Pastor's Corner

Dear Sisters, Brothers and Friends of All Saint Catholic Church: Greetings and Praise the Lord.

“Faith Vs The Principle of Non- Contradiction.”

I never knew this a bout you.”  Or we might say, “I was surprised to see you act this way.”  Or we might even say, “I couldn’t believe what you did!”

We might say things like this in a variety of situations: a child who goes on a rant, a spouse who surprises with an extravagant display of love, or a coach who sees an amazing game played by an athlete.

The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery we cannot hope to truly penetrate with our limited human intelligence and from our limited human perspective. But this makes perfect sense. A God who can be fully explained is a God who is less than our intelligence.

The truth is that we barely know everything that is inside of ourselves, let alone what can come from another person.  And today’s feast of the Trinity, celebrates the amazing things that we have come to see in God.  Father, Son, and Spirit, we call them: but these are human words to describe the ultimate mystery out of which everything comes and toward which everything moves forward.

If we pull back for a larger view, the revelation of God to the Jewish people should shock us.  They saw a personal God to whom they could talk and pray, a personal God whom they could praise.  We could open any of the pages of the Hebrew scriptures and be astonished at the way their words attempted to grasp and relate to God.  God was not an idea nor an elusive being. God was part of their everyday experience.

These images of God, initial and powerful as they were, were the images that Jesus built upon when, as God made flesh, God enters our experience in an even more profound way.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”  In Jesus, God is being given to us.  In Jesus, God speaks our language, takes part in our history, tastes our death and reveals the Resurrection as the destiny of humankind.  Who knew that God was like that?

And the life of Jesus leads to yet a fuller experience of God, the coming of the Holy Spirit, through whom God dwells in us, empowers us, enlightens us, and leads us into the fullness of life—our life and God’s life shared in love.  Some people have trouble seeing the work of the Spirit in their lives; they expect fireworks or magical displays.  But how about the prayer we do, the love we have, the care we show, the joy we have celebrating the Eucharist?  How about the selfless love between husband and wife?  Or the desire we have for heaven?

PRAYER FOR FAMILIES
We bless your name, O Lord,
For sending your own incarnate Son,
To become part of a family,
So that, as he lived its life,
He would experience its worries and its joys.
We ask you Lord,
To protect and watch over this family,
So that in the strength of your grace
It members may enjoy prosperity,
Possess the priceless gift of your peace,
And, as the Church alive in the home,
Bear witness in this world to your glory.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.