Collect Solemnity of Most Holy Trinity

Thank you for joining me as we Lectio the Liturgy with the Collect for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity.

God our Father, who by sending into the world the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification made known to the human race your wondrous mystery, grant us, we pray, that in professing the true faith, we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

There aren’t very many doctrines that are harder to understand than the Trinity. Actually, there probably aren’t that are harder to understand, but figuring it out isn’t the point. That is the purpose of faith.

The Who of the prayer give us a great description of each person of the Trinity: God our Father; Jesus, the truth, and the Holy Spirit, our sanctifier. Through each person of the Trinity, God has made himself known. Each person of the Trinity, in their own way, shows us who God iS.

I’ve spent a lot of time this week pondering the phrase professing the true faith.

What is true faith? Why does the prayer specifically say that we should profess true faith and how do we profess it?

The answer to my questions came in the verb professing

Faith is different than knowledge. We can know about the faith, we can know about God, but God isn’t impressed with people who know about him. God is looking for people who know him. He is looking for those who profess him.

True faith is professed, it is chosen, by our own free-will, we choose to submit ourselves to God and to His Church. True faith is professed not only in word, but by deeds and by how we live our lives.

To submit our beliefs to a higher authority isn’t typically socially acceptable, is it? Many people like to adapt Scripture and Church teaching into something that aligns with what they want and how they want to live. Some have claimed that the Church should change her teaching to fit what they want to do but never consider that their desires should be adjusted to fit what is truth. In living and professing true faith, we know that Jesus is our example of truth.

The Holy Spirit is not only our sanctifier who separates believers from evil things and ways. He is also our advocate, who comforts and gives aid. We know that we have these gifts because of the Father’s great love for us.

This weekend, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, is a time to grow in understanding of each person of the Trinity. Notice how each has worked individually in your life and how they have worked together in your life. The eternal glory shared between the Persons of the Trinity is available for us, too. You could say that it’s a perk of professing true faith.

In professing the true faith, we are telling the world that our God is a God of eternal glory. Our powerful, majestic God, the Father who loves us so much he gave us his Son, our truth and our savior, and he gave us his Spirit, to sanctify us and give us life, life today and life everlasting.

Thanks for praying with me.