When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ….

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So today is Trinity Sunday -- the feast that has spawned a thousand jokes among preachers about how this is the Sunday to avoid preaching on at all costs. But I can’t think of a more exciting topic to preach about! And then there are all the various analogies that we’ve come up with to somehow explain the mystery of the Trinity that you might hear on Trinity Sunday: water as ice, liquid, and vapor; the three-leaf clover allegedly used by St. Patrick; an egg with its shell, white, and yolk; and a bunch of others, I’m sure. Most of them are fine enough, but if you take any one of these too literally, you’re probably bound to end up walking into some straight-up Trinitarian heresy! After all, we’re dealing with an unfathomable mystery here; we’re dealing with who God really is; the God who has revealed himself to us and whose true nature is known and proclaimed by the Catholic Faith that we receive as the Church.

And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered….

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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A blessed Pentecost Sunday to you all! It’s hard for me to even begin to express how moving it is to see all of your faces today, no longer shrouded by those pesky masks. It’s the first time that I’ve witnessed such a sight here since I arrived last summer. It’s almost like the vision of God itself -- we’re no longer seeing through masks dimly, but face to face. Ok, not really. But still! What a momentous occasion this is to finally -- finally -- be able to return to normal worship together; to sing our hymns together, and perhaps best of all, to receive the blood of Christ from the chalice together. 

O God, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless, but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Savior Christ is gone before.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is the last Sunday of Eastertide, which puts us right in between two great feasts of the Church Year. This past Thursday was the Feast of our Lord’s Ascension, which was forty days after Easter, since that’s how long Jesus remained on earth after his resurrection before ascending into heaven. And then next Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost -- fifty days after Easter -- when we’ll commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church. So liturgically speaking, we have already rejoiced that Christ has taken his seat at the right hand of the Father, but with Pentecost still ahead of us, our prayer is that God would not abandon us.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell….

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is the Feast of our Lord’s ascension into heaven, where he took his seat at the right hand of the Father and remains even still until that day when he comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We are now forty days after Easter, which is a fitting date for the Feast of the Ascension, as we read in Acts 1 that Jesus ascended forty days after he rose again. Pentecost Sunday, the feast that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church, will arrive fifty days after Easter -- ten days from now. So that gives you the bearings of where we’re at in the Church Year.

I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today’s Gospel lesson is what gives the Fourth Sunday of Easter the name of “Good Shepherd Sunday.” It’s certainly one of the most cherished titles of our Lord, no doubt due in part to the prominence of Psalm 23 -- perhaps the most famous of all of the Psalms -- which was also appointed for this morning. The Lord is my shepherd. It’s an image that brings an added element of comfort to the festivities of Eastertide. The risen Lord who has conquered death once and for all in order to bring us to glory is also the Good Shepherd: the one who cares for his flock with unwavering attention and affection.