Whitsunday & Trinity Sunday

Following on the heels of our recent celebration of the Ascension of Christ we have two feasts in back to back Sundays - Whitsunday and Trinity Sunday.

Better known as the feast of Pentecost, a title drawn directly from the Scriptures, the name Whitsunday likely originates as a truncated form of "White Sunday."  Despite the liturgical color of the day being red to symbolize the fire of the descending Holy Spirit, Pentecost took on the moniker as White Sunday among the English and other northern peoples due to the fact that the newly baptized traditionally wore white on Pentecost Sunday.  Though much of the Church has historically baptized converts on Easter Eve, climatic conditions in the cooler northern lands favored waiting an additional fifty days and thus many baptisms were administered in association with the feast of Pentecost. 

Regardless of the preferred name for the day, Whitsunday ranks among the major feasts of the Church as we celebrate the gift of the Comforter who leads us into all truth.

Having thus celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the church assigns the Sunday immediately following as another principle feast - the Feast of the Holy Trinity.

While the entire liturgical year and all of our services are filled with Trinitarian teaching, Trinity Sunday is especially reserved for the celebration of God's self-revelation to his people as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  

Liturgically, Trinity Sunday caps off the entire first-half of the church year which has unfolded the revelation of the Son in the person of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The lessons after Trinity Sunday shift their focus from the life of Christ and his ministry in the world to our life in him.  In other words, in the many Sundays after Trinity Sunday we learn in a myriad of ways what living in response to knowing the Triune God ought to look like.

The Collect for Whitsunday:

O God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end.  Amen.  (BCP, 180 - to be said daily throughout Whitsun Week)

The Collect for Trinity Sunday:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end.  Amen. (BCP, 186)