It was a lovely surprise when kind friends provided us with the means of going on holiday to a place of our choice. We went to Malta - a place associated with Saint Paul and the early Church. As we were enjoying the holiday feeling and wandering around Malta's lovely capital city, we noticed a large number of leaflets and posters on display. Malta is proud of its long and brave history, and we were being invited to go and see a film about it.
The film was remarkable in the way it included hundreds of exciting years in the life of such brave island people. Memory sometimes makes mistakes, but I think the title of the film was The Maha Experience. That title comes back to me as I try to write about Trinity Sunday and its doctrine. It is easy to see how it influenced our heading: "Learning through Experience". Rather than think of the creeds and doctrines of the Church as being thought up by great minds and then imposed on the Church, we see them as the expression of the strong faith that emerged through believers only too ready and willing to learn through experience.
In the course of our lives we all know of instances where through believing, through hoping, and through loving, we have experienced the assuring evidence of God's presence. Such moments are supremely wonderful, and indeed mystical. Saint Thomas's insistence on explanation vanished as he experienced the presence of the risen Lord. His limited mind could not give him the confidence he sought, but his experience of Christ did.
It was a privilege to visit the scene of Saint Paul's shipwreck, and to think of how much he had learned through experience. Standing there, I thought of the dangers Saint Paul and countless saints and martyrs of the faith faced as they learned from the experience of serving the Gospel. They passed on their experience in the great faith we celebrate on Trinity Sunday. We are aware of that inheritance as we sing or say "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit". With the saints in mind, we know a satisfaction in saying: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever".
For me on that day at Saint Paul's Bay the history of the people of Malta, The Malta Experience, and the history of people of God, "The Church Experience", had something in common. They passed their faith on to succeeding generations.
When we declare belief in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are in the company of hundreds of generations of faithful people who have learned the truth through experience. The majestic and dignified faith will evince in us a sense of gratitude and reverence: "Faith begins in an experiment and ends in an experience."
Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God
Almighty,
All thy works shall praise thy
Name in earth and sky and sea,
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty,
God in Three Persons, blessed
Trinity!