The Mosst Holy Trinity - 2026 - Year A

Jeff Bagnall • 28 May 2026

Exodus is the second book of the Bible; it is based on and around the story of slaves escaping from their oppression in Egypt and travelling through the hostile desert under the leadership of Moses; and it was in this process that a relationship was built up between them and the one God who would be theirs from then on forever; it was the God with the mysterious name of Yahweh, meaning something like ‘I am who is.’ This basic oral account over time gained a great number of elaborations and additions before it settled into the written form in the Bible that has now been more or less unaltered for about two and a half thousand years. In our extract for today’s first reading we hear of this aloof and even fearful God condescending to meet with Moses the people’s leader on the heights of the sacred Mount Sinai. This God then announces himself (always referred to in this personal way) as kind and forgiving, despite the unfaithfulness of the people whose God He is. Moses is encouraged by this revelation and feels enabled to respond on behalf of the people he leads, with worship and prayer for blessing and forgiveness. It is this threefold pattern in this section of the Exodus story that is seen by Christians to suit this day’s Feast of the Trinity – the threefold pattern of God the aloof, the one who shows Himself and the one who enables an appropriate response.

In the second reading we have the ending of the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. This ‘letter’ is most likely an amalgam of two or more previous letters written by Paul, gathered as one document. The end of the epistle which we hear today is very interesting. It could easily be taken as part of a Church service. As early as the 50s or 60s, Christians probably came together each Sunday to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, to mutually support each other and to hear some teaching from their leader. If there was a letter from Paul, it would have been read out at this meeting, perhaps with an ending like we have in today’s reading. This ending encourages rejoicing and happiness, it suggests renewing one’s efforts to live good lives and it calls down peace and love upon the community. This would conclude the reading at their gathering, before the most sacred part of their celebration, when perhaps they had what we today might call ‘the peace’. On this feast of the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity we particularly notice the Trinitarian wording in this blessing and it has become a common prayer used by Christians to this day and often referred to just as ‘the Grace.’

In the account of Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus at night (John 3:2), and finally being told that Jesus is the light (John 3:19) we seem to have a conversation carefully constructed for the Christians of the early Church in a Greek speaking context. Our gospel reading takes just a few verses from this account. In John, even more than in the other three gospels, we have a strong emphasis on the Spirit of God; the Holy Spirit is not only the instigation of the public ministry of Jesus at His baptism but also the future source of eternal life after His death and resurrection for others; this comes to them at baptism and at what we would call the Sacrament of the Eucharist, enabling and supporting a lived-out belief in Jesus, where the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel reminds readers that the flesh without spirit is useless. Our passage’s references to love should also make us think of the action of the Holy Spirit, especially this day as we celebrate the triple dynamism of God’s reality, its relationship to creation and its life within which we live.

see Jeff’s Jottings – Not alone

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

Feast of the Assumption - Year A

14 August 2026

There was much apocalyptic literature in the centuries before and after Christ – among the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and even Indian literature. This literature which is about the development in the world of disasters and troubles expressed in dramatic stories, included those of evil ‘influences’ seeking to destroy the next ruler born to a chosen woman to be mother of the future ruler. Some form of these apocalyptic stories were part of Jewish literature – as also the book of Revelation in the N.T. which used to be called the Apocalypse in Catholic bibles, because of its similarity to such literature. Our first reading (from Revelations 12:1-6 ) for the Catholic feast of the Assumption includes an adaptation of this mythic scenario to the situation of Christianity under Roman persecution in the 1st century to encourage believers in Jesus and his resurrection – a faith that secures them safety in heaven, but how the rest of us, still living in our world, are still threatened by evil. The story could bring to mind the Assumption of Mary into heaven – waiting with Christ for the rest of us after our struggles against the evil forces in our world. There are ‘secular’ stories of old about such sort of events.

Feast of Saint Peter and Paul - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 24 June 2026

In the Acts 12:1-11 Luke is writing the remarkable account of the expansion of Christianity and the development of the church; and this is despite external opposition, even persecution, and their leaders’ inadequacies and failings. The story is built around the two different characters in the early church of Peter and Paul. Whereas Peter was a headstrong, simple Galilean Jewish fisherman who followed Jesus throughout His public ministry, Paul was a well educated Jew and Roman citizen living outside of the Jewish territory, who after a special encounter with Jesus turned from antagonism to Christians to become an apostle of Christianity to the Gentiles. The phrase “in those days” at the beginning of today’s reading, alludes to the time when the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and the surrounding area expanded and even included followers of Jesus’ Way who were not Jews – they were Samaritans or even Gentiles. It was this expansion that began to cause disturbances in Jerusalem. Herod, the local ruler, wanted to keep the peace in order to retain favour within the Roman empire, and so began to arrest the Jewish Christian leaders who were the source of the trouble. So our reading concerns the imprisonment of Peter; it was during the feast of unleavened Bread – a sacred time in Jerusalem – so he would be executed after the Passover, as James had been earlier. The story of his escape was passed down by word of mouth and that is what is related here by Luke. This is a good story illustrating how faith can lead us into difficulties and yet God can save us.