Trinity Sunday

Lord, who hast form’d me out of mud,
 And hast redeem’d me through thy blood,
 And sanctifi’d me to do good; 

Purge all my sins done heretofore:
 For I confess my heavy score,
 And I will strive to sin no more. 

Enrich my heart, mouth, hands in me,
 With faith, with hope, with charity;
 That I may run, rise, rest with thee.

       George Herbert (1593–1633)

Happy Trinity Sunday!  This jewel-like lyric makes its meaning perfectly plain on the first reading, but then — a revelation to which I owe John Drury in ‘Music at Midnight’, his unforgettable biography of Herbert (London: Penguin, 2013) — notice all the threes wrapped up so tightly in it.  Three stanzas of three lines each; the first giving one line each to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the second to the past, the present and the future, and the last having three elements in each line, thrice three.

Fr. Mark Langham preached another wonderful homily this morning from Fisher House, the Catholic Chaplaincy of the University of Cambridge.  The Mass can be seen and heard here; Fr. Mark’s sermon begins 18 minutes and 23 seconds into the video.