Headmasters Study. A strong charismatic figure in the days of his health, he was always full of sound good advice. I wonder why he never became abbot – I suppose there were other good people around.
WEDNESDAY
Always a difficult gospel, this one.
“And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites: they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogue and at the street corners for people to see them…”. (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)
Well, maybe I shouldn’t be writing this, but isn’t it a good idea to bear witness?
THURSDAY
Isn’t the poetry of the Book of Ecclesiasticus glorious?
“Taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with fiery horses.”
Who inspired such poetry? How was it written? Was it one genius, or poetry sung by the camp fire and passed on?
FRIDAY
Whenever you feel depressed about the shortcomings of life, you should remember these words:
“Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and woodworms destroy them and thieves break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-23)
How many jumpers have I lost to moth, how many things stolen? Anything in this world is soon lost or gone but what is Heaven? It is unimaginable. Are we there as part of the mathematical equation of the universe? We then become part of the eternal 2+2=4. Is it a living experience? I remember how Father Philip telling me that after death, when we encounter God, it is a crowd of perpetual “ahhh…”, of wonder and delight.
SATURDAY
The longest day. Here in Lincolnshire in the North, the sun sets very slowly around 9pm over the western hill at the top of the valley. At 10pm you can still see everything. It is a long, gentle, blissful twilight.
Today’s Gospel is apt for this natural glory.
“Think of the flowers growing in the fields: they never have to work or spin, yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:24-34)