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“Baptized in the Name: Confidence, Belonging, Relationship, Identity” (Matthew 28:16-20) Sometime during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension, our Lord Jesus Christ met with his disciples on a mountain in Galilee, and he told them: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And that is what the church has done for all these many centuries. And that is what has happened to you, every one of you...

“Born of Water and the Spirit” (John 3:1-17) On this Trinity Sunday, our Gospel reading, from John chapter 3, tells us of the work of the Holy Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--in bringing us to a new birth and the new life that flows from it. And this is where Jesus goes in his conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be “Born of Water and the Spirit.” This Nicodemus was a prominent Jewish religious leader. He was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. Jesus even calls him “the teacher of...

“The Father’s Day--and the Son’s, and the Holy Spirit’s” (Acts 2:14a, 22-36) Today is Father’s Day. No, wait, let me correct that. Today is “The Father’s Day--and the Son’s, and the Holy Spirit’s.” What do I mean by that? Let me explain. Today is the third Sunday in June, which in our country is Father’s Day. And that’s a good thing. It’s good for us to honor our fathers and our mothers. In fact, God put that right into the Ten Commandments. So on this day we honor our fathers for the gifts that they are, given to us by...

“In the Presence of the Holy God” (Isaiah 6:1-8) What would it be like if you knew you were in the presence of the holy God? Try to imagine. Would it be cool, casual, awesome, inspiring, overwhelming? What would your reaction be? “Oh well, just another day in the park. Nothing to see here. Ho hum.” Or maybe you’d think: “Oh wow! I must be pretty special to be given this kind of revelation of God. Yay me!” Or would you be terrified and frightened, shaking in your boots, to be in God’s presence? Well, today on this Holy Trinity...

1 and 1 and 1 is One – A Homily for Trinity Sunday By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is an old spiritual that says, “My God is so high, you can’t get over him, he’s so low you can’t get under him, he’s so wide you can’t get ’round him, you must come in, by and through the Lamb.”That’s not a bad way of saying that God is other; He is beyond what human words can tell or describe; He is beyond what human thoughts can conjure. And on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity we do well to...

“The Loving Father, the Lifted-Up Son, and the Life-Giving Spirit” (John 3:1-17)The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for our salvation. That’s what this Feast of the Holy Trinity is all about. This is not an occasion to strain our brains to try to figure out what for us, with our finite reason, is ultimately incomprehensible, namely, how there can be one God in three persons and at the same time three persons and only one God. That would blow out our circuits, if we even could comprehend it. Rather, the thing to do on this day is simply,...