Music Notes for Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2026 Dr. John Michniewicz

May 31st is titled The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, or as it is called, Trinity Sunday. In the Trinity, one God exists as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The readings throughout show the characteristics of God that Christians have come to know: the God who creates, the God who is praised, the God of compassion who blesses and saves, and the God who sends and accompanies. In the First Reading, Exodus 34:4b–6, 8–9, Moses, early in the morning, climbs Mount Sinai carrying two stone tablets. The Lord descends in a cloud, proclaiming his holy name and revealing himself as a “merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Moses immediately bows down, pleading for God’s presence to journey with his “stiff-necked” people and to pardon their sins.

Sunday’s Response comes from Daniel 3:52–56. Instead of a traditional psalm, Sunday’s Lectionary Readings prescribe the Canticle of Daniel (also known as the Canticle of the Three Young Men). Here, continuing with the theme of the First Reading, God’s mercy, compassion and saving power are shown in a miraculous way. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three young Jewish men, have been cast into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar for refusing to worship a golden idol.

Rather than being consumed, they walk unharmed in the flames. In the midst of the fire, they sing a song of praise. This canticle, with its refrain: “Glory and praise forever” is a response showing God as “Praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.” Some Christian writers, scholars and theologians have seen the three young men themselves as a symbolic reflection of the Trinity. Cosmas of Maiouma in the eighth century, for example, composed a hymn declaring: “Bless, children equal in number to the Trinity, God the Father and Creator; praise the Word who came down and changed the fire into dew; and highly exalt unto the ages the all-holy Spirit who gives life to all.” Theologian Bogdan Bucur observes that the three youths also prefigure the mystery of the incarnation, essentially the “coming of God into the fiery furnace of human flesh.”

The Second Reading, 2 Corinthians 13:11–13, closes Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth with a series of appeals: “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace,” followed by what has been called the

Trinitarian Blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” Here, the Three Persons of the Trinity offer the gifts of grace, love, and fellowship.

The Gospel Reading, John 3:16–18, opens with one of the most familiar verses: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” These words are spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus, the Pharisee who comes to him by night, in the extended discourse that follows the conversation about being born again of water and the Spirit. Verses 17 and 18 further expand Jesus’ explanation: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” The passage is also seen by scholars as showing a Trinitarian framework: the Father sends, the Son is sent and given, and the entire movement of salvation is one of divine love going out toward the world. Biblical Scholar Reginald Fuller observes, in relation to this passage, that, “it is impossible to dissociate the gift of eternal life, which is the outcome of the sending of the Son, from the Spirit, who is the Giver of life.”

Sunday’s Entrance Hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy! (Worship Hymnal No. 553) was written expressly for Trinity Sunday. The text was written by Reginald Heber (1783–1826), an Anglican bishop, poet, and hymnwriter who set out to compile a complete collection of hymns organized around the church calendar, one for every Sunday and feast day of the year. He wrote “Holy, Holy, Holy” for Trinity Sunday while serving as vicar of Hodnet in Shropshire, England, drawing on Revelation 4:8–11, where the four living creatures around God’s throne cry out day and night: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!” The hymn was published posthumously in 1826, just months after Heber died at the age of

forty-two in Trichinopoly, India, where he had been serving as Bishop of Calcutta. He was the first to compile a hymnal ordering hymns around the church calendar, and “Holy, Holy, Holy” remains his best-known text.

The text became associated with the hymn tune NICAEA, composed by John Bacchus Dykes (1823–1876) for the first edition of the landmark hymnal Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. Dykes, then a minor canon and precentor at Durham Cathedral, had not initially been invited to contribute, but he wrote to the musical editor William Henry Monk asking to participate, and what he submitted for

Heber’s text became the most celebrated tune of his career. The name NICAEA is a deliberate theological tribute to the First Council of Nicaea, convened by the Emperor Constantine in A.D. 325, where church leaders formally defined and defended the doctrine of the Trinity against heresy. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(1809-1892) the celebrated poet, appointed as British Poet Laureate, even called it the world’s greatest hymn. Today it remains in virtually every Christian hymnal, its opening three-fold “Holy” additionally reaches back to the Trisagion (Greek for: thrice holy) song of the angels in Isaiah 6 as well as the Book of Revelation. The hymn’s text, “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!” declares precisely what Moses glimpsed on Sinai: a God whose name is mercy, majesty, and fidelity, worthy of all praise, the same God praised by the three young men in the Canticle of Daniel.

Holy, Holy, Holy!

1. Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.

1. Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore thee,

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,

God everlasting through eternity.

1. Holy, Holy, Holy! Though the darkness hide thee, Though the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see, Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,

Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

1. 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.

Here is a presentation of Holy, Holy, Holy, as sung at the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjsGRv6rnmU

Sunday’s Presentation hymn is This Day God Gives Me (Worship Hymnal No. 850 and sung to the hymn tune BUNESSAN. The melody originates on the Isle of Mull, a rugged island off the western coast of Scotland, where the Gaelic poet Mary MacDonald (1789–1872), who lived near the village of Bunessan, composed a Christmas carol called Leanabh an Àigh (“Child in the Manger”). When her carol was translated into English in the 1880s, the melody was named after her village by the translator, Lachlan MacBean. The tune entered the wider English-speaking world in 1931, when poet Eleanor Farjeon set her text Morning Has Broken to it for the British hymnal Songs of Praise. The text of This Day God Gives Me goes back much further though, to fifth-century Ireland. Scottish Jesuit priest James Quinn

(1919–2010) adapted the words in 1969 from St. Patrick’s Breastplate, the ancient Celtic prayer attributed to St. Patrick. Quinn’s adaptation was first published in New Hymns for All Seasons (London, 1969). The original St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a prayer of total immersion in the protection of the Trinity: “I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity.” Quinn’s adaptation captures the Celtic Christian sense of the Creator’s presence, woven through every moment and in all of creation. For Trinity Sunday, the connection to the readings is direct. The hymn calls upon the strength of high heaven, sun and moon, fire and thunder, the angels of heaven, and the closeness of the Incarnate Christ. This text echoes both Exodus 34, where God descends in a cloud to be with his people, the Canticle of Daniel, and John 3:16, where God gives his Son out of love for the world.

This Day God Gives Me

1. This day God gives me Strength of high heaven, Sun and moon shining, Flame in my hearth, Flashing of lightning, Wind in its swiftness, Deeps of the ocean, Firmness of earth.
2. This day God sends me Strength as my guardian, Might to uphold me, Wisdom as guide.

Your eyes are watchful, Your ears are list’ning, Your lips are speaking, Friend at my side.

1. God’s way is my way, God’s shield is ’round me, God’s host defends me, Saving from ill.

Angels of heaven, Drive from me always

All that would harm me, Stand by me still.

Here is a richly harmonized version of This Day God Gives Me, învoking the hymn’s Celtic roots, as sung by the OCP session Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbLakSGuaVI

At the 11:30 Mass, the Choir will sing as the Presentation Anthem: Undivided Mystery by Mark Schweizer. Mark Schweizer (1956–2019) was a versatile figure in late twentieth-century American church music. A bass-baritone who performed with regional opera companies across the country and as a bass soloist with the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw, he earned his D.M.A. from the University of Arizona and taught voice, opera, and music theory at Stetson University, among other prominent schools. As a composer, arranger, editor, and librettist, his output centered almost entirely on choral works for sacred use, anthems, church operas, musicals, and liturgical settings of considerable variety. In 1992, at the Sewanee Church Music Conference, Schweizer founded St. James Music Press in Tryon, North Carolina, guiding it to become one of the first fully online sacred music publishing companies.

His anthem, Undivided Mystery, echoes the theological heart of the day: the Trinity. An ancient description states: “Blessed be the holy Trinity, and the undivided Unity.” The anthem’s text and music address the central paradox of the Trinity: that the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct and yet inseparably one, united in the very love that John 3:16 proclaims sent God’s Son into the world. Schweizer’s gift as a choral composer was his ability to write music that is both accessible and theologically substantial.

Undivided Mystery

Holy Father, Saving Son, Blessed Spirit, Three in One:

Undivided mystery, Author of eternity.

Loving God, Anointed Son, Eternal Spirit, Three in One:

Word Incarnate, Well Beloved, Heav’nly King and Lord of Love.

Mighty God, Redeeming Son, With the Spirit, Three in One:

As the sacred Trinity Alpha and Omega be.

Here is a recording of Undivided Mystery: https://sjmp.com/catalog/music/?song_id=1442

Sunday’s Communion Hymn: Eat This Bread (Worship Hymnal No. 943) is by Jacques Berthier and comes from the Taizé community in France. The origins of Eat This Bread are well documented. On the morning of October 7, 1983, Robert J. Batastini, president of GIA Publications, was working with Brother Robert and composer Jacques Berthier at the Taizé Community in Burgundy, France. He was there preparing a second volume of music from Taizé for the English-speaking world. Batastini adapted the text from John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; whoever

comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” in the morning; Berthier composed the music that same afternoon. It was published in 1984, and it has been sung at Masses and Services in virtually every denomination in the English-speaking world ever since.

Eat This Bread

Refrain: Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to him and never be hungry.

Eat this bread, drink this cup,

trust in him and you will not thirst.

1. Christ is the bread of life, the true bread sent from the Father.
2. Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, but this is the bread come down from Heaven.
3. Eat His flesh and drink His blood, And Christ will raise you up on the last day.
4. Anyone who eats this bread, will live forever.

Jacques Berthier (1923–1994) was a French organist and composer who became the musical voice of the Taizé Community, the ecumenical monastic community founded by Brother Roger Schütz in Burgundy in 1940. Berthier’s approach was to create contemplative music from the simplest possible materials: a short melodic phrase, easily memorized and gently repeated, accompanied by soft instrumental textures or sung in canon by different sections of the assembly. The music of Taizé was designed to transcend language barriers, allowing pilgrims from every nation to pray together in a common act of worship. “Eat This Bread” exemplifies this approach with a sung refrain of only fifteen words.

On Trinity Sunday, this hymn resonates strongly with the readings. In the Eucharist, God is present in the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that Paul invokes in his closing blessing to the Corinthians.

Here is Robert J. Batastini conducting the combined choirs of Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest, Illinois, and the St. Barbara Roman Catholic Church in Brookfield, Illinois in Eat This Bread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI0EKX9z7dc

At the 11:30 Mass, the choir will sing the Communion Meditation: Ave Maria by R. Douglas Helvering. This setting of Ave Maria is a distinctive addition to the choral literature for this beloved Marian prayer. Written for SATB divisi voices a cappella, it features multi-layered choral harmonies and dynamic contrasts. In a deep sense, Ave Maria is itself a Trinitarian prayer. It opens with the Angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary at the Annunciation, the moment when the Second Person of the Trinity took flesh in her womb, the mystery at the heart of John 3:16, the Father’s gift of his only Son. It continues with Elizabeth’s greeting, filled with the Holy Spirit, at the Visitation. It closes with a petition to Mary’s intercession before God the Father. On Trinity Sunday, Ave Maria offers a moment of quiet contemplation: the mystery of the Trinity invoked and seen entering human history through the “yes” of a young woman from Nazareth. Here is the UConn Concert Choir singing Ave Maria by R. Douglas Helvering in concert at the Immanuel Congregational Church in Hartford, CT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0pKiClZ07k

Sunday’s Final Hymn is Now Thank We All Our God (Worship Hymnal No. 637).

A famous and well-known hymn, joyous in its scope and outlook, it was written in the most trying of times. Its author, Martin Rinkart (1586–1649), was a German Lutheran pastor and accomplished musician, a coppersmith’s son who had sung as a boy in the famous choir of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, which is the church where Johann Sebastian Bach would later serve as Kantor. In 1617, at the onset of the Thirty Years’ War, Rinkart was called to serve as archdeacon in his hometown of Eilenburg, Saxony, a walled city that became a refuge for political and military fugitives, with terrible consequences. Overcrowding brought famine, disease, and repeated military devastation. All of Rinkart’s fellow pastors died, leaving him the only clergyman in the city. At the height of a catastrophic plague in 1637, Rinkart conducted as many as fifty funerals per day, performing over four thousand burial services in a single year, including that of his own wife. Nonetheless, it was in the midst of this ordeal that Rinkart wrote Nun Danket Alle Gott (Now Thank We All Our God), originally composed as a grace to be sung before meals for his own children at the dinner table. The first two verses reflect Sirach 50:22–24, a Jewish hymn of thanksgiving, and the third is a paraphrase of the doxology. The tune NUN DANKET was composed by Johann Crüger (1598–1662) and published in the 1647 edition of his collection Praxis Pietatis Melica. The English translation of the text was made by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878), who introduced dozens of German chorales to

the English-speaking world. Johann Sebastian Bach harmonized the tune in his St. Matthew Passion, and it has been sung at coronations, peace treaties, and occasions of national thanksgiving across five centuries.

This hymn clearly connects to Sunday’s readings. Moses bows as God proclaims his name of mercy. The three young men in the furnace sing a song of glory and praise to God forever. Paul closes his letter with a benediction of grace, love, and fellowship. And Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Father gave his only Son out of love for the world. “Now Thank We All Our God” reflects God as merciful and compassionate, and the source of salvation, a statement of faith worthy of thanksgiving. The Doxology in the third verse reflects the Trinity, giving thanks to God The Father, the Son, and the Spirit as “he who reigns in highest heaven,” forever the “one eternal God.”

Now Thank We All Our God

1. Now thank we all our God

With hearts and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, In whom his world rejoices;

Who from our mothers’ arms Has blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.

1. O may this bounteous God Through all our life be near us, With ever joyful hearts

And blessed peace to cheer us; Preserve us in his grace,

And guide us in distress, And free us from all harm Till heaven we possess.

1. All praise and thanks to God

The Father now be given, The Son, and him who reigns

With them in highest heaven—The one eternal God,

Whom earth and heav’n adore—For thus it was, is now,

And shall be evermore.

Here is an exuberant version of Now Thank We All Our God with triumphal brass fanfares as arranged by John Rutter for Brass Octet, Choir, Organ and Orchestra, as sung by The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7gMDXylzW8

Sources

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) — Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year A, May 31, 2026: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/053126.cfm

Catholic Lectionary — Solemnity of Most Holy Trinity Year A: https://www.catholiclectionary.com/solemnity-of-most-holy-trinity-year-a/ LiturgyTools.net — Hymns for Trinity Sunday, Year A (31 May 2026): https://www.liturgytools.net/2014/06/mass-hymns-for-trinity-sunday-year-a-ca tholic.html

Grokipedia — Lectionary 164: https://grokipedia.com/page/lectionary_164 Wikipedia — Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy,_Holy,_Holy!_Lord_God_Almighty Hymnary.org — Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty: https://hymnary.org/text/holy_holy_holy_lord_god_almighty_early   Victory Baptist Church — Holy, Holy, Holy: The Story Behind the Hymn: https://vbccarthage.org/holy-holy-holy-the-story-behind-the-hymn/    Hymnology Archive — Holy, Holy, Holy: https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/holy-holy-holy

Hymnary.org — Tune: BUNESSAN: https://hymnary.org/tune/bunessan Wikipedia — Morning Has Broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Has_Broken

Wikipedia — Bunessan (hymn tune): https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Bunessan_(hymn_tune)

United Methodist Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: “Christ Beside Me”: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-christ-beside-me   Wikipedia — Mark Schweizer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Schweizer

St. James Music Press — About: https://sjmp.com/about/

United Methodist Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: “Eat This Bread”: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-eat-this-bread Hymnary.org — Eat This Bread: https://hymnary.org/hymn/LUYH2013/818 Sheet Music Plus — Ave Maria, R. Douglas Helvering: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/ave-maria-3840410.html

J.W. Pepper — Ave Maria by R. Douglas Helvering: https://www.jwpepper.com/Ave-Maria/3289717.item  Wikipedia — Now Thank We All Our God: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_Thank_We_All_Our_God  Hymnary.org — Now Thank We All Our God: https://hymnary.org/text/now_thank_we_all_our_god

Wikipedia — Martin Rinkart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rinkart Enjoying the Journey Blog — Hymn History: Now Thank We All Our God: https://enjoyingthejourney.org/hymn-history-now-thank-we-all-our-god/ Mitchell Lewis Blog — Now Thank We All Our God in the Thirty Years War: https://milewis.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/now-thank-we-all-our-god/

Bogdan G. Bucur, “Christophanic Exegesis and the Problem of Symbolization: Daniel 3 (the Fiery Furnace) as a Test Case,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 10.2 (2016): 227–244