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Today's Readings
Reading I
Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9
Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had
commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets. Having come
down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses there and proclaimed his
name, "LORD." Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out, "The
LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich
in kindness and fidelity." Moses at once bowed down to the ground in
worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come
along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet
pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own."
Responsorial Psalm
Dn 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56
R. (52b) Glory and praise for ever! Blessed are you, O Lord,
the God of our fathers, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever;
And blessed is your holy and glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted
above all for all ages. R. Glory and praise for ever! Blessed
are you in the temple of your holy glory, praiseworthy and glorious
above all forever. R. Glory and praise for ever! Blessed are
you on the throne of your kingdom, praiseworthy and exalted above
all forever. R. Glory and praise for ever! Blessed are you
who look into the depths from your throne upon the cherubim,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever. R. Glory and praise
for ever!
Reading II
2 Cor 13:11-13
Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one
another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love
and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All
the holy ones greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
all of you.
Gospel
Jn 3:16-18
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone
who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in
him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already
been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only
Son of God.
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Trinity Sunday
May 18 |
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The first Sunday after
Pentecost, instituted to honor the Most Holy Trinity. In the early Church
no special Office or day was assigned for the Holy Trinity. When the Arian
heresy was spreading the Fathers prepared an Office with canticles,
responses, a Preface, and hymns, to be recited on Sundays. In the
Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great (P.L., LXXVIII, 116) there are
prayers and the Preface of the Trinity. The Micrologies (P.L., CLI, 1020),
written during the pontificate of Gregory VII (Nilles, II, 460), call the
Sunda after Pentecost a Dominica vacans, with no special Office, but add
that in some places they recited the Office of the Holy Trinity composed
by Bishop Stephen or Liège (903-20) By other the Office was said on the
Sunday before Advent. Alexander II (1061-1073), not III (Nilles, 1. c.),
refused a petition for a special feast on the plea, that such a feast was
not customary in the Roman Church which daily honored the Holy Trinity by
the Gloria, Patri, etc., but he did not forbid the celebration where it
already existed. John XXII (1316-1334) ordered the feast for the entire
Church on the first Sunday after Pentecost. A new Office had been made by
the Franciscan John Peckham, Canon of Lyons, later Archbishop of
Canterbury (d. 1292). The feast ranked as a double of the second class but
was raised to the dignity of a primary of the first class, 24 July 1911,
by Pius X (Acta Ap. Sedis, III, 351). The Greeks have no special feast.
Since it was after the first great Pentecost that the doctrine of the
Trinity was proclaimed to the world, the feast becomingly follows that of
Pentecost.
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