Weekly Bulletin

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

May the Peace of the Risen Christ be with you!

Today, in the Church’s liturgical calendar, we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. This feast gives us reason to concentrate on the unity that exists between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I think that as we look at the Holy Trinity, we need to do everything in our power to unite ourselves one to another. Our baptism truly makes us a part of the Body of Christ and unites us together as His family, His Church. Each one of us is an individual yet we also make up the One Body. In the Trinity, there are three distinct persons who are equal in majesty, and yet they make up the One God.

The unity of the Trinity certainly becomes for us an example of the unity that should exist in our families. The love that exists between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is a love that you and I need to emulate in our families as well as in our parish community. I would venture to say that one of the strongest sign of this unity is the Eucharist.

It is impossible for us to wrap our mind around the truth that God is one while at the same time there are three persons in that one God who are equal to each other in majesty and glory. How can there be three persons yet only one God? This is a mystery that we will never understand. Yet, there are things about the Holy Trinity that we can put our absolute faith in and work to make them part of our everyday lives.

The love that exists between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is a love that you and I can strive to make a reality in the Church here on earth, especially in our own parish community. Just as God the Father entrusted His Son with the mission of spreading His truth and sharing the love they had for each other with all of us here on earth, and just as God the Son sent his advocate, the Holy Spirit, to live among us and guide us to live a life in the Son and in the Father, so we can reach out to each other in that same love and unite ourselves with each other in order to have that same love binds us into the Body of Christ here on earth.

Did you ever read in the Bible where the Father thought and acted as if He was more important than His Son or the Holy Spirit? Have you ever read in the Scriptures that Jesus said that He was more important than His Father? But you do read in the Gospels where Jesus says that He and the Father are One. You will also never find in the Sacred Scriptures the Holy Spirit claiming to be more important that the Son. What is true about the Holy Trinity should also be true about the Christian community. Can you really say that one member of the community is more important than another? What is true is that each member of the Christian community has been given different gifts or talents that are to be used not to build up one’s self, but rather to unify and make stronger the community. Just as selfishness had no place in the Holy Trinity, so selfishness has no part in the Body of Christ, the Christian community.

We can indeed learn about the true meaning of unity from the Holy Trinity. We can also learn how our love for each other has no limits. Without hesitation I can say that God the Holy Spirit is among us to help us love each other, to be less selfish, and to put the other first and ourselves second. I can also say that the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is the glue that holds our Church together. Never forget that when we receive the Eucharist, we become the Eucharist – Christ Himself.

Let me repeat again what I have said many times in the past. Our Catholic faith tells us that participating in Sunday Mass is the most important thing that we do each week. It is during the Eucharistic liturgy, the Mass, that the Lord God speaks to us in the Word (the scripture readings and the homily), and feeds us with the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, so that we can have the strength to live what He tells us in the Word. His Word is just as valid today as it was when Jesus walked this earth. His Word still shines in our lives. Without that light how will we be able to see the way that leads us to eternal life?

If we stay away from church on Sunday, or even if we come to church but distract ourselves and do not listen to the Word, we do not hear what the Lord wants to say to us nor know the direction that He wants us to take with our lives. When we miss Mass, we are the ones who lose. In fact, the whole Body of Christ suffers. Remember the words of St. Paul, ‘When one member suffers, we all suffer.”

In John’s Gospel, chapter six, Jesus tell us very bluntly that if we “do not eat His Body and drink His Blood, we will not have life in us.” It is during the Mass that Jesus, through the person of the ordained priest, takes bread and wine and changes its substance into His own Body and Blood. Jesus truly becomes present in the Eucharist! It is the Eucharist that gives us the energy to live our life in a way that will gain eternal life. We need the Eucharist!

We also need ordained priests, because without the ordained priest, there would be no Eucharist. This is why it is so important that those young men that God is calling to be priests, be not afraid and give their lives to the Lord and to His Church.

In receiving the Eucharist, we become one with Jesus and are given the mission to make Him present in our world. When we become one with the Son of God we also become one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We thus become the expression of the unity of the Holy Trinity. Mass is a must for us and we should help bring others home so they too can be fed by the Lord Jesus.

Today is also Father’s Day. What an opportunity we have to express our unity with the Holy Trinity than to show that unity by accompanying our fathers to Mass each Sunday. What better prayer can we offer for our fathers than the Mass. We should never forget that in God’s plan the father is the head of the family. Always pray for your father. Upon his shoulders rests the responsibility of leading his family to have a close relation with the Holy Trinity. He has to do his best to make sure that Christ is at the heart of his family.

May the unity of the Holy Trinity always be expressed in the unity that exists in our families and in our parish community. May the Lord Jesus always keep our fathers close to HIs Sacred Heart.

I love you,

Msgr. Larry