The Preacher Parable - Holy Trinity

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Blessed be God.

Praise be to Jesus Christ, forever and ever.

Come, Holy Spirit—fill us with joy, set our hearts ablaze with Your presence.

I want to begin with a story—maybe even a little parable.

There was once a newly ordained deacon:

new to ministry, new to preaching,

new to the trembling work of speaking about God.

And one of his very first homilies

fell on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

He wanted to get it right.

So he studied. He prepared.

He tried to explain the unexplainable—

as if the Trinity were a puzzle to solve.

But when he preached,

his words tangled,

his thoughts scattered,

and his explanations confused more than they clarified.

And he knew it.

Yet something unexpected happened.

The people God placed in his life smiled.

They encouraged him.

They forgave his clumsy words.

They lifted him with patient hearts and gentle love.

And standing there—humbled and held—

that new preacher learned his first real lesson

about the Holy Trinity:

God’s mystery is not revealed through perfect explanations,

but through shared love—

love received, love given,

love reflected back through the eyes of God’s people.

The truth of the Most Holy Trinity is recognized by the heart

before it is understood by the mind.

As he walked with his parish, he began to see the Trinity everywhere:

The Father’s steady love

in the way people cared for one another.

The Son’s mercy

in the way they forgave without counting the cost.

The Spirit’s quiet fire

in the courage of those who kept choosing hope.

And he realized:

the Holy Trinity is relationship.

The Trinity is communion.

The Trinity is God’s self‑giving love.

And because we are made in His image,

we are made for what He is—

not isolation,

not self‑protection,

but the divine rhythm of giving and receiving love.

Into our stubbornness, Saint Paul speaks:

“Mend your ways. Encourage one another.

Agree with one another. Live in peace.

And the God of love and peace will be with you.”

This is the life the Trinity calls us to—

not a theory,

not an abstract doctrine,

but a way of living.

Receive love before you try to give it.

See others through the Father’s eyes.

Speak words that echo the mercy of the Son.

Forgive quickly because the Spirit is always ready

to make something new.

Most of you have figured it out—

that newly ordained deacon was me.

You’ve seen me stumble over homilies for years.

And over those years, this is what I’ve learned:

The love of the Blessed Trinity

is a life to be lived,

not a doctrine to memorize.

One God.

Three Persons.

One Love.

Receiving love.

Giving love.

Becoming love.

And we—made in that image—

are called to live what we behold.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit—Amen.

Be good, be holy,

and preach the Gospel by the way you live your life.

Love one another.

Forgive.

That is the mystery of the Holy Trinity

we bring to the world.

Praise be to Jesus Christ, forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer
Blessed Trinity, Dwell within our hearts.
Father of mercy, guide our days.
Jesus, Word made flesh, redeem our ways.
Spirit of fire, renew our souls.
Teach us to love as You love.
Make our lives a hymn of praise. Amen

Participation in God’s Life

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Extracurricular activities shape a child’s life.
Sports, clubs, scouting, volunteering—
each one teaches the quiet art of showing up,
working with others,
and discovering who we are becoming.

And this points to a deeper truth:
participation is not just something we do—
it is the way we exist in the world.
The way we relate,
the way we share,
the way we give and receive—
this is the sacred shape of the soul God has formed in us.

And just as our participation with others is uniquely ours,
so too is our participation with God.
It rises from the life we’ve lived,
the wounds we carry,
the joys we’ve known,
the story God has been writing in us from the beginning.
It is our way of saying yes.

So Scripture calls us into this holy participation:

“Build yourselves up in your most holy faith;
pray in the Holy Spirit.
Keep yourselves in the love of God,
and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
that leads to eternal life.”

Faith is not passive.
Faith is participation—
a leaning in,
a choosing to remain in love,
a waiting that forms us.

And when Jesus lived this way—
fully participating in the Father’s will—
the chief priests and scribes asked,
“By what authority are you doing these things?”

They could not see that His authority
flowed from His perfect participation
in the Father’s heart.

So today we ask for the same grace:
to participate in God’s life
with the story we’ve been given,
with the faith we are building,
with the love that holds us,
and with the mercy that leads us home.

.Prayer

Lord Jesus, draw me close
in holy participation.
Shape my heart through the life
You Yourself have given.
Hold me steady in Your love,
and lead me by Your mercy.

Amen

A Faith That Stirs

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“Let your love for one another be intense,
because love covers a multitude of sins.”
And again,
“Do not be surprised at the trial by fire among you.”

Because faith often begins right there—
in longing, in searching,
in the quiet ache
for something more.

The dynamics of faith—
the raw movement of the heart
when God begins to stir,
turning the temple of our ego
upside down.

And form is the grace
that shapes that movement,
the order God gives
to the chaos inside us.

Our life of faith
is born from both—
the stirring and the shaping,
the ache and the answer.

And if you want to see how that unfolds
in a real human life—
how God draws the heart
and then gently forms it—
listen to this.

Listening to a Catholic podcast the other day,
a priest shared a story that stopped me.
He said that as a young man,
he simply did not believe.
By his own reasoning,
he had decided there was no God.
But he noticed something in his believing friends—
a peace, a tranquility,
a steadiness
he could not explain.

That was the dynamics—
the stirring, the longing
for what he did not yet understand.

At a friends’ invitation,
that young man
went with them
to an adoration retreat.

Not because he believed.
He didn’t even know what it was.
He just wanted to be with his friends.

And once he was there,
he didn’t leave—
because he didn’t want to disappoint them.
So he sat before the Lord in silence,
again and again,
with nothing but an honest heart.

And he prayed the simplest prayer:
“God, if You are real… show me.”

Across those three days,
the peace he saw in his friends
became the peace rising in him.
Not imagined.
Not forced.
Given.

“All that you ask for in prayer,
believe that you will receive it
and it shall be yours.”

That is the form—
God shaping the stirring,
God answering the ache,
God revealing Himself
in the quiet.

Jesus tells us that if we speak to the mountain,
“Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,”
and do not doubt in our hearts,
it will be done.

Prayer 

Lord, stir my heart
with the quiet ache that leads me to You.

Shape my longing
with Your gentle and holy form.

Let Your peace rise in me—
not earned, but given.

Teach me to sit before You
with an honest, open soul.

Strengthen my faith to ask,
to trust, to believe.

Make my heart free enough
to recognize You when You come close.

Amen

Memory and Anticipation

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My friends,
God has given us this holy gift—
the gift of memory
and the gift of anticipation.

We move through the world aware of ourselves,
and because we can reflect on that awareness,
we carry our experiences in memory.
And from that memory,
we imagine what may come next.
That is part of being spiritual,
part of being storied beings—
our lives woven with continuity,
threaded with grace.

But sometimes—
in the middle of the night—
I wake with a little trouble in my heart.
Something I thought I had placed in God’s hands
still clings to me,
still whispers, still unsettles.

So I pray the prayer of Bartimaeus,
the prayer of every soul that longs for mercy:
“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.”

Because this is what 

scripture reminds God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

So when the world tells you to be silent,
when fear rebukes you,
when doubt tries to hush your prayer,
do what Bartimaeus did—
call out all the more.

Because Jesus still stops.
Jesus still hears.
Jesus still says,
“Call him.”

And in that moment,
memory becomes grace,
anticipation becomes hope,
and the night becomes light.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,
hold my yesterday’s in Your mercy
and my future in Your light.
Steady my heart when shadows rise,
and let my cry reach Your healing love.
Build me again in Your peace.

Amen

Destiny, Freedom, and the Cup of Christ

 

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No matter where we stand in life,
we are living out a destiny—
a destiny shaped by the years behind us,
by the wounds we carry,
by the stories that formed us.

But by the gift of freedom,
a freedom breathed into us by God Himself,
that destiny can change.

And I know this because mine changed.
I was hard. I was bitter.
I carried the weight of bullying,
the ache of tragedy, the sting of loss,
and the shadows of injustices—
some real, some only perceived.

Yet even in that heaviness, grace was reaching for me.
Right in the middle of the pain,
right in the middle of the anger,
a quiet invitation rose in my heart.

I chose Christ.
And Christ chose to remake my heart.

And it is here—right here—
that the Gospel meets us again.

Jesus tells the disciples,
“The chalice that I drink, you will drink.”
He does not promise privilege.
He promises a path—
a path shaped by love,
a path shaped by service.

And that path leads us straight into the mystery of destiny.
Because if we are to drink His cup,
we must first understand
the life we stand inside right now.

Destiny is real.
It is the sum of all those things in our lives
we can no longer change—
our history, our wounds,
the consequences of choices already made.
They shape the moment we stand in now,
but they do not define
the moment that waits ahead.

And this is where the Gospel turns us toward hope.
Because the God who sees our destiny
also breathes freedom into our souls.

Because God has placed in us
the fierce and holy gift of freedom—
the grace to rise beyond what destiny has handed us,
to choose the good, to seek the true,
to walk toward the beautiful.

And this freedom—
this Gospel freedom—
is never blind impulse.
True freedom requires just reason,
the harmony between the mind God gave us
and the revelation God offers us.

True freedom requires critical thinking—
the courage to examine our motives,
to discern our path,
to ask whether our choices
draw us deeper into Christ
or carry us farther from His heart.

Then Jesus says,
“Whoever wishes to be first
must be the slave of all.”
This is the freedom of the Gospel—
not the freedom to do whatever we want,
but the freedom to become
who God created us to be.

To drink the cup. To serve with joy.
To choose love again and again.
To let Christ reshape our destiny
and sanctify our freedom.

Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Shape my heart in Your mercy.
Steady my steps in Your truth.
Free me from the weight of yesterday.
Lead me toward the good You desire.
Make my life a quiet “yes” 

 to Your love.

Amen