The Hymns for Holy Trinity

are the very best. I know I said that about Pentecost, but that was so last week. Yes, that means I've decided old Luther had it right:  the absolute best, most important and the very greatest treasure is...whatever gift of God I happen to be enjoying at the moment! And I just got back from the Divine Service for the Feast of the Holy Trinity, so deal with it.

Actually, in the historic one year cycle, you cannot miss that the day is really the Octave of Pentecost - that shows with both the Gospel reading (John 3) and the Hymn of the Day:  "Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest." Yet the later Trinity feast that came to be celebrated on the Octave reveals itself in the Introit, Collect, Gradual, Verse, the Athanasian Creed and Proper Preface, and above all in the hymns. We sang "Holy, holy, holy" and "Glory be to God the Father!" and tomorrow for distribution we'll sing "Holy God, We Praise Your Name" and "Come, Thou Almighty King." In addition, the Trinitarian nature of the liturgy itself stands out in sharp relief: from invocation, to Gloria Patri, to threefold Kyrie, to Gloria in Excelsis, to three-fold "holy" in the Sanctus, to the Benediction.

The whole service fairly shouts:  Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.  Amen.  And you realize that this is life, and this is what our lives are called to be about.  Venerable Bede dying with these as his final words - he totally, totally got it.