Month: May 2026

The Trinitarian Life

(Ex.34:4-6, 8-9; 2Cor.13:11-13; Jn.3:16-18)

We often bless ourselves with the Sign of the Cross, saying, ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

This small Trinitarian ritual is something we learnt early in life, and hopefully it will be the last gesture made over us at the end of our days. It reaffirms our creation in God’s image and likeness (Gen.1:27), and it reminds us that God is not a distant and solitary figure, but a communion of love that touches every human life (1Jn.4:16).

The Holy Trinity is quite a mystery. Sr Lucia, who met Our Lady at Fatima, said that we will only really understand it when we get to heaven. However, there are some things we can learn from the Trinity if we want to live better lives today.

Firstly, have you noticed how the Trinity is a model for family life? Just as the Holy Spirit is the fruit of the mutual love between Father and Son, so children are the fruit of the mutual love between husband and wife. And just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are constantly united in love, so we are all meant to come together in love, in our families and communities.

We see this in the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Jesus spent 90% of his life living quietly with his family. Similarly, when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, they stayed together for months, talking, laughing and supporting each other. And when the disciples started following Jesus, they sacrificed everything else to live in close communion.

We, too, have been created for relationship, not isolation, and we need to build good, healthy connections with others, and most especially with our families.

Secondly, the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct persons with different roles, and yet they are perfectly united. In the same way, each member of our families and communities has a role to play and unique talents to share as we all come together in holy relationship.

St Vincent de Paul understood this. He gathered an eclectic mix of volunteers, wealthy patrons, priests, and religious women with a wide range of skills in fundraising, administration, nursing and pastoral care, and got them working together to serve the poor rather than competing against each other.

So, our next challenge is to value and harness our diverse gifts for the benefit of everyone.

Thirdly, notice that in the Holy Trinity, all three persons are equal. Their love is built on mutual respect, with no-one being junior to another. 

Just before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays ‘that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, so they may also be one in us…’ (Jn.17.21–23). He’s praying not only for shared purpose among his followers, but also for a unity that mirrors the close bond between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Again, we see this reflected in St Vincent de Paul. In 1633, with St Louise de Marillac, he founded the Daughters of Charity to serve the poor and the sick in Paris. They shared the leadership, with no-one dominating the other. It was a partnership of equals.

We, too, must strive for such equal partnership in our families and communities.

And finally, notice how the members of the Trinity speak of each other. At his baptism, Jesus hears, ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased’ (Mt.3:17). On Mount Tabor, the disciples hear, ‘This is my beloved son. Listen to him.’ In his Farewell Discourse, Jesus praises the Holy Spirit, calling him ‘The Spirit of Truth’ (John 17), and he’s always respectful to his Father.

This is how the Holy Trinity works: each person speaks lovingly of the other. Their unity is complete.

And so it must be with us. When you always praise the good you see in others, just watch how your relationships grow.

In today’s Gospel, John says that God loved the world so much that he gave us his only Son. What he’s saying is that the love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is so complete that it’s constantly overflowing into us.

Our first task is to humbly accept this love.

And then, every time we make the Sign of the Cross, to remember that we’ve all been made in the shape of the Cross.

This tells us that we’re all called to live the same Trinitarian life.

How? By building healthy relationships with others, by valuing their individual gifts and talents, by always treating them as equals, and by always speaking well of them.

There’s a word for all this. It’s ‘love’.

Divine love.

The Magnificent Seven

(Acts 2:1-11; 1Cor.12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn.20:19-23)

I’ve long loved stories of unlikely people who get together for a purpose, and end up discovering something larger than themselves.

One example is John Sturges’ film The Magnificent Seven (1960). It’s the story of seven different men who are hired to protect a Mexican village from bandits. [i]

They begin as mutual strangers, bound only by a common task. But they find that combining their talents is much more effective than working alone. Through shared risk and sacrifice they become a team and their courage uplifts and protects a vulnerable community. 

We see this, too, in Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, where nine assorted characters share the burden of destroying the insidious Ring. Their diversity, mutual dependence and sacrificial mission model how a community can be forged under pressure and for the salvation of others.

Such stories offer us insights into today’s feast of Pentecost. In our first reading, Jesus’ disciples gather in fear and confusion in the Upper Room, when a great noise like a mighty wind suddenly arrives. And as tongues of fire appear above them, they find themselves speaking new languages.

This is when the Church is born. The Holy Spirit gathers these unlikely souls together, equips them with his divine graces and then sends them with the Gospel to the far reaches of the earth.

Something like this happened to St Paul Miki and his 25 companions in Japan in 1597. As these humble priests, laymen and children – the Martyrs of Nagasaki – were led to their deaths, they prayed, proclaimed Jesus Christ, and forgave their executioners.

Their shared witness formed a testimony that has sustained Christian identity in Japan for generations. And it reveals how the Holy Spirit forms communities not only in comfort and safety, but also in suffering and cost.

All these examples show how a new community is born whenever people gather for a purpose greater than themselves, pooling their gifts for the common good, and being prepared to risk, and even to suffer, for others.

From this, we can draw three lessons for any parish community:

Firstly, no-one has to be perfect. The Magnificent Seven aren’t perfect – their courage coexists with fear and moral complexity. The first Christians and the Nagasaki martyrs weren’t perfect either. The Holy Spirit does not demand perfection; he simply requires an open and willing heart.

If you hesitate because you feel weak or unskilled, know that God does not call the qualified. Rather, God qualifies the called. So, come as you are; the Spirit will make of us a people.

Secondly, the Spirit doesn’t turn disciples into solitary heroes. He forms them into a body willing to bear one another’s burdens. The Magnificent Seven only become a force when they agree to stand together, sharing danger and dividing responsibility.

If we want the Spirit to form us as a living community, we must be willing to risk our comfort – to show up, to serve, and to be vulnerable with one another. Community is not built by passive attendance but by shared effort and sacrifice.

Thirdly, a healthy community is built not on sameness but on gifted difference. Each character in The Magnificent Seven brings something different – some fight, some plan, while others encourage. Their diversity is their strength.

The same is true at Pentecost. People from many nations hear the Good News in their own tongues, and the Spirit gives varied gifts so that the whole body can flourish (1Cor.12).

The Martyrs of Nagasaki, too, were all different – some were priests, others lay catechists or children, and yet their diversity deepened the Church’s witness rather than diminished it.

A healthy parish community grows not when we recruit clones of ourselves but when we welcome varied gifts, ages, backgrounds, and temperaments into a common mission.

So, whose gifts is God inviting us to recognise today? Who might we have been excluding by our unhelpful habits or assumptions?

A true community is born for mission, and sometimes for costly witness. The Magnificent Seven come together to help a village. Jesus’ disciples, filled with the Spirit, are sent out to proclaim, to heal, and to baptise. And the Martyrs of Nagasaki embody the ultimate cost of that mission: witnessing unto death.

Pentecost’s gift is not private consolation; rather, it’s public power for witness, even in hostile places. And our unity is not an end in itself but a means by which God’s merciful love reaches the hungry, the lonely, and the marginalized.

What, then, is God asking of you – and us – today?

If our gatherings do not lead us outward, we have missed the point of coming together for Jesus.

---

[i] The Magnificent Seven – film clip

Jesus’ Ascension to Heaven

(Acts 1:1-11; Eph.1:17-23; Mt.28:16-20)

Most of us are aware of helicopter parents – those who like to micromanage their children’s lives by controlling their actions and solving all their problems for them.

Their children might be kept safe, but they gradually lose their confidence and initiative, and they never quite learn to trust themselves.

At some point, every child must be allowed to take responsibility and grow up.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sees his disciples for the last time before ascending to heaven. He’s been something of a father to them and knows their flaws only too well. But he doesn’t stay on to keep them out of trouble.

Instead, Jesus blesses and commissions them, and then he leaves.

Matthew is honest about this moment: ‘They worshipped him; but some doubted,’ he says. These disciples aren’t confident leaders. They are fragile, uncertain and have much to learn, but Jesus still entrusts his mission to them.

This tells us a lot about how Jesus views leadership – and discipleship.

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day, James Stevens is the butler at Darlington Hall. He is an ideal butler because he’s so obedient, but as a man he is a tragic figure because he is never trusted to be more than a servant. He never learns to act freely or take moral responsibility for himself, and in the end, he realises that he has wasted his life.

Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to be like that. If God insisted on controlling everything in our lives, it would make us safe, but small. We’d never really grow up or take responsibility, and we’d never reach our potential.

God loves us too much to let that happen. He knows we need freedom to truly love, and that’s why Jesus ascends to heaven.

In Tom Hooper’s film The King’s Speech (2010), the future King George VI has a terrible stammer and a speech therapist, Lionel Logue, is brought in to help. When he ascends the throne, George relies on this therapist to help him make his first radio broadcast.

Lionel can’t speak for the king, and he can’t rescue him at the microphone. But he does train him, encourage him and challenge him, and then he withdraws. The king must find his own voice.

This is what Jesus does at his Ascension. He has given the disciples his words, his way of life and his Spirit. Now he entrusts them with his voice in the world.

Jesus steps back so that others may step forward.

This is also what Florence Nightingale did during the Crimean War (1854-6). As a nurse, she faced chaos: terrible disease, overcrowded hospitals and untrained staff.

She could easily have tried to control every decision herself. Instead, she focused on sound formation rather than interference. She trained her nurses rigorously, insisting on discipline and careful observation, and then she deliberately stepped back.

In her writings, she warned against what she called ‘petty management,’ believing that it produced fear and dependence rather than competence.

If care was to be truly humane, she said, nurses had to learn to judge situations for themselves. And by taking responsibility, they could quickly attend to emergencies and correct mistakes.

Florence Nightingale transformed nursing from mere obedience into a profession grounded in judgment and compassion.

This is basically what Jesus is doing at his Ascension. He knows that authority that clings to control and refuses to trust will ultimately weaken those it leads.

But he’s not abandoning his disciples, for he promises to be with them always (Jn.14:18). How? By sending his Holy Spirit to be with them, empowering them to fulfill their mission, which is to love.

Today, many people expect God to step in and manage the world for us, to prevent every disaster and solve every problem, and they wonder why he doesn’t. But the Ascension reminds us that God has not withdrawn from the world. His Spirit is always with us. What has changed is not God’s care, but his way of acting.

Through the Ascension, responsibility is now shared. God works in the world through human hearts and human hands, and we are entrusted with the work of loving our neighbour. And if things get challenging, God’s Spirit is always there to help us with his graces.

In all this, Jesus trusts us to play our part. He has to, because where there’s no trust there’s no real love.

And God is love itself.

I’ll Not Leave You Orphans

(Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1Pet.3:15-18; Jn.14:15-21)

One of the deepest human fears isn’t pain, or even death. It’s the fear of being left alone. Of being forgotten. Of having no one to lean on when things get difficult.

That’s why so many people take great interest when Jesus says ‘I’ll not leave you orphans’ in today’s Gospel. It strikes a deep chord.

But note when Jesus says it: just before leaving his disciples. He knows they are worried. And he knows what it’s like when someone you love goes away, leaving you wondering how to live without them.

Jesus doesn’t promise that they’ll never feel alone. He promises something much deeper: that they’ll never be alone.

In Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, Jane knows what it’s like to feel alone. She is an orphan, a poor and hungry one, living with her heartless aunt.

One day, Jane is falsely accused and publicly humiliated. And she finds herself standing alone before her entire school, with no-one to defend her.

But she’s resilient. She refuses to believe that she’s worthless, and she holds tightly onto the truth, even though no-one else understands it. Then later she discovers that she wasn’t as alone as she thought. The headmistress listens to her, believes her and restores her dignity.

This is what Jesus means in today’s Gospel. He’s not saying, ‘I’ll stay exactly as you want me to,’ or ‘you’ll always feel close to me.’ Rather, he’s saying ‘I’ll not leave you orphans,’ which means that you’ll never be alone, even when you think you are.

St John of the Cross understood this well. He knew what it’s like to feel abandoned, not just by friends or institutions, but by God.

In 1577, when he was 35, he was abducted by his fellow Carmelites who strongly resisted his attempts to reform their order. They cruelly locked him up in a tiny stone cell in Toledo, Spain, a putrid former toilet, where he was forced to live for nine months in darkness, heat, and hunger. He was also beaten and mocked and had no idea how long it would last.

He called this misery his ‘dark night.’ But what tormented him most was not the physical suffering but the silence. He had no sense of God, he got no comfort from prayer, and he couldn’t see how his pain served any purpose at all.

St John of the Cross felt utterly abandoned, as though God himself had left him. And yet, in the darkness of his cell he came to write some of the world’s most beautiful Christian poetry – about trust, love, and union with God. His wisdom has since guided the Church for centuries.

John came to believe the simple truth that ‘Where there is no love, put love – and you will find love.’ And he realised that God had not left him at all. Rather, God had been teaching him to trust without needing to feel held.

He wrote that God’s love is sometimes so deep that it strips away any emotional consolation, not to punish us, but to free us from needing constant reassurance. So that God becomes present in a quieter and purer way, no longer felt, but trusted, knowing that he is never absent.

In today’s Gospel, this is exactly what Jesus is preparing his disciples for.

He knows that if his disciples keep clinging to the comfort of his physical presence, their faith will forever be fragile. So, he promises them something more enduring: the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who will always stand with them.

Jane Eyre survives not because her life becomes easy, but because she refuses to believe that abandonment has the final word.

St John of the Cross endures not because God feels close, but because he trusts that God is always there and is always faithful.

And Jesus stands between them both and says: ‘I will not leave you orphans.’

Today, these words are meant for us.

If you’re feeling spiritually dry, if you’ve lost someone you depended on, or if God seems far away, then this message is for you:

Jesus is not denying your loneliness. Rather, he’s asking you to trust in his presence, without expecting constant proof.

The Spirit that Jesus promises us doesn’t always make his presence known, for he works silently. But you can be sure that he’s always with you.

So, let’s no longer wonder why God feels so far away. Instead, let’s remind ourselves that, wherever we are and whatever our circumstances, ‘I am not an orphan.’

We cannot see him, but Jesus is always with us. Always. That is his promise.

The love that raised Jesus from the dead is always quietly holding us, even when the night seems very dark.

Anchored Beyond Fear

(Acts 6:1-7; 1Pet.2:4-9; Jn.14:1-12)

On the night before he’s crucified, Jesus says something that seems almost impossible: ‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled.’

Notice when he says it: not after his Resurrection, and not when everything is fine. He says it, knowing that he’s going to die the next day.

The disciples are worried; they sense that something terrible is coming, but Jesus doesn’t give them any explanations or solutions. He simply offers them himself: ‘Trust in God, and trust in me.’

He’s not telling them to stop feeling anxious. He’s inviting them to choose where to rest their hearts when anxiety arrives.

We live in anxious times, too. Many people today worry about their health, their family, the world, and their future. Most of us manage to hide our feelings, but deep down our hearts are often troubled.

Jesus knows this, and he’s trying to help. But what is he really saying?

Someone who understood this well was Julian of Norwich (1343-1417). She was an English mystic who lived in tough times: during the black plague and terrible social upheaval, and through great personal illness. And yet she said: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’

She wasn’t naïve, for she knew all about suffering. But she did discover that beneath life’s turmoil there’s a deeper steadiness that only comes from God.

Julian realised that ‘All shall be well’ after having one of her remarkable visions. In it, she saw the whole world as something small and fragile, like a hazelnut, resting in the palm of God’s hand. And she understood that the only reason it exists at all is because God loves it.

This is what Jesus is saying to us. Yes, our world is fragile, and the future may seem frightening, but you are safe in the hands of God because he truly loves you.

Whatever happens, you won’t be alone, for there’s a place for you, a future held by God. This means that fear is no longer at the centre of things. God is.

C.S. Lewis learned this the hard way. After his wife Joy died, he wrote a very honest book called A Grief Observed. In it he admits that his prayer felt empty, his faith felt fragile, and God seemed quite distant.

Lewis doesn’t offer neat answers, but he does explain that faith is not a feeling of security. Rather, it’s a choice of who to trust when your security is gone.

He discovered that belief is not the absence of doubt or fear. Rather, it’s the decision to keep placing your life in God’s hands even when your heart feels shaken. This is what Jesus is asking of his disciples – and that includes us today.

‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled’ doesn’t mean that you won’t be troubled. It means ‘don’t let trouble rule your heart.’

We can see this in the life of St John XXIII. He became pope in 1958, at a time of enormous anxiety: the Cold War, the threat of nuclear destruction, and deep tensions within the Church itself. Yet those who met him were struck by his calm, his warmth, and his humour.

There’s a story told of him going to bed at night, burdened by the problems of the Church. Before sleeping, he prayed: ‘Lord, it’s your Church. I’m going to bed.’

He wasn’t being irresponsible. He was simply placing his trust in God. John XXIII understood that peace does not come from being in control, but from knowing who truly is.

That’s the peace Jesus offers us today: a heart anchored beyond fear.

And then Jesus adds something really important: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life,’ he says.

Jesus doesn’t give his disciples a formula or a map; instead, he gives them himself.

The Christian life is not about having everything worked out; it’s about staying close to the Good Shepherd who leads us through to the green pastures.

At every Eucharist, we come with our troubled hearts. But we don’t leave them at the door; we place them on the altar. For that’s where Jesus meets us and gives us himself.

When we reverently take Jesus into our hands at communion, remember that we are already safely in his hands.

So perhaps the most honest prayer we can make this Easter season is not ‘Lord, take away my fear,’ but: ‘Lord, please help me to trust you more than my fear.’

Because our Christian faith is not the promise of a trouble-free life. It’s the promise of a trustworthy companion.

And that, Jesus tells us, is enough.