Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity and our patronal feast. This feast has an interesting history inasmuch as it is quite a late development, having been made a feast of the universal Church by John XXII (1316–1334) although we have an Office of the feast composed by Stephen of Liège at the beginning of the tenth century, as well as prayers and a preface of the Holy Trinity in the Gregorian Sacramentary. Some readers will remember that every Sunday of the year to which no special feast was assigned was always celebrated with a Mass of the Holy Trinity, and one would have to be remarkably thick not to have noticed that all the formularies of public prayer in the Church tend to be Trinitarian in character, just as the Rule of St Benedict is permeated with Trinitarian references. Yet despite all this many Christians remain, practically speaking, tritheists. It is difficult to get one's head round the docrtrine of the Trinity. Many a priest will be metaphorically shaking in his socks as he ascends the pulpit to preach on the subject (as is the nun I have asked to do this week's podcast: we'll see if it materialises or not!). Part of the difficulty may lie in the "dryness" of some theological expositions. I've probably said before that Augustine's De Trinitate was suddenly illumined for me by reading some modern physics which similarly stretches our understanding of words and the processes they signify. God as energy is exciting. God as loving, creative energy is more exciting still.