Gloria Patri: The History and Theology of the Lesser Doxology

“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"

T “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” The lesser doxology proclaims glory to God as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” What understanding of the Trinity might one bring to this prayer and its spiritual implications? In short, how does prayer addressed to the persons of the Trinity enhance the lesser doxology? In the beginning God created humankind as the apex of creation . Male and female he created them, and in the image of God were human beings made. “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen 1:26). The plural “us” may well be the royal plural of the heavenly court in the biblical writer’s metaphorical resources, but Christians have seen an allusion to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Accordingly, each and every human being is created in the image of the triune God, who is the full revelation of the one God. What might that mean for us? Jesus tells Mary Magdalene that he is about to ascend “to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17). When human beings prepare themselves, they are capable of entering into the very intimate personal life of God. We are called to be created participants in the infinite relationship and boundless 45 T H E T R I N I T Y I N T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y 46 exchange of “knowledge and love” that is the essential life of the one and only God, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Human beings can befriend their pets, but they can never hope for a true conversation with them. Our animals are not made in the image of human beings. But we human beings are made in the image of God, and we have been given a capacity to be raised up to spiritual friendship with God in a “world without end.” Such a creation is the very glory of God in this world, and we are the recipients and the reflection of that spatial glory of God manifest in time. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Is 61:10). In the mystery of the Son of God made man, we human beings have been elevated to become the adopted sons and daughters of God. In Jesus Christ we maximize what was only incipient in our creation in the image of God. In our Lord Jesus we have become by God’s gracious and gratuitous choice the very adopted daughters and sons of the Father. We are promised the resurrection of our bodies and a place with Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father in glory. In his epistles Paul did not claim an articulate theology of the Trinity. Such a theology came much later with the first ecumenical councils in the fourth century. Neither would Paul have disregarded the further development of his thought. He knew the revelation of the Trinity even without precise words, much as a child knows parental love even before the child can speak. Living faith always precedes the words of a consequent theology, as living language precedes the work of the lexicographer. Trinity: Mysterium tremendum Whole bookshelves are written about the Trinity,1 and these books agree among themselves mostly about the ineffable mystery that is the blessed Trinity. As in a Japanese garden where less is more, I hope to arrange a few carefully chosen words of the many reflections by many authors upon the mystery of the Trinity. All believers know that the divinity they speak of remains unspeakable, ever surpassing human understanding. Consequently, my few words about the Trinity will not pretend to say what cannot be said, even in many words. We already know something of God because of the revelation of creation, which revelation culminates in the human life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Classical theology proclaims the mystery of the Trinity in its fullest human revelation “‘brought about’ by that Spirit—consubstantial with the Father and the Son—who, in the absolute mystery of the Triune God, is the Person-love, the uncreated gift, who is the eternal...