John 16: 12-15 (links validated 5/25/22)

Illustrated New Resources

  • Out of Many, One

    by Jim Chern
    Of all places for me to think of the trinity this past week, something struck me while I was at the gym. Seriously. And not because in a moment of sheer desperation I was making the sign of the cross. I was on a treadmill, and this guy happened to get on a treadmill a row in front of me with his sweatshirt from a Police Academy. On the back, it had the patches of all the different police departments that were represented in the class and among them were these words: Although we are many – together we are one. For many passers-by who just see that sweatshirt, it might seem like a nice sentiment or a cool motto. But for the men and women who made up that class that prepared them for their law enforcement careers – they know the truth of those words...
  • Sermon Starters (Trinity)(C)(2022)

    by Chelsey Harmon
    Is the Holy Spirit the Father and Son’s ghostwriter? A ghostwriter is a person hired to write behind-the-scenes for someone else—things like speeches, books, blogs, etc. (anything public facing). The person who hires them is the person who actually gets the credit for what is written and published, not the ghostwriter. And often, we’re not told that a ghostwriter has been used: they are could go forever as nameless and unknown. (Besides the paycheque, that is…) It is not so for the Holy Spirit: we know the Holy Spirit even as the Holy Spirit shares with us the works “authored” by the Father and the Son; the Holy Spirit expresses love for us in ways that that are distinct from that of the Father and Son. This is why it is so important that we pay attention to how we speak of the Holy Spirit and describe how the Spirit interacts with us as the Spirit of Truth. (The same goes for every member of the Trinity, actually.)
  • Strapping into the Trinity

    by Steve Pankey
    Several years ago, Cassie and I joined her family on a vacation to Cocoa Beach, Florida. At the time, her dad was considering buying and building an aerobatic biplane kit from a company that happened to be located twenty minutes south of our condo. So, one morning Doug and I made the trip south to see the factory and take a tour. It was a really cool couple of hours. The owner of the factory took us around to learn all ABOUT the aircraft. We saw the first ever prototype, and the CNC Machine that cut out the thousands upon thousands of struts, ribs, and connecting pieces that make up the kit. We saw planes in various stages of construction and learned all ABOUT what made that aerobatic biplane special. We learned ABOUT the engine that is made for a plane three or four times as heavy. We learned ABOUT the wings, which unlike a regular plane wing that is curved only on the top to provide lift, is curved on both top and bottom so that the plane doesn’t care whether you are flying it right-side up or upside down. I left that two-hour tour knowing a whole lot ABOUT this biplane. The next day, we headed to the airport where their professional test pilot was going to give my father-in-law a test flight in their trainer...
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2022)

    by Bertie Pearson
    The Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware tells an old Eastern European story about a bishop of a large diocese who decided to visit every single one of his parishes. After spending years on horseback, he thought that he had seen them all, when someone told him about a tiny chapel, on a remote island in the sea. Faithful to his mission, he chartered a boat and set out for the island. Upon landing, he found it to be a desolate spot, inhabited only by three old men. He greeted them and began to question these isolated Christians about the orthodoxy of their faith. “Tell me,” said the bishop, “how do you pray?” They replied, “We simply stand, holding hands like this.” And the three old men clasped their hands together, saying, “You are three, we are three, have mercy upon us.” “What?” said the bishop. “This will never do. Don’t you know the Lord’s Prayer?” “No,” said the hermits, “Please teach us, O holy man of God!”...

Other New Resources

Recommended Resources

{Based on requests from several members (although I am reluctant to do so since my favorites may not be those of others), I am listing here some of my own favorite resources. FWIW!!]
  • The Spirit as the Emissary of Truth

    by D. Mark Davis
    (Includes lots of Greek exegesis!!)
  • Father, Son and Spirit of Truth

    by Jerry Fuller, OMI
    ("Catherine Marshall, the author of many fine books including the bestseller Christy, and the widow of the well-known pastor Peter Marshall, was told during a routine physical checkup on March 20, 1943, that she was infected with tuberculosis. It was a devastating blow! The doctors ordered her to bed 24-hours a day. There she waited. And waited..." and other illustrations)
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2001)

    by Jerry Fuller, OMI
    ("In one of his sermons, Professor Fred Craddock recalls his Sunday visit to a new church. He had casually asked at his motel where the nearest place for worship was, obeyed the directions, and arrived at a little storefront church nearby. He found the congregation warm and welcoming, a little shabby and worn by the vicissitudes of life..." and other illustrations)
  • Community and Relationship

    by Sil Galvan
    I was a 57-year-old real estate developer in 1984 when I was diagnosed with late-stage lymphoma, cancer of the lymphatic system. My doctor told me my chances of recovery were slim. I remember that I spent the days immediately following the diagnosis talking about suicide. I often burst into tears. I had given up and I was sure I was going to die soon. Although I had family and friends, I felt alone. I wouldn't let them be with me. They couldn't understand - they didn't have cancer. They weren't doomed to die. But Marsha, my wife, urged me to try The Wellness Community.
  • Trinity (C)

    by Bill Loader
    always good insights!!
  • Knowing God as Trinity

    from Perichoresis
    (Quotes on the Trinity)
  • Exegetical Notes (John 16:12-15)

    by Brian Stoffregen
    (always great exegesis)
  • Illustrations, Quotes and Lectionary Reflections (Trinity)(C)

    by Various Authors
    (Several good illustrations here!!)

Illustrated Resources from 2019 to 2021

  • Sermon Starters (Trinity)(C)(2019)

    by Scott Hoezee
    In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Gilead”, Marilynne Robinson shows her narrator, 76-year-old Rev. John Ames, pondering the enormous love he feels for his little 7-year-old son. At one point Rev. Ames writes to his son, “There’s a shimmer on a child’s hair, in the sunlight. There are rainbow colors in it, tiny, soft beams of just the same colors you can see in the dew sometimes. Your hair is straight and dark and your skin is very fair. I suppose you’re not prettier than most children. You’re just a nice-looking boy, a bit slight, well scrubbed and well mannered. All that is fine, but it’s your existence I love you for, mainly. Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.”...
  • Truth That Catches Us

    by Janet Hunt
    Esther Mae Nesbitt was a veteran of both the 2nd World War and the Korean War. At the age of 30 she enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps as soon as it was formed. During her time in the service she rose to the rank of Master Sergeant. She came to be in charge of the map room for the entire European Theater of Operations. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) by the French Government — an honor normally reserved, as I understand it, for those who showed heroism in combat. Following 21 years of military service she retired to Sycamore, Illinois, her hometown, and resumed her first love as an artist. Her rendition of “Christ in Gethsemane” hangs in the chapel of our local Methodist Church. I plan to go see it for myself. Esther Mae died young, of cancer, at the age of 58. What is left is a file folder less than an inch thick in the Joiner History Room at our local public library and a beautiful memorial stone in the cemetery behind my house...
  • I'll Tell You When You're Older

    by Camille Cook Murray
    In the book, Letters to a Young Poet, there are ten letters written by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke to a young man about to enter the military. The young man wrote to Rilke looking for guidance in life and a critique of some of his poems. In one of the letters Rilke wrote, "Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."...
  • Movies/Scenes Representing Trinity

    Compiled by Jenee Woodard

Illustrated Resources from 2010 to 2018

  • I Have Much More to Say to You

    by Dan Clendenin
    ("The British novelist and poet Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907) captures such true faith in her poem After Saint Augustine: Sunshine let it be or frost, Storm or calm, as Thou shalt choose; Though Thine every gift were lost, Thee Thyself we could not lose...")
  • La Cotidiano: The Daily Thing

    by Daniel Clendenin
    ("In her book Mujerista Theology, the Latina theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz described this intersection of the sacred and the mundane, the unexpected and the unexceptional, as lo cotidiano, 'the daily thing' or 'sacred ordinariness'. 'I have much more to say to you,' Jesus told his disciples. It's precisely in our ordinary times and places that we experience this 'much more' promised by Jesus...")
  • Thrilling Us with Christ

    by Vince Gerhardy
    ("Dale Bruner has written extensively on the word of the Holy Spirit and he says this: 'It is a relief to know, is it not, that we can be normal, struggling Christian men and women and still be filled with the Spirit. It is not necessary for us to glow in the dark or be radiant with victory in order for us to be God's servants and be experiencing the power of God's Spirit...")
  • I'm Spiritual but Not Religious

    by Rob Gieselmann
    “Religion” has become a dirty word. Maybe it’s the nun who rapped your knuckles with a ruler when you were 8 years old. Maybe it is arcane morality, rules that do not suit the 21st century. More likely, it is because of crusades and war and some really ugly things done in the name of religion. Religion has become its own worst enemy. So we can understand why religion has become a dirty word. Yet the so-called “spiritual but not religious” have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. After all, it was religious people who built thousands of hospitals around this country. It’s hard to think any hospital built by the spiritual but not religious. It was religious people, not the irreligious, who started the national hospice movement, and who started Habitat for Humanity, which has built hundreds of thousands of homes for the working poor. Religion frees people from drug abuse and spousal abuse. Religion infuses meaning into the despondent and hope into the bereft...
  • A Good Mystery

    by Scott Gunn
    Some years ago, a priest from the US was traveling to another part of the world on a mission trip. There, the priest struck up a conversation with the local Anglican bishop. It turns out that the bishop had visited the US several times and knew The Episcopal Church pretty well. The priest asked the bishop about his perception of The Episcopal Church compared with the local Anglican church. With great gentleness, the bishop replied something like this: I love your church. The problem is that you have too much. When you have too much, it is easy to forget that you are dependent on God. Here, we do not have enough of many things. Every day, we are reminded that we are utterly dependent on God. This means that we must pray fervently to God every day. We know that we are utterly dependent on God...
  • The Image of God

    by Denis Hanly, MM
    A gypsy man goes into a village that has a little fountain in the middle of the square. And he’s drinking heartily from the water. And there’s a little boy watching him because, after he drinks, he keeps looking into the water and looking into the water and looking into the water as if somebody was down in the water that he was maybe talking to. So the little boy runs over and he says, “Excuse me but who lives in the water?” And the gypsy man smiles at him and he says, “God lives in the water.” “Can I see him?” the little boy says. “Sure you can.” He picks up the little boy and puts him over the well so he can look deep down into the water. And the boy looks deep down into the water for a time and he’s waiting and, finally, he says, “I don’t see anything. I only see myself in the water.” The gypsy man smiles and he says, “Yes, that’s where you’re going to find God, for he lives in you, yourself.”...
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2010)

    by Scott Hoezee
    ("Preachers talk freely about the need to love God, and half the time we make it sound as though everyone already knows what such love would look like. Deep down, though, we all know that loving God is going to be different than loving a best friend or loving a spouse. Still, at the heart of all love is a certain enthusiasm for the beloved one...")
  • Truth That Catches Us

    by Janet Hunt
    ("Esther Mae Nesbitt was a veteran of both the 2nd World War and the Korean War. At the age of 30 she enlisted in the Women's Army Corps as soon as it was formed. During her time in the service she rose to the rank of Master Sergeant. She came to be in charge of the map room for the entire European Theater of Operations. She was awarded the Cross of War by the French Government...")
  • He Will Guide You

    by James Kegel
    Perhaps the most famous icon in art history is one written by Andrei Rublev in about 1410. There are three angels around a table. The wings of the angels are gold leaf; the robes of the angels a beautiful blue. In the center of the table there is a chalice and in the chalice a calf's head. The title of the icon is The Holy Trinity and it was painted to illustrate the doctrine we celebrate today. Many scholars consider Rublev's Trinity as the most perfect of all Russian icons and perhaps the most perfect one ever written. The work was created for the abbot of Trinity Monastery, Nikon of Radonezh, the disciple of the famous St. Sergius of Radonezh, a leader of monastic revival in Russia in the late thirteenth century. Henri Nouwen, the great spiritual writer from Notre Dame, notes: "Andrei Rublev painted this icon not only to share the fruits of his own meditation on the mystery of the Holy Spirit but also to offer his fellow monks a way to keep their hearts centered on God while living in the midst of political unrest. The more we look at this holy image with the eyes of faith, the more we come to realize that it is painted not as a lively decoration for a convent church nor as a helpful explanation of a difficult doctrine, but as a holy place to enter and stay within...
  • Sacred Ordinariness

    by Anne Le Bas
    ("Martin was a poor man, who had lost his wife and all his children one by one to disease. Now, in old age, he lived alone in a basement room. His misfortunes had made him bitter and lonely. He felt he had nothing to enjoy, nothing to hope for. One day, though, a traveller suggested to him that he should read the Bible. Perhaps in that there would be something which would help him...")
  • The Truth of the Triune God

    by Safwat Marzouk
    The Johannine community's anxiety about being orphaned or uprooted reminds me of the experience of the Christian community in Iraq and Syria and the Egyptian workers in Libya, all persecuted by ISIS because they are followers of Jesus. The nun that marked the houses of Christian Iraqis, the families that were forced to leave their homes, the refugee camps that these communities still occupy--all this speaks of the horror they endure.
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2010)

    by Robert Morrison
    ("I had a friend who lived in a retirement home in Lincoln City. She died a few years ago. She wasn't quite as close a friend as I might have wished. We respected each other and enjoyed what time we had in which to talk. It was simply a matter of both of us being busy...")
  • Hearts Broken Open for God's Love

    by Paul Nuechterlein
    Rob Bell‘s latest book, titled What We Talk About When We Talk About God, provides another example of the drastically changing worldview, outlining in a very readable and engaging fashion how science has changed our view of the universe. And he then asks questions that might lead us into fresh ways of understanding God that might resonate better with those newer understandings of science. And among the questions he raises is the one we’ve raised today about Barbara Garcia’s answered prayer. Bell writes, I remember years ago hearing someone tell a dramatic story about something incredible that had happened in his life, and the way he summarized what had happened was “. . . and then God showed up!” It was moving to hear how thrilled he was, but I had one of those “Wait — what?” moments soon afterward. If God showed up, then prior to that, was God somewhere else?
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2013)

    by Paul O'Reilly
    "In another version of the famous story, St. Patrick is sent to the three sons of the king of Tara who are preparing for war to decide which of them will succeed to their father's throne. And Patrick's point is not only about the nature of God, but about the nature of humanity. They are three shoots of the same branch. They are a family in the same way and for the same reason that God is a family..."
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2010)

    by Jason Sierra
    In 1968, the crew of the Apollo 8 circled the moon time and again, scanning its surface for possible future landing sites. Needing to gather their bearings and recalibrate, they lifted their view (and their camera) to catch what has become an iconic image: Earthrise. A crystal blue drop, hovering in the blackness of space, it peaks over the horizon of a desolate and grey lunar landscape, its leading edge flooded in light, glinting off the surface of the water, the lower half disappearing, seemingly melting away into the blackness that surrounds it. With the snap of a shutter, our image of the world would never be the same. Groundbreaking images of our world: like this one they come from time to time, seeming to shake the very earth on which we stand, to move it significantly. The soil and streets beneath our feet, the societies, habits and bodies in which we live become foreign and unfamiliar. The world no longer is what it once was. Or at least what we believed it to be...
  • A Sunday Kind of Love

    Sermon Starter by Leonard Sweet
    ["I have in my hand a three-way light bulb. The three-way light bulb was the first attempt at 'mood lighting'. One light bulb could be switched on to three different levels of intensity, changing the amount of light it cast over a room..."]
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2010)

    by Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson
    ("After a major downpour filled all the potholes in the streets and alleys, a young mother watched her two little boys playing in a puddle through her kitchen window. The older of the two, a five-year old, grabbed his younger brother by the back of his head and shoved his face into the water hole. As the boy recovered and stood laughing and dripping, the mother runs to the yard in a panic...")
  • What Kind of Math Is This?

    by Dean Wolfe
    (includes several quotes)

Illustrated Resources from the Archives

  • The Trinity: A Model for Belonging in Contemporary Society

    by Thomas Scirghi
    ("In a speech to the World Economic Forum, British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared: 'The opening of the 21st century has seen a move away from a very narrow, perhaps selfish individualism towards the idea of belonging, of community, of a self-interest that is mutual.' His words, coming unexpected from this secular source, appear to echo those of liberation theologian Leonardo Boff...")
  • Three in One

    by Robert Allred
    ("There is a familiar product named . It is household oil that is three oils, but in one can. Indeed, on the back of the can, from my home, there are many pictures that illustrate it being used for squeaking hinges, office chairs, wheels, sewing machines and bicycles. I got started oiling my own bicycle as a small child...")
  • The Trinity

    by Mickey Anders
    ("Baseball season is in full swing now, so I have a simple test for all those who know anything about baseball: Define a fair ball. Ah, but that may be too easy. I want you to define a fair ball without using any reference to the foul lines. Suddenly the task becomes much more difficult...")
  • The Mystery of the Trinity

    by David Bruce
    ("I have placed the Athanasian Creed here. It does an excellent job in explaining the Trinity. Because I make reference to the Trinity in my reviews I felt it necessary to include an entire page on the Trinity...")
  • Why God Isn't Simple

    by John Christianson
    ("When I was a young preacher, I showed up to begin serving a congregation that had kicked out its previous pastor. Not long after I arrived, an unofficial delegation of four middle-aged men came to see me. They said, “We weren’t very happy with our last pastor’s sermons and we decided it’s only fair to explain to you what we’re looking for...")
  • Personal Trinity

    by Tom Cox
    ("I am a daughter. and a wife, and mother - Three things, yet I am one totality. To my parents, I would always be their child, To my husband, a companion and a mate, To my children, the one who gave them birth and nurtured them till they reached adult state...")
  • Guidance for the Crossroads

    by Nancy Cushman
    ("When I was in my early 20’s and working construction, I finally got a job with a large and well known construction company. It looked like my future was going to be fairly stable and bright. Then after a short introduction period, the vice-president told me that they had my first assignment, I would be going to Amarillo, Texas to work on a nuclear weapons facility...")
  • Walking with the Holy Spirit

    by Nancy Cushman
    ["Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline shares a number of practical steps to nurture life in the Spirit. He talks about Inward Disciplines such a meditation, prayer, fasting (abstaining from food for a period of time) and study. Prayer is vital..."]
  • The Trinity: A Christian Dreaming

    by Garry Deverell
    ("The first of the dream-forms is that of Sophia, or divine Wisdom, a feminine figure who waits in the liminal places, the thresholds of crossing between divine and human realities: 'Does not Wisdom call, And does not understanding raise her voice?...")
  • God Is Community

    by Ernest Munachi Ezeogu, CSSP
    ("One day St. Augustine was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this matter. Suddenly, he saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a whole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup with sea water, ran up and emptied the cup into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole...")
  • The Promise of a Helper

    by Arthur Ferry, Jr.
    ("I read a good example of this in a Christian magazine lately. A young mother, with 3 pre-school children, had written in to the editor complaining that she never had any free time. With all the feeding, cleaning and housekeeping, whole weeks would pass by without she and her husband ever having a moment away from home...")
  • The Help We've Always Longed For

    by Bruce Goettsche
    ("Max Lucado likens the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives to a guy who wants to learn to dance. This fellow is a rational, intelligent sort, so he goes to the bookstore and buys a how-to book. He takes it home and starts reading. He carefully does everything it says. When the instructions say sway, he sways. When the instructions say lean, he leans. When the instructions say spin, he spins...")
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2004)

    by Andrew Greeley
    ("Once upon a time a father and two children were out in a boat on a very small lake. The kids were little and the father made them wear life preservers, despite their protests. Suddenly a terrible storm came along. Rain and wind, lightening and thunder, waves and fog. The engine in the boat died. The kids were scared but they knew their father would take care of them...")
  • Discipleship As a Craft

    by Stanley Hauerwas
    ("The Dead Poets Society depicts a young and creative teacher battling what appears to be the unthinking authoritarianism of the school as well as his students' (at first) uncomprehending resistance to his teaching method..."
  • Holy Trinity (C)(2004)

    by Roger Haugen
    ("I was part of a funeral about 10 years ago when a young grain buyer was killed having driven his truck in front of a train. He had crossed that crossing several times a day for years, he worked with trains everyday but this one time he failed to look and was killed...")
  • The Spirit Will Guide You into All Truth

    by Chris Heath
    ("It is claimed that Prime Minister Khrushchev (once) said, "Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any God there...")
  • The Holy Spirit's Job

    by Donald Hoffman
    ("I realize it’s June, but today we have to start with Santa Claus. Santa has an amazing ability, as I’m sure you’ve noticed: he can visit the home of every good little girl and boy, all over the world, in a single night. But even Santa has limits. The next night he is completely wiped out. He doesn’t visit a single home. And ... it takes him a whole year to get his strength back...")
  • What Do You Mean?

    by Linda Hollies
    ("Did the tears wipe away the horrible memories and the pain of incest? Indeed not! Did the tears heal my wounded spirit and mend my broken heart? Absolutely not! But those tears were the beginning of me taking back my yesterdays! The tears began to melt the hate which had gathered for too long around my heart. The tears began to wash my mind of the aged lack of forgiveness...")
  • The Mystery of the Trinity

    from Hollywood Jesus
    "I have placed the Athanasian Creed here. It does an excellent job in explaining the Trinity. Because I make reference to the Trinity in my reviews I felt it necessary to include an entire page on the Trinity..."
  • Your Spirit Guide

    by John Jewell
    ("'Spirit guides' in one form or another have been a part of the human religious psyche since the beginning of recorded history. Simply put, spirit guides represent some kind of personalized link between the visible, physical world and the invisible, spiritual world. Spirit guides do everything from put you in touch with a lost relative to helping you find the meaning of your life...")
  • Gazillionaires in God

    by Linda Kraft
    ("A very popular TV show these days is Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I will admit I have never had the patience to sit through an entire hour of this pursuit of socially irrelevant trivia. I lose patience with the way questions are worded, the contestants' hesitancy at answering, and the inherent level of greed underlying the whole contest. On the other hand, I LIKE Jeopardy...")
  • What Do You Believe?

    by Nicholas Lang
    ("A senior citizen drove his brand new Corvette convertible out of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he floored it to 80 mph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left. 'Amazing,' he thought as he flew down I-95, pushing the pedal even closer to the floor...")
  • Wisdom and Trinity

    by Anne Le Bas
    ("There’s a folktale by the Brother’s Grimm which tells of a man who is set on by robbers. They bundle him into a sack and haul him up into a tall tree, intending to return to kill him later...")
  • Inconvenient Truth

    by David Martyn
    ("Bernard Gesch is a research scientist at Oxford University and studies the causes of anti-social behaviour. Here is an experiment he did. In a prison he divided 231 prisoners into two groups. For 19 months, one group was given food supplements including the daily requirements for vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids..." and other illustrations)
  • Mysterious Trinity

    by David Martyn
    ("the new politically correct way of referring to the Holy Trinity is Parent/Offspring/Special Effects. The older politically incorrect way of referring to the Trinity was 'two men and a bird'. The even older and more incorrect way was, 'Daddy, Laddie and Spook'...")
  • The Dance of Divinity

    by Jim McCrea
    ("I'll never forget the conversation I had many years ago with someone who said, 'Don't you think that life is basically simple?' I answered with a lengthy explanation of why I didn't think that was right - talking about hidden complexities and subtleties - and giving what I thought was a very carefully-balancing, well-reasoned answer...")
  • Does the Trinity Add Up?

    by Nathan Nettleton
    ("let's revisit the fourth century and check out the argument that led to the nailing down of the doctrine of the trinity. The principle characters were a couple of blokes called Athanasius and Arius. Now on the surface the debate was actually about whether or not Jesus was divine, that is whether or not Jesus was God, but as I have suggested the underlying question was what is God like...")
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2001)

    by Luke O'Donnell
    "Nuns on the Run portrays the lives of two men who are running away from the police and a gang who were hoping to murder them. As they are running for safety, they find themselves behind the closed doors of a nunnery basement amidst the habits and veils – the fact that they were men did not matter, as the habits were the 'old-fashioned' style whereby the sides of your face and neck were covered..."
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2010)

    by Paul O'Reilly, SJ
    "The proudest achievement of my life is that, once, a few years ago, I cycled all the way from Land's End to John O'Groats ­ very, very slowly. Now, between Land's End and John O'Groats there are quite a lot of hills. And one of the things I am proudest of was that I cycled up all of them - except one. That one was a hill in the Peak District in Derbyshire, just outside Matlock..."
  • Trinity (C)(2001)

    by William Oldland
    Frederick Beuchner suggests we might get a clearer view on the Trinity when we look in a mirror. As we look in the mirror we see ourselves in three lives. The first life we see in the mirror is the one known only to yourself and those to whom you wish to communicate it. This internal life resembles the Father in the Trinity. The second life we see in the mirror is the visible face. The visible face in some measure reflects the inner life. The visible face in the mirror Beuchner compares to the Son in the Trinity. The third life is the invisible power we each have in order to communicate the interior life we have. Through this invisible power we share with others deeply enough so they are involved in our lives. The invisible power within us he compares to the Holy Spirit...
  • Floodlight Ministry

    by James Packer
    ("I remember walking to church one winter evening to preach on the words 'He will glorify me' seeing the building floodlit as I turned a corner, and realizing that this was exactly the illustration my message needed...")
  • Was Jesus Really God?

    by John Pavelko
    ("The year is 2199. Planet earth has been taken over by The Matrix - an artificial intelligence. Human beings live suspended in pods and connected with one another via a massive computer. They do not live in a physical world but in a computer-generated reality...")
  • Seeking Wisdom

    by Michael Phillips
    ("For Barry Rosen, the decision was the toughest one he has made in the past twenty years. He had the opportunity to come face to face with the man who held him and fifty other Americans hostage in Iran for 444 days in 1979. Rosen, then a press officer at the American Embassy in Tehran, shared a platform in Paris with Abbas Abdi...")
  • Is God Only in Heaven?

    by Gerry Pierse, CSsR
    ("Dodong went from the provinces to work in Manila. He got a job painting the white line in the middle of the road. On his first day he painted fifty meters, twenty on the second day and only ten on the third. The foreman was rather surprised...")
  • Making Disciples Who Make Disciples

    by Stephen Portner
    ("Chuck Colson, ex-Marine captain and former confidant of the President of the United States, was once described as "tough, wily, nasty, and tenaciously loyal to Richard Nixon" by Time magazine. Colson's conversion and subsequent announcement of his faith in Christ jarred Washington...")
  • Lured into Life

    by Barry Robinson
    ("A woman once went into the marketplace, looked around, and saw a sign that read 'God's Fruit Stand'. 'Thank goodness! It's about time!' the woman said to herself. She went inside and she said, 'I would like a perfect banana, a perfect cantaloupe, a perfect strawberry, and a perfect peach.'..." and other quotes)
  • To Tell the Truth

    by Gary Roth
    ("Joseph Campbell once wrote 'we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero's path...")
  • The Blind Men and the Elephany

    Poem by John Godfrey Saxe
  • Holy Wisdom, Triune God

    by Byron Shafer
    (includes several quotes on the Trinity)
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2004)

    by Benjamin Sim, SJ
    ("A priest was sitting in an airport lounge waiting for his flight. A man sat down beside him and began to give his opinions on religion. He boasted: 'I won't accept anything I can't understand. Take this business of three Gods in one God or whatever it is. I can't buy that. Nobody can explain it to me, so I will not believe it.'...")
  • Much More to Say

    by Martin Singley
    "When I was a kid, we used sit out on the front lawn of my house at 35 Calumet Ave. and help the Catholic kids make up sins to take to confession. We came up with some real doozies and some of those kids never came back again!..."
  • Truth-Seeking Spirit

    by Martin Singley
    "Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. I’m sure you recognize these little pearls of wisdom as the creative work of Robert Fulghum..."
  • The Spirit of Truth

    by Chandler Stokes
    ("This poem by American writer John Stendahl evokes just how painful it is to give up or to have smashed our self-delusions and self-deceit. It is like a death....")
  • Reflections of God

    by Billy D. Strayhorn
    ("Shortly after World War II came to a close, Europe began picking up the pieces. Much of the Old Country had been ravaged by war and was in ruins. One of the saddest sight of all was the little orphaned children starving in the streets of those war-torn cities. Early one chilly morning, an American soldier was making his way back to the barracks..." and other illustrations)
  • A Little Lower Than God

    by Bob Stump
    ("A couple of years ago, the movie The Lion King made its rounds. The Lion King is an animated movie aimed primarily at kids. Yet, it certainly isn't to be dismissed as a merely a cartoon. The Lion King is the story of a young lion who ran away from home, permanently, after he had been tricked into believing that he had killed his father, who was the king of the jungle...")
  • Trinity Sunday (C)(2004)

    by Ann Svennungsen
    ("In his wonderful book Open Secrets, Rick Lischer describes a stained glass window at the church where he served in rural Illinois. It was called the Trinity window, and it used triangles and Latin to depict a geometric diagram for God. In the center was a larger triangle which stood for God. Deus, it read in Latin...")
  • The Encounter With God

    by Alex Thomas
    There is a wonderful story about the Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth after delivering a theological lecture at the University of Chicago Divinity School. At the end of the lecture, the president of the seminary told the audience that Dr. Barth was not well and was very tired, and though he thought Dr. Barth would like to be open for questions, he probably could not handle the strain...
  • Too Much Information

    by Alex Thomas
    ("I have a friend whose eight year old daughter was killed in a tragic accident a number of years ago now. My friend grieved over the death of her daughter for a long time. She found it difficult to face most days. She was distraught. She finally got up enough courage to go through her daughters clothes and to sort them as one has to do eventually...")
  • To Tell the Truth

    by Keith Wagner
    ("One person who has learned to be his authentic self is Michael J. Fox. Many of you know him as the leading actor on Spin City. He is better know from his movies, Back to the Future. He says that his life really became meaningful after he had become a famous actor. He is now married and he and his wife, Tracy, have two children...")
  • Sincerely Wrong

    by Renita Weems
    ("For years I kept on my desk the photograph of a young black girl dressed in fifties clothes, head up, back straight, shades over her eyes, walking resolutely through a crowd of angry, jeering faces. She is the only one wearing shades in the picture. Why the shades, one might wonder. The date below the photograph explains everything: September 4, 1957, Little Rock, Arkansas...")
  • Holy Trinity

    by Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson
    ("It has been said that: Arguing whether or not a God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name of God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog...")
  • Holy Trinity (A)(2002)

    by Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson
    ("Anthony Bloom, the Orthodox master of the spiritual life told the story of a simple Russian country priest who was confronted by an eminent scientist. This chap trotted out apparently devastating arguments against the existence of God and declared, 'I don't believe in God.'...")
  • How to Be a Disciple

    by Dallas Willard
    ("As Christ's apprentices, we are personally interacting with him as we do our job, and he is with us, as he promised, to teach us how to do it best. Few have illustrated this better than Kirby Puckett, for 13 years center fielder for the Minnesota Twins baseball team. He had a career batting average of .318, made the All-Star lineup ten years in a row, and won six Golden Gloves for defensive play...")

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