Trinity Sunday comes at the end of the church’s celebration of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter, and casts light on the nature of the God we worship. Words and images cannot fully explain God. They can be indicators, guides to help faith.
During our pilgrimage to Manchester Cathedral earlier this week we looked at The Trinity Reredos (2001) in the Cathedral’s Fraser Chapel. Here the modern artist Mark Cazalet depicts God’s hidden presence in the middle of everyday life.
Canon Andrew Shanks, former Canon Theologian at the Cathedral writes:
“How can one directly paint God without falling into cliches, or indeed idolatry? Here’s an image which registers the impossibility of this by not attempting to do so. But, of course, three figures at the centre of an altarpiece immediately make one think of the three-ness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (The Holy Spirit is traditionally identified with the female principle of divine Wisdom of the Old Testament). And the three are sharing a meal.
In the Eucharist we share bread and wine, the everyday food and drink of Jesus’s day. But here it’s the everyday-ness of chips and beer. The ketchup, too, may well make you think of blood: Christ’s blood, the blood of martyrs inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
St Chrysostom's Church News and Views 