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Homily from Father James Gilhooley

Trinity

Trinity Sunday - Cycle B - Matthew 28:16-20

A couple received by mail two tickets for a first class

New York City Broadway show. They did not understand

who sent them, but they thankfully went. They returned

home and found their home stripped of cash, paintings,

and jewels. On their table, they found a note which read,

"NOW YOU UNDERSTAND." We will never receive asimilar note about the Trinity.

The roots of today's solemn feast can be traced back to

the early Church. Today we can say with my ancestor, the

peerless St Patrick, "I arise today, through a mighty

strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in

the threeness, through confession of the oneness of theCreator of Creation."

The story is told of a priest sitting in an airport waiting for

his flight. A fellow killing time struck up a conversation.

Said he, "Father, I believe only what I can understand. So,

I can't buy your Trinity. Perhaps you can explain it to

me." The priest reluctantly put down The New YorkTimes. "Do you see the sun out there?" "Yup." "OK, it's

80 million miles away from us right now. The rays

coming through the window," said the priest, "are coming

from the sun. The delightful heat we are enjoying on our

bodies right now come from a combination of the sun and

its rays. Do you understand that?" The fellow answered,

"Sure, padre." "The Trinity," the priest went on, "is like

that. God the Father is that blazing sun. The Son is the

rays He sends down to us. Then both combine to send us

the Holy Spirit who is the heat. If you understand the

workings of the sun, its rays, and heat, why do you have

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difficulty believing the Trinity?" The man said something

about catching a flight and was off.

The priest, a physics professor, picked up the Times with

a broad smile. He doubted whether his recent guest

understood the workings of the sun. He knew no one

would ever comprehend the mystery of the Trinity this

side of the grave. After all, why does God have to tell us

everything? In his experience, He tells us only on a need

to know basis.

His favorite line from the Book of Job popped into his

mind. "Can anyone penetrate the deep designs of God?"

(11:7) As a scientist and a Catholic, he knew the answer

to that question. Try to understand the Trinity and you

become like a person staring, as someone said, into the

noonday sun to better understand it. All you get is a

serious headache requiring extra strength Tylenol and a

resolve to buy good sunglasses.

Finally he put down the Times and recalled fondly his late

Dogma professor in the seminary. When he came to the

section on the Trinity in the textbook, he turned the pages

quickly. The Dogma prof said, "Professor Thomas

Aquinas, late of the University of Paris and the AlbertEinstein of his day, didn't understand the Trinity. So, it is

most unlikely that you blockheads will either. Just

remember St Paul mentions the Trinity 30 times in his

letters. Take it on faith and you'll muddle through

somehow." He trusted that the professor and Thomas both

now understood the Trinity perfectly.

He himself never had difficulty buying into a God who is

passionately in love with us, a Son who was willing to die

for us, and a Holy Spirit whose job it is to help us become

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saints like Thomas of Aquin and Paris.

He recalled the husband, who said when he became afather, he better understood the Trinity. When he and his

wife had their son, they had evidence of their love for

each other. There was the lover, the beloved, and the love,

each distinct and yet one.

I enjoy the playful description of Daniel Durken of the

Trinity. The Father played creator and was overjoyed thatthe world turned out so attractively. The Son played

redeemer and put everything right again in the wounded

world by stretching out His arms on a cross. The Spirit

played sanctifier. He made room in the heart of each of us

for the Trinity. "Today," says Durken, "the Trinity invites

us to keep playing with them this delightful game of life

and love." And why not? We have nothing to lose but our

chains.

Dante Alighieri expressed his thoughts on the triune God

in verse. His Italian runs off the lips like music: "O trina

luce, che in unica stella..." And, for the benefit only of the

very young children reading these lines I translate, "O

triune light, which in a single star contents all upon whom

it shineth..."

Homily from Father Joseph Pellegrinohttp://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html

Trinity

The Trinity: Intimacy and Transcendence

Arians are all around us, and among us, and within us.

They are the intellectually arrogant in the academia. They

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attempt to rewrite history. They declare that Jesus was

just a man, a good man, yes, but just a man. The Trinity

is too much for them. Jesus is too much for them.

Where did this word Arian come from? Well, in the

fourth century of the Church, Arius, a priest of

Alexandria, Egypt, declared that Jesus was not the Son of

God. His heresy made Christianity easier to accept.

People did not have to suspend their rationality to accept

that which was beyond their abilities. The laws ofChristianity were now just a matter of advice, not the

New Law of God. Arianism grew so popular that,

according to some historians, over two thirds of

Christians went over to this heresy. But the Power of

God, the Holy Spirit, prevailed and through various

councils of the Church, the belief in the Trinity was

codified into the formula we continue to use: There is

one God, who has three persons, Father, Son and Holy

Spirit. Each person is God, yet there is still only one

God.

Belief in the Trinity was not created by the early councils

of the Church. It was given to us by God himself. It is in

the Bible. The Old Testament points to the Trinity

speaking about the Eternal Son who will come and sufferfor the forgiveness of sins, Isaiah, and who will judge the

world, Daniel, and whose Spirit will rest upon us, Ezekiel.

Look at the New Testament. Start with the records of

Christmas. We call these the Infancy Narratives. The

Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke

are written to emphasize that Jesus is the Son of God and

Son of Mary. Joseph was his foster father. An evendeeper understanding of the mystery of Jesus presented in

the Gospel of John. The theme of this gospel is John

3:16: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

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so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but

might have eternal life. The beginning of the Gospel of

John, usually called the Prologue, tells us about theEternal Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among

us. The existence and the power of the Holy Spirit are

also experienced throughout the New Testament,

particularly in the Gospels of Luke and John and the

writings of St. Paul. The Holy Spirit continues to be

experienced in the Church.

Belief in the Trinity demands acknowledging Gods

infinite superiority in all areas including our

rationality. Adam and Eve refused to do that. They

pushed God aside, turned away from life and gave us

death. The Arians, including the modern day arians of the

academia, do not have the humility to admit that mans

knowledge of the Divine is limited by the finite capability

of the human mind. They do not have the humility to

enter into mystery, the mystery of God. I like to consider

it this way: an eight year old cannot understand

calculus. He or she is incapable of that form of

understanding. But calculus still exists. Most of our top

high school students could not come to the theory of

relativity, but it is a valid theory. Because some

knowledge is beyond us does not mean that it doesntexist. What does exist is the pride and arrogance we all

have to refuse to go beyond the limits of our minds and

accept Gods mysteries. The trouble is that we humans are

proud. We would like to determine who God is, what He

should be like, etc. We try to fit him into our mental

constructs. In doing so, we are refusing to enter into

mystery.

Dom Julian, a Benedictine monk, wrote, All that matters

is that God is God, and I, I am only I.

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Within the Mystery of the Trinity dells the wonderful

belief that God is both close to us and beyond us, Intimateand Transcendent. The Eternal Creator of the universe

shocked us by establishing an intimate relationship with

us. At baptism we receive His Life. Our bodies are

sacred, holy, because we are the dwelling place of

God. My favorite verse in Scripture is the concluding

verse of the Gospel of Matthew and of our Gospel for this

Sunday: Know that I am with you always until the end oftime. He is always there. We can pray to Him within us,

and in times of crisis ask Him for that power that is

beyond us. So we pray for miracles of healing, we pray

for miracles of forgiveness, we pray for the miracle of His

Body and Blood.

We are made in the image and likeness of God, the Book

of Genesis tells us. That means that we share in His

Closeness and His Beyond. This is how we make God

present in our society. We are given His Presence so that

others can find Him in us, and ultimately, enjoy His

presence in themselves. At the same time, our focus in life

must be transcendent, on things above, on God. Yes, we

work hard to provide for ourselves and our children, but

only so we can better serve God. After all, the goal of allChristian parents is to allow their children to reach their

spiritual potential. The goal of Christian parents is to all

their children to live forever as children of God. That is

why people have children, correct? Children are created

for Love, His Love.

The intimacy and transcendence necessary for Christianlife is summarized in a remarkable way in a letter to a

Greek official, Diognetus, dating back to the third or

fourth century. The life of the Christians is the same life

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that we live. I want to read a little sections of it:

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either bynationality, language or customs. Yet, there is something

extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own

countries as if they were only passing through. They live

in the flesh, but they are not governed by the flesh. They

pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of

heaven. The are obedient to the law, but they live on a

level that transcends the law.

How are we to translate this intimacy and transcendence

into our modern context? We can do this by focusing on

the One who is intimate and transcendent, Jesus

Christ. He is one of us, with us always. He is the eternal

Son of the Father, present at the dawn of Creation, sitting

at the Right Hand of the Father judging the living and the

dead.

Every action of our lives must be grounded in our union

with Jesus Christ. We do not worship to experience an

emotional release, such as we might experience on

Christmas and Easter. We do not worship to keep other

people happy. We worship because we need the Lord in

our lives and in the lives of our families. Parents worshipto ask God to help them make Him real for their

children. We all worship to experience His Presence in

others and to provide others with an experience of His

Presence. We worship to ask God to help us draw closer

to Him every day of life that we have left. We worship

because we have all absorbing desire to live for God.

After all, we are an intimate part of the Mystery of God.

We are part of the Eternal Plan of God for His Creation.

We pray today for the humility to accept His Mystery into

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our lives. We pray today for the courage to live His

Mystery. May we be in the world, intimate, yet not of the

world, transcendent. May the Lord give us the strength tolive in His Image and Likeness.

Homily from Father Phil Bloom

http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/

*available in Spanish - see Spanish homilies

Trinity

Purpose of Our Existence

(June 7, 2009)

Bottom line: Mary can help us realize the purpose of our

existence: to enter an eternal relationship with God - theFather, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Recently I had the privilege of praying for a dear friend in

the final hours of her life. Words do not come easy at that

moment. Fortunately the Church gives us wonderful

words. The traditional Prayer of Commendation for a

dying person has great beauty and power. I would like toquote it this Sunday, not only to honor my friend,

Esperanza, but for what it says about our relationship to

the Blessed Trinity - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here

are the opening lines of the Prayer of Commendation:

Go forth, Christian soul, from this world,

in the name of God, the Father Almighty,

who created you;

in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,

who suffered for you;

in the name of the Holy Spirit,

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who was poured out upon you,

go forth, faithful Christian.

When you and I go forth from this world, how beautiful to

do so in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

Holy Spirit! The goal, the purpose of our lives is to have

an eternal relationship with Blessed Trinity - the

beginning and end of our existence. We see it in today's

Gospel. Before ascending into heaven, Jesus instructed us

to make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in thename of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy

Spirit."

To help understand our relationship to the Trinity, I would

like to recommend a new book. Written by Catholic lay

evangelist, Mark Shea, it is titled "Mary, Mother of the

Son." Don't let the title mislead you. It is much more than

a devotional book on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mark has

a unique ability to situate devotion to Mary in the context

of the entire Christian life. His book is like opening a side

door called "Mary" and finding oneself in an enormous

banquet hall. The tables are set with an astonishing

variety of food. As you look around you see familiar

faces, but also others you have heard about, but do not

know well. A gracious lady takes your hand and begins toshow you around. Above all she wants you to know her

Son, his Father and the One who overshadowed her.

In Mary Mother of the Son, Mark Shea introduces (or re-

introduces) us to Mary. And through her we understand

the reason for the Bible and the Church: to guide us to a

relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - theOne God who is all in all. The book comes as a trilogy:

three volumes. Each volume is a manageable length (from

150 to 195 pages). Once you start reading, Mark's logic

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and apt comparisons will carry you forward. These books

are not inexpensive, but they are worth the investment. If

you have any hesitation, just purchase volume one. Youwill agree, I know, that Mark's explanation of the Trinity

is worth the entire price.

Mark Shea is with us this Sunday. At the end of the Mass,

he will say a few words about Mary Mother of the Son.

He will be available after Mass to sign your copy.

Jesus has given us Mary, his mother as our mother. In

baptism we not only become children of God, but children

of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She can help us realize the

purpose of our existence: to enter an eternal relationship

with God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

************

Intercessions for Trinity Sunday (from Priests for Life)

Spanish Version

Homily from Father Andrew M. Greeley

http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html

Trinity

June 7th 2009 A.D

Trinity Sunday Mt 25/16-20

Background:

Unquestionably this a mission Sunday. The followers of

Jesus are deputed to go forth to pass on the good news

that Jesus had shown them of Gods overwhelming and

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forgiving love. A lot of time and energy has been poured

into that challenge through the ensuing centuries. Often

we made a terrible mess of it. We have forced people tobe baptized whether they wanted to be or not. Once in

Seville Spain, forty thousand Jews were baptized (under

pain of leaving the country by priests who strode through

cathedral plaza sprinkling water on them. Other times we

have forced them to abandon their native cultures and

become Europeans like us. Still other times we bribed

them (with rice when they were hungry) to join us.Sometimes we got the point, particularly in very early

days and attracted them to the church by the kinds of

people we were and by the love we had for one another

and for them.

Story:

How many of you would like to go to a baseball game

with me, the enthusiastic parish priest, said to a bunch of

teens. I have twenty tickets to a Sox game tomorrow

afternoon (Cubs fans will tell you that free tickets for Sox

games are easy to find). About twenty five kids, even

some girl kids, put up their hands. Well, said the priest,

we cant take everyone. He almost said girls cant come

because they dont understand baseball. But his guardian

angel intervened and shut his mouth. Instead he said I tellyou what, how many of you are Cubs fans? More than

half the kids put up their hands, some would say because

they had excellent taste, others would say because of

genetic programming. Cubs fans, the priest said (thinking

he had a way out) cant go. Sorry. Nine hard core Sox

fans approached him with their hands out. He still had

eleven tickets. I tell you what, he said, how many of youCub fans want to convert and be Sox fans for this

afternoon only. Well, you know what Cub fans are like?

So the priest when to the game with the nine hardcore Sox

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fans. That night when he explained what happened, the

wise old monsignor said, you might have flipped a coin. I

never thought of that said the young priest. Its not evil toask people to convert to the other team for an afternoon.

Alas, how often we have used methods like that against

those who are not Catholic, even against those who marry

into our families.

Homily from Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe,Pa

http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lass

o

Trinity

Jun, 07, 2009

Matthew 28:16-20Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.

Trinity Sunday

Gospel Summary

This carefully crafted passage is the climactic summary of

the essential themes of Matthew's gospel. Jesus, nowRisen Lord, reveals that all power in heaven and on earth

has been given to him, and thus he has authority to

commission his disciples to continue and to extend his

mission to all the nations of the earth.

Jesus' epiphany and commission to the eleven take place

on a mountain, the symbolic place where humans

encounter the divine presence. The mountains of

encounter unite in a single narrative the biblical

covenants, and make all history a sacred history. These

awesome places of the divine presence evoke the memory

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of crucial turning points of human history: Ararat,

Moriah, Sinai, Zion, Carmel. Matthew, fully in harmony

with this tradition, brings the narrative of the divine planto its climax. He tells of Jesus' trial of temptations, his

sermon, and his transfiguration on a mountain. From the

severe testing of faith on the Mount of Olives, Jesus

descends to suffer and die in obedience to his Father's

will.

Now on a mountain, Jesus with divine authoritycommissions the eleven to make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit. God's promise to Abraham after

the testing of faith on Mount Moriah will at last be

fulfilled. Through Jesus, son of Abraham, "all the nations

of the earth shall find blessing" (Gn 22:1-18). All nations

will hear the good news, and be taught to observe what

the Lord has commanded. Matthew concludes his gospel

and begins the era of the church with the promise of

Jesus: "And behold, I am with you always, until the end

of the age."

Life Implications

The good news we hear proclaimed on Trinity Sunday is

that Jesus the Risen Lord wants us to share divine lifewith him in the oneness of intimate, familial love with his

Father and Holy Spirit. Through the gift of baptism we

belong to God, and God belongs to us. With Jesus we can

say Our Father. We are at home in God.

To be certain that we do not imagine the era of the church

to be an illusory Utopia above the ambiguities of thehuman condition, Matthew interjects a surprising note of

realism. He tells us that though the eleven disciples

recognize Jesus as Risen Lord and worship him, at the

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same time they doubt. He uses the same Greek verb for

"doubt" as he did when Jesus stretched out his hand to

Peter, frightened and sinking in the stormy water: "O youof little faith, why did you doubt" (Mt 14:22-33)?

A theme of Matthew's gospel is the contrast between the

total, single-minded faith of Jesus and the double-minded,

little faith of his disciples. Jesus tells the disciples that

because of their little faith they do not understand him,

and for the same reason they are unable to cast out ademon (Mt 16:8 and 17:20).

The disciples, except for one of the original twelve, are

willing to follow Jesus and listen to his commands; but at

the same time their "common sense" tells them that what

Jesus expects is way beyond their capacity to accomplish.

It is not difficult for us present-day disciples to identify

with the feeling of inadequacy and doubt in the face of the

powerful forces that oppose the fulfillment of the divine

promise of blessedness in our own circumstances. Like

the first disciples, we worship the Risen Lord; and we

doubt. Yet we go on because we trust with our little faith

that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to

Jesus.

The Risen Lord, who conquered even death, is with us as

he promised. When we do not understand what is going

on, when the demons in us and around us seem invincible,

when we begin to sink in the stormy water, when the task

at hand seems too much for us, Jesus stretches out his

hand and says: "O you of little faith, why do you doubt?"

With our little faith, we can only respond: "Lord, Ibelieve; help my unbelief."

Campion P. Gavaler, OSB

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Homily from Father Cusick

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html

Meeting Christ in the Liturgy

Trinity

YEAR B

Deuteronomy 4, 32-34, 39-40; Psalm 33; Romans 8, 14-17; Matthew 28, 16-20

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Resurrection. Fact or fiction?

The Resurrection of the Lord, the only Son of God the

Father, and the coming of the Holy Spirit reveal the

Trinity we celebrate today: three persons in one God.Christ taught the Apostles that the Spirit "proceeds from

the Father and the Son" and so we profess this in the

Creed. The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus remains the

cornerstone of Christian faith and life for by his

Resurrection Christ's divinity is revealed and all his words

and teachings are thereby guaranteed as true. The whole

edifice of Christian faith, all that we believe about Godfully revealed in Jesus Christ, stands or falls on the

cornerstone of Christ's Resurrection.

It is fashionable in the literary and academic world today

to "doubt" the Resurrection of the Lord, to revise and

rephrase tradition, to reinterpet scripture in order to call

the real bodily Resurrection into question. Knowing that

men would call the truth into doubt, St. Paul wrote: "If

Christ has not risen, your faith is in vain."

Some Christians propose the Resurrection was

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experienced only in the faith or credulity of the Apostles

or first Christians, something they simply made up out of

thin air. It is possible today to hear even Christian leaderssay; "If they found the bones of Jesus, it would not shake

my faith." It is the lesson of the Ascension of the Lord in

scripture and the celebration of the liturgy of the Church

that this is completely out of the question! We are left

with the testimony of Scripture, and there we find record

in several places that the Apostles doubted Christ's

Resurrection. "Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee,to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And

when they saw him they worshipped him; but some

doubted." (Mt 28; 16-17) Are we to believe that the

Evangelists recorded the doubt of some of their number

even while creating a fiction of their own imagination?

The liar is the first to recognize the stupidity of giving

evidence contradicitng his own falsehood!

"Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the

disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing

seem: they thought they were seeing a ghost. 'In their joy

they were still disbelieving and still wondering.' (Lk

24:38-41) Thomas will also experience the test of doubt

and St. Matthew relates that during the risen Lord's last

appearance in Galilee 'some doubted.' (Cf. Jn 20:24-27;Mt 28:17) Therefore the hypothesis that the Resurrection

was produced by the apostles' faith (or credulity) will not

hold up. On the contrary their faith in the Resurrection

was born, under the action of divine grace, from their

direct experience of the risen Jesus." (CCC 644)

We too experience doubts as part of our weak humancondition. But we also directly experience the Lord Jesus

in the proclamation of the Word and in his Body and

Blood in the Eucharist. Christ Himself, then, by these his

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And in the New Testament there are other mountains and

hills: Jesus is Transfigured on Mount Tabor, he gives hismost important teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and

gives his life for us on the Hill of Calvary.

So what we are dealing with here is a moment of great

significance, an occasion of special revelation. And it is

no mistake that it takes place in Galilee as if to remind the

Apostles that, while many important events took place inJerusalem, Jesus conducted most of his public ministry in

Galilee. Indeed that was where it was inaugurated and

now in this great event where it comes to its final

conclusion.

The Apostles are given three tasks: 1) to make disciples of

all the nations 2) to Baptise them in the name of the Holy

Trinity and 3) to teach these new disciples to observe the

commands of Jesus.

To become a disciple is the natural response to any

extended encounter with Jesus. It is the task of the

Apostles to bring people into contact with him, to enable

those they meet to get to know the Lord.

This is our task too. When we meet others it should be as

if they are meeting Jesus. Now I know quite well that we

are none of us up to Jesus standards. We are much more

tetchy, much more irritable and not really as kind as we

ought to be.

If you were to meet me on a Monday morning then itwould be as far from an encounter with Jesus as you

could possibly get! But, whether we are any good at it or

not, that ought to be our aim.

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We dont need to go into long complicated explanations

as to who Jesus is; just as long as the people we meetknow that we are one of his disciples then that should be

enough. From our behaviour they will be easily able to

deduce quite a lot about Jesus.

We might feel rather inadequate and be afraid to give the

wrong impression and think that what we say and do isnt

in line with what Jesus would want. But this is tounderestimate the sophistication of other people; they are

quite easily able to assess whether a person is sincere or

not and they know immediately what your true intentions

are.

Thats the task of making disciples; its a big undertaking

but get used to it because it is our primary role as

Christians. The other two objects of the mission given by

Jesus were to Baptise and to teach. Baptism is the key to

membership in the Church and teaching is one of the most

important activities in the Church. Its what we are doing

now.

These both follow on from making disciples, from

introducing people to Jesus. And in a sense they are mucheasier because, as I said, once people get to know Jesus

the natural response is to follow him, seek Baptism and

wish to know more about him.

You might be wondering if Im preaching the right sort of

sermon for this Sunday dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

Well I think I am! We noted that this text given for todaywas the clearest reference to the Trinity in the scriptures

and if you look it up you will find that the scholars mostly

say that this phrase must have been a Baptismal formula

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that Matthew has inserted into the text.

Jesus didnt explicitly teach us about the Trinity. Thetheology of the Trinity comes out of the reflection of the

early Church on the teaching of Jesus. They thought over

what he said and under the influence of the Holy Spirit

they began to understand the dynamics of the Trinity.

Jesus referred on many occasions to his Father and the

closeness of his relationship with him. Moreover hetaught us to speak to the Father in a very familiar and

direct way.

Jesus also promises to send us his Spirit and refers even in

this particular passage that he will be with us always, until

the end of time. We understand that it is precisely through

the Holy Spirit that Jesus is present to us.

What we have here are examples of the other two tasks

given to the Apostles namely Baptising and teaching. By

weaving into his text a Baptismal formula we realise that

Baptism was one of the most important activities of the

early Church.

And the very succinct formula that they used is a directresult of their refection on the things that Jesus had told

them during his public ministry. This is the teaching role

of the Apostles; like any good teacher they had first to

reflect on what it actually is that they are to communicate

and explain to others.

This final passage of Matthews Gospel is sometimesregarded as a brief summary of the whole Gospel. It

certainly is a very succinct summary of the role of a true

disciple of Christ and gives us a plan for the rest of our

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lives.

But it also contains a promise; a promise that Christ willbe with us till the end of time. This is one of the great

promises of God recorded in the Bible. He will not

abandon us, he will always be with us guiding us and

guarding us from the evil one through the power of his

Holy Spirit. And in time we will be taken up into him to

share the life of love that is the Trinity.

We might find the task of discipleship daunting but with

this promise, with this greatest of all guarantees, we know

that we will be able to fulfil the mandate of Christ and so

give expression to our deepest desire to be faithful

followers of the Lord Jesus in the world of today.