Trinity Sunday 15 June 2025 Sermon

Trinity Sunday 15 June 2025 Divine Love

It is difficult for a lesser being to explain the greater one,  and that is where we are with reference to Almighty God.

We can at least, however, talk to each other and pool our knowledge, seeking some clarity.

God is eternal, very hard to conceptualise, without beginning or end.

He is outside of time, and that is also hard to grasp, but it makes sense. The Creator has authority over all aspects of His creation, including time.

God had no need of us but chose to make us so that we could share in His glory.

We are invited to choose. Are we with God or against Him? Do we love Him or not?

Many see God as too far away to matter, but it is He alone who keeps us in being.

A life of sin will lead to false perceptions. Our present culture carries on as though there were no God. We cannot unmake Him by anything we may do. Nor can we make Him irrelevant. He is not easy to remove!

We who believe in Him have a duty to atone for the blasphemies and sacrileges committed against Him. As far as we can.

And we give Him the glory that He deserves from us, again the best we can do. This is a relatively straightforward obligation, but how many do not do it! Nor have they done it through all the centuries of time.

On this feast day we make God Himself our main focus. We could call this God's feast day, as we have days for the saints - this one is for God.

We atone for insults to Him; we offer Him praise and thanksgiving; we seek to live in union with His holy will.

And we share our knowledge of Him.

God is mysterious but He has told us certain things about Himself. Such as that He loves us, and desires to save us; that He can forgive our sins, that He will reward the good we do in His name.

He has told us something about His inner life, the interactions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Church has studied the nature of the Trinity and comes up with this summary: The Father gives of Himself; the Son receives the Father’s giving, and returns it. The love between the Father and the Son is itself a divine Person, the Holy Spirit.

The love between the divine Persons is much stronger than merely human love.

We are beginners at love, compared with God. Still, our capacity to love can increase as we contemplate divine love.

Many would settle with human love thinking that is all they need.

Human love is an important part of proceedings but is not the end of the journey. God wants us to search for Him, like a deer for running streams (Ps 42,1), like the watchman who longs for the dawn (Ps 130,6). The more we look for Him the more apparent His blessings become.

It does us good to praise God. We are caught up in the divine fire of giving and receiving. When born we received love from those around us. As we grew older we learned to return love. And we might even be capable of giving more love than we receive. If so, this is progress in sharing the life of the Blessed Trinity.

As we grow in love for God we desire to be part of His saving plan for the world. We want what He wants, as we lock into union with His will. Once we do that we have achieved the main purpose of our lives – to know, love and serve God. All praise to the Blessed Trinity!

Pentecost Sunday 8 June 2025 Sermon

Pentecost Sunday 8 June 2025 Forever young

We can think of Pentecost as like a nuclear explosion but with good effects instead of destruction.

All that energy flowing out from one room, a new beginning for the human race.

And in this case the explosion is still happening, as waves of love and peace, and all good qualities go out over the world. For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. (Hab 2,14)

When this force meets its target something dramatic happens. Instead of death there is life. All the negative elements are turned into the corresponding good. So despair becomes hope, fear becomes courage, hate becomes love etc.

Unlike a bomb which destroys all in its path the Spirit will go usually where He is welcomed. People can resist but He remains available to be called upon.

Today we express our desire to grow in personal renewal, on one hand, and to facilitate the spread of such a good influence on others, as many as we can reach.

It has never been as straightforward as we would have wished, but still it has been impressive.

Millions have been reached and still at least one billion people claim a link with the Church.

Pentecost has changed history and will greatly influence the future as well.

It will happen a lot more strongly the more people line up on the right side. Good v Evil, we need to know which side we are on.

We cannot have all the enthusiasm we need for the rest of our lives all at once.

We can guarantee, however, that we can always replenish the necessary strength.

 [T]there came in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it. Jer 20,9)  We need that fire always.

We could liken each church to an ‘upper room’; we continue what began back there.

Here, once again, we can make contact with the powerful goodness of God.

God never depreciates or grows old. We could say we grow younger when we interact with God, because we are being reborn all the time.

It is not so easy even to organize ourselves, but we have to conquer or re-conquer the whole world.

The explosion can be resisted in this case. Love invites but does not force.

The new order will remain in place, however, as God seeks to claim the lost sheep.

It is a struggle to regain the lost and claim those never reached, while holding those we have.

God has no borders. He regards the whole world as His – a reasonable position insofar as He created it all! Every nation, every person is His.

The world sees so much suffering; now we see that there is a ray of hope. Pentecost reminds us of all the reasons we are still hoping.

The more we hope, the more we leave room to the Holy Spirit to work His wonders. The greatest wonder is when a person takes God at His word and comes to life.

Every year, every day we pray, at least by implication: Come, Holy Ghost. On each and all of us, and all others besides.

Ascension of the Lord 1 June 2025 Sermon

Ascension of the Lord 1 June 2025 Our true home

In a little while you shall not see Me, and again a little while and you shall see Me  (Jn 16,16-22).

Our Lord was referring to His crucifixion as the first separation, and then His Ascension as the second time, anticipating a glorious reunion in each case.

For us it is still a time of separation, to be resolved individually at death, and overall at His second coming.

One good thing about separations is they can increase our desire to see one whom we love. Our Lord wants us to use this present time of our lives, increasing our desire for Him, longing for reunion with Him, and then eternal union.

He leads us on as He offers us something better, our true home.

In the meantime, our waiting is not just idle; we should do good in every way possible (For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people 1 P 2,15).

We might think God is being cruel keeping us at such distance from Him and not ending our exile quickly.

He is never cruel, just firm. Whatever He does is aimed at giving us the best possible outcome. If we learn to wait for our fulfilment in Him, we will be a lot happier overall than if we expect instant delights at every turn.

He will give us all the qualities we need to serve out our time of separation. All our prayer has a certain longing quality about it. The Advent prayer, Come, Lord Jesus says it all.

He offers Himself in sacramental form to keep us on track. There is great power in the sacraments if we let them take full effect.

We are generally too much absorbed in this life and not really trusting God to provide.

We cannot guarantee that we will always be comfortable physically, but we can ensure that we always have spiritual aid, helping us to keep everything in balance.

We learn to keep always one eye on eternity, the long view.

We learn to live each moment for God, without useless worry or futile distractions.

We worry about many things; we have many deadlines to meet, recurring tasks to fulfil. Always there is something to claim our attention.

We can take all that in our stride if we are sufficiently grounded in Christ.

We will find the wisdom and the energy to deal with each problem as it arises.

We have the benefit of God's power and love at every moment. We cannot lose on that basis.

The future is very strange to us;  even as to this life the future is a complete blur. We have no idea what will happen even tomorrow, let alone the rest of our time on earth.

What happens after death is more mysterious still.

Not fully knowing something does not make it untrue.

The atheists and the agnostics ridicule Heaven and the whole spiritual world because they do not see with the physical eyes.

We trust that whatever God tells us is true, whether we understand it or not, whether we have experienced it or not. It is a joy for us waiting to find out what Heaven is like.

The future and the past are all one to God, and so it should be to us as far as faith is concerned. We should be able to believe in future events as surely as those in the past.

And this earth, weighed down by so much suffering as it is, can be enjoyed on the same principle, that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rm 8,39).

He is testing us to see if we are capable of trusting Him to such an extent, at the same time enabling us to do so.

So, the daily grind goes on – for now - but not forever.

In a little while….