The Pentecost Lectures, 10-12 June 2025: Professor Tracey Rowland on Trinitarian Anthropology
What does it mean for “all of Creation to be marked by the Form of the Trinity”?
These were the 31st in our series of Pentecost Lectures, inaugurated by Abbot Hugh in 1994. The list of speakers has included 19 Priests, of whom 2 became Bishops; with 3 Dominicans, 2 Franciscans, 2 Jesuits, 1 Cistercian, and 1 Divine Word Missionary. Then we have also had 1 Deacon, 6 lay men and 5 lay women. Over this time we’ve been privileged to listen to some very eminent speakers: but surely among them all few more eminent than Professor Tracey Rowland. An Australian from Adelaide, Professor Rowland has academic qualifications from the Universities of Queensland, Melbourne, Cambridge, London and the Roman Lateran. Author of very many learned books and articles, in English and in German, she is a member of the editorial board of the prestigious Journal Communio; she has been an appointed member of the International Theological Commission, and in 2020 she was awarded the Ratzinger Prize for Theology. Her interests embrace the whole of modern theology and modern philosophy, though specialising in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger (whose collected works in English she is editing in 24 volumes), and of Alasdair MacIntyre.
To place her within the spectrum of those who occupy her field: she believes in and consistently defends the Catholic faith; she has no ambitions to overthrow established Catholic doctrines or structures; she is not a radical feminist or a Marxist revolutionary: and she strongly promotes Pope St. John Paul II’s vision of Christian humanism, including in its sexual dimensions. In the light of our contemporary culture wars, and fundamental disagreements on the nature of the human person, she thinks the modern theologian has a big and important job to do. In particular she admires the approach taken by Joseph Ratzinger, including through his Papal Encyclicals: engaging with and giving good answers to the problems raised in modern thought, especially as expressed by Kant and Nietzsche. That is: Ratzinger consistently taught that Christianity is not an ideology, or an ethical code, but an encounter with the Person of Jesus, and through Him, a relationship with the Holy Trinity. Where connections have been broken and separations introduced, as for example between the Good, the True and the Beautiful, or between Ethos and Ethics, or Eros and Agape, or Faith and Reason, Ratzinger sought to restore a healthy and wholesome oneness of vision.
The title quotation chosen for these lectures is taken from a work of the great Franciscan Doctor St. Bonaventure (1221-1274). “All of Creation”, he says, “is marked by the Form of the Trinity.” Bonaventure was here developing and exploring ideas first set out by his master St. Augustine (354-430) and later by two famous sons of the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris: the Saxon Hugh (1096-1141) and the Scot Richard (+1173). Man, as we read in Genesis, is made in the image and likeness of God. So, in God’s Trinitarian image, we have memory, understanding and will, or mind, knowledge and love. Sin has disrupted our ability to reflect God’s likeness; but by means of the triad faith, hope and charity we can journey back towards God, through his perfect likeness Jesus Christ, who is our Way, and Truth and Life.
In the Augustininian and mediaeval imagination, if there are Trinitarian images in man, there are also Trinitarian “vestiges” in all of Creation. St. Bonaventure in particular discerned all sorts of triads in everything everywhere. Among very many other examples: things have substance, power and operation, or source, expression and action: in this way somehow all things reflect the relationships of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We ourselves also somehow reflect the Trinitarian relationships through our experience of sensation, judgement and delight. Bonaventure sees everywhere also unity, form and order, or origin, form and end. Looked at in such a way, the created world can become for us part of our way to God; a pointer towards God; intrinsically invested with symbolic value. Professor Rowland explained how such a vision can be found also in Tolkein’s imagination. So the 3 parts of the Lord of the Rings, and the 3 characters of Aragorn, Gandalf and Frodo can be seen to image in some way the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, which virtues at work can in turn be assimilated to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Then there are the remarkable and interesting discoveries of modern physics, which also, as it happens, finds triads everywhere. For example: all physical things are composed from the 3 fundamental sub-atomic particles, while beneath them we find further divisions into 3: 3 quarks in a proton, and 3 types of neutrino; all having 3 main properties of charge, mass and spin. Then there are (for example) the Fibonacci sequences, whereby each number is generated by the sum of its 2 preceding numbers. These sequences are named after a 13th century Italian, but we find them described long before him in India in 200 B.C. These sequences or patterns appear in the Golden Ratio, as in the dimensions of the Parthenon, or the Rose window of Dunkeld Cathedral, or the proportions of the human face, or the Apple Company Logo. We find them also in the arrangement of pine cones, or sunflower seeds, or sea shells, or chameleon tails. They are used nowadays by computer programmers and designers of algorithms.
We Benedictines were pleased to hear the Benedictine life coming in for high praise in these lectures. Professor Rowland explored how the monasteries have born witness to Truth, Beauty and Goodness through long centuries: perhaps with a special emphasis on Beauty, above all as reflected in the Liturgy. If once the monks and nuns rescued a collapsed Europe from cultural and civilisational wreckage: might we have an important part to play in that same project today?
The last lecture focussed on the earthy trinity of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and their reflection in every Christian family today. So we came again to St. John Paul II, with his famous “Theology of the Body” and his thoroughly explored Trinitarian Anthropology. This all implies not only a vigorous defence of Christian marriage, but also a very exalted understanding of the vocation and mission of Christian spouses. They are called to mirror somehow the Trinitarian Persons through their exchange of love in covenanted unity. We ended with strong words on the person, the power, the role, the example, the value of St. Joseph.
There was so much crammed into these rich lectures: doubtless not everyone present will have managed to keep up with everything. But fear not! They are earmarked for publication as a new Tracey Rowland book, within maybe a year or so. Surely many of our readers will be eager to get hold of that!
