Almighty and everlasting God, you have given your 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; keep us steadfast in this faith, that we may be evermore defended from all adversities, through Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Keynote: Mystical Understanding
The collect for this Sunday, together with the Epistle and Gospel, are so profoundly metaphysical in their significance that at first sight they would appear to be mere words idly strung together. To those, however, who understand the connotation of the symbolism employed, this is far from being the case. Every word in the profoundly mystical passages chosen for this day had its significance, and the collect itself prays that understanding may be given us to penetrate this significance.
The wording of the collect is very pregnant. We are told that "by the confession of a true faith" we are able to "acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity."
Faith we may define as an opinion which is based on intuition rather than upon logical grounds. It is by intuition, not reason, that we gain a realization of the supreme mystery of manifestations the triune nature and functioning of the Logos. [This isn't actually what faith is: most people, including the Church, implicitly understand faith to be belief based not on one's own experience but on the testimony of others. If that belief is true and justified then it may be called knowledge. Our knowledge of the Trinity comes not from experience - since no one can have direct experience of the Trinity - nor from reason - since no one can comprehend the Trinity either - but from our faith in Jesus Christ. Knowledge that comes only from faith is what we call "mystery". - Ed] But, this intuitive realization being gained, we are not left dependent upon blind faith, "in the power of the divine majesty", are able "to worship the Unity."
What is this "power of the divine majesty" which is thus conveyed to us? The collect does not specify, but should we be beyond the range of legitimate speculation if we held that it was the Christ within?
The spirit of man, enabled to function by a faith which dares to trust, and to experiment with an open mind in the things of the Spirit, is not left long without evidence in support of what was originally a working hypothesis; the wakened Christ within is able to worship, to establish contact with the Unity - with the great unmanifest, the source of all existence, the inexaustible fountainhead of power, and this realization enables us to overcome in the name of God all opposition when about our Father's business.
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