Your Sunday Sermon Notes: Trinity Sunday 2023

Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for Trinity Sunday?

We can have an exception to just good stuff this week.

Since this is a day when some priests or deacons go to the zoo in trying to talk about the Trinity, did you hear any really good heresy today, or something just plain stupid?

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.  I hear that it is growing.  Of COURSE.   The church was jammed in Rome.  As “diverse” a crowd as you will see anywhere other than a major international airport.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

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7 Comments

  1. Lurker 59 says:

    My friend sent me their local priest’s NO Sermon for Trinity Sunday. I have it queued up here

    https://www.youtube.com/live/2J_HHk80_Go?feature=share&t=1015

    The sermon is quite good and the priest doesn’t shy away from expounding on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, relying on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, and tying the ineffable back to the mystery of one’s own personal existence, redemption, and sanctification.

    My friend also reports that Mass attendance at the parish seems to be skewing younger, a steady stream of new babies, pews fullness seems to be stable if not slightly increasing, and a general movement towards the laity more fully participating in the Mass (ie reverence in postures, dress, preparing for Mass and thanksgiving after Mass). Nothing dramatic, mind you, just a slow gradual shift.

  2. Gregg the Obscure says:

    The rector is out of the country leading a pilgrimage. We had a priest unfamiliar to me. I was expecting the worst given that he looked to be about 75 years old – not the best vintage for priests in these parts. The beginning of the homily at first seemed inapposite, if in line with an interest of this blog’s gracious host. Glad i was wrong!

    He started with a note of gratitude that he never doubted the existence of God. He waxed rhapsodic in memories from childhood of looking at the night sky while his father described the constellations to him. The young future priest intuited that as glorious as the stars were, there was surely a greater glory beyond – the glory that made the stars.

    Father mentioned that until quite recently, most scientists thought that the stars were all quite similar to each other and the difference in brightness from our perspective was simply due to distance, moreover that the stars were stationary since the constellations he learned as a boy were the same ones recorded throughout history.

    Over time, humanity’s understanding of the natural world improves – sometimes by leaps and bounds. Edwin Hubble made some remarkable observations starting in the 1920s to demonstrate that we’d seen comparatively little so far: only about six thousand discrete celestial bodies can be seen with the naked eye and early telescopes didn’t multiply that by very much. What we had been referring to as stars included many other types of objects, that stars can vary significantly in size, that stars are moving, and that there are many galaxies beside our own, themselves not only immense, but in incredibly rapid motion. From these data, Fr. Lemaitre posited the “big bang” theory: that in the distant past the entire universe was very compact and it has been expanding ever since. These things are difficult even for people with great intelligence and training to comprehend.

    At the time of Christ, the Jewish people worshipped God as He had revealed Himself to them – as Father. In a sudden expansion of available knowledge, Christ let us know of His own divine personhood and that of the Holy Spirit, without in any way violating the existing divine revelation that there is only one God. This is a mystery not just difficult to comprehend, but beyond full comprehension for mortal minds. We do well not to seek out all the details of the inner life of God, but rather to seek to follow His will and to praise His glory, with the hope that at the end of our days we will be welcomed by Him telling us “you’ve seen nothing so far”.

  3. redneckpride4ever says:

    Father made explicit that we are made holy from baptism.

    He also explained that heretics are in error using sacraments outside of the Catholic Church. He said if a Baptist minister properly uses the form and matter that a valid baptism occurs. However, part of the deal of being baptized is to practice God’s religion which he revealed.

    He acknowledged that other bodies have valid sacraments (likely referring to the Orthodox without using the name), but are still in the aforementioned error.

  4. Cornelius says:

    Our SSPX pastor gave a surprisingly theological exposition of the Trinity, a very welcome change to the emotive mush I’m used to hearing, usually given under the assumption that the stupid laity could never grasp subtle theological distinctions between essence and person.

    Whenever I hear these concepts I’m always strangely moved – the difference between the unbegotten (Father) and the begotten (Son) and the aspiring, the breathing forth, of the Spirit.

  5. lgreen515 says:

    Our celebrant was distraught about people’s selfishness and lack of focus on their faith. He never accused us directly. But he did say that he had found a consecrated host in the pews after Friday Mass.

    I’m sure that our NO congregation is as ignorant of the Real Presence as any other NO congregation. I feel like I want to bring this up with the pastor, but I don’t know what to say to him.

    What I would like is to hear some strong preaching on the Real Presence, which we never get.

  6. Texdon says:

    Our pastor told about being at a confirmation where the bishop was asking the young confirmands questions. He asked one young girl if she knew what the Trinity was. The little girls said “It is three persons in one God”. The bishop, a little hard of hearing told the girl “I don’t understand what you said” – to which the girl replied “Your excellency, you are not supposed to understand it – it is a mystery”.

  7. Patrick-K says:

    Our priest made a couple of thought-provoking points. One, the Trinity is the inner life of God. I think Frank Sheed says something along the lines of the Trinity is something that could never have been grasped through logical deduction, only through revelation. Two, the Trinity shows that God, although unchanging, is also dynamic (I kind of hate that word, but it applies here). Perhaps you would think of the lowest parts of Hell in Dante being frozen as the opposite.

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