Matthew 28: 16-20 (links validated 5/1/23)

Illustrated New Resources

  • Sermon Starters (Trinity Sunday)(A)(2023)

    by Chelsey Harmon
    In the movie “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” we get a good idea of what it means to be overwhelmed with the reality confronting you: a reality that seems too big or surreal to be true (like a resurrection would be!) Evelyn Wang experiences so much at any given moment, and having to decide what to do at every turn, she often finds herself overwhelmed. Until, that is, she roots herself in relationship. Finding her purpose in her relationship with her daughter helps her know what to do, how to do it, and how to be in relation to others. I think that’s something like what the disciples experienced as Jesus comes to them in their state of worship and wavering and gives them their (our) purpose in life.
  • Ascension (A)(2023)

    by Paul O'Reilly, SJ
    When I was growing up, there was a very great leader of the Catholic church in my country who seemed for me, as a small boy, to embody the entire personality of the Church. I won’t tell you his name but he was the then Cardinal Archbishop. In every way, he was a big man. He was 68 when I knew him, 6 foot 4 inches tall, broad and strong. But the biggest thing about him was an enormous booming voice which filled every room he ever entered. And, with this enormous voice, he pronounced absolute certainty on any issue you cared to mention. He knew exactly the right way forward for the Church, for the Country, for society at large and, indeed, for anyone else he happened to be talking to at the time. To put it mildly, he did not immediately give the impression of a man who was much troubled by self-doubt. So, I was rather surprised when, a long time after his death, I came across his autobiography in which he said that there was once a time when he was not happy as a priest. He had come from a very wealthy background and he was sent to serve in a very poor parish. There he struggled as he discovered that he was in fact a little too accustomed to the comfortable things in life and a little too used to the company of his own upper class. To put it more simply, he saw in himself a soft-living snob and he didn’t like himself very much. But one day he was sent to see a little old lady who had severe rheumatoid arthritis and was dying of cancer. She lived with her daughter in circumstances of great poverty. This was in the days before the NHS and adult social services. When he arrived, he found the place so smelly and dirty that he could not even bring himself to sit down. He said that the clearest memory that he had of this visit was of the terrible smell of her leg ulcers. He couldn’t get rid of that smell for months thereafter. But there he met a truly holy woman. She was 92, had been bedridden for four years, was dying in obvious pain and distress and, in fact, died that very night. He did not remember a word of what passed between them. All he remembered was that every motion, every gesture, every word that she uttered was filled with grace and serenity. He realized that he was in the presence of a saint, someone who was close to God in every way. And the only actual words he remembered from that encounter were not hers, but his own. As he left her room, he made himself a promise: that he would not give up on what he believed to be his vocation unless, and until, he could honestly say that he had suffered more for Christ than she had. He remembered that brief encounter throughout his life because it was a memory of how God can use us, wherever we are in life, to bring His love and healing into the lives of others...
  • God in Community

    by David Russell
    Johann Christoph Arnold related a Hasidic parable. A rabbi asked his students, “When is it at dawn that one can tell the light from the darkness?” One student replied, “When I can tell a goat from a donkey.” “No,” answered the rabbi. Another said, “When I can tell a palm tree from a fig.” “No,” answered the rabbi again. “Well, then, what is the answer?” his students pressed him. “Only when you look into the face of every man and every woman and see your brother and your sister,” said the rabbi. “Only then have you seen the light. All else is still darkness.”...

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!!]
  • Galilean Rendezvous

    by D. Mark Davis
    (includes lots of Greek exegesis!!)
  • 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)
  • The Body of Christ on Earth (2)

    by Sil Galvan
    When I was growing up, there was a great leader of the Catholic church in my country who seemed for me, as a small boy, to embody the entire personality of the Church. I won’t tell you his name but he was the then Cardinal Archbishop. In every way, he was a big man. He was 68 when I knew him, 6 foot 4 inches tall, broad and strong. But the biggest thing about him was an enormous booming voice which filled every room he ever entered. And, with this enormous voice, he pronounced absolute certainty on any issue you cared to mention. He knew exactly the right way forward for the Church, for the country, for society at large and, indeed, for anyone else he happened to be talking to at the time. To put it mildly, he did not immediately give the impression of a man who was much troubled by self-doubt. So, I was rather surprised when, a long time after his death, I came across his autobiography in which he said that there was once a time when he was not happy as a priest. He had come from a very wealthy background and he was sent to serve in a very poor parish. There he struggled as he discovered that he was in fact a little too accustomed to the comfortable things in life and a little too used to the company of his own upper class. To put it more simply, he saw in himself a soft-living snob and he didn’t like himself very much. But one day he was sent to see a little old lady who had severe rheumatoid arthritis and was dying of cancer. She lived with her daughter in circumstances of great poverty. This was in the days before there was adult social services in my country. When he arrived, he found the place so smelly and dirty that he could not even bring himself to sit down. He said that the clearest memory that he had of this visit was of the terrible smell of her leg ulcers. He couldn’t get rid of that smell for months thereafter...
  • The Greatest Love

    by Sil Galvan
    ("the following ad appeared in one newspaper: SINGLE BLACK FEMALE. Seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a sweet, good-looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping, and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire...")
  • Relationship

    by Sil Galvan
    Do any of you remember the 1990 movie Nuns on the Run? It is the story of two small-time crooks (played by Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle) who are on the run from both the police and a gang called the Triads (how appropriate!!) from whom they've stolen some drug-dealing money. They hide out in a convent, disguised as nuns, where Eric Idle finds himself scheduled to teach the A-level Religious Education class. He’s horrified. Robbie Coltrane, a lapsed Catholic, tries to reassure him by telling him how easy it will be. "What’s your first lesson on?" he asks. "The Trinity!" Robbie’s face falls. "The Trinity! Now that’s a bugger!"
  • Into the Mystery

    by Anne Le Bas
    ("I was once asked by a woman I knew to talk to her daughter, who was about 6. There had been a complicated bereavement in the family, and the child seemed to be really struggling with it. As this child told me about it she told me about the moment when she'd watched her mum answer the phone and receive the news of the death. 'What happened then?' I asked. Mum had started to cry, she said, so she had fetched her a glass of water...")
  • Trinity Sunday (A)

    by Bill Loader
    (always good insights!)
  • Exegetical Notes (Matthew 28:16-20)

    by Brian Stoffregen
    (excellent exegesis)

Illustrated Resources from 2020 to 2022

[If you have any questions about navigating through the site (and for some helpful tips even if you don’t!), please check out our video guide. Just copy this link (https://www.loom.com/share/afe3352a69f44bff814af8b695701c5e) and paste it into your favorite browser.]
  • The Power of the Trinity

    by Craig Condon
    Someone once asked Billy Graham, “If you ask God to forgive you for something you did to someone, does that mean you also have to ask them for forgiveness? I’m a Christian now, but I’m not sure I can do it. I don’t see what difference it would make anyway, except maybe to open old wounds.” In his reply, Billy Graham wrote the following: “It’s always important to seek the forgiveness of those we’ve hurt, even if it is hard to do….They might not forgive you, of course; they may reject your attempt or react with renewed anger over what you did, but then it becomes their problem, not yours. You will have done everything you could to let them know you regret what happened, and that you want their forgiveness.” “Why is it important to seek the forgiveness of those we’ve hurt? For one thing, it could bring about reconciliation. After all, you were the one at fault: you alone are responsible for the hurt that resulted. But that hurt will only be healed if you seek to heal it and if the other person responds.”...
  • Blessing the World

    by Kathy Donley
    Bridge House is an intentional Christian community in Southern England which leans on this tradition. On their website, they say “Celtic Christianity was a faith hammered out at the margins. The Celts lived on the margins of Britain, on the margins of Europe and on the margins of Christendom. They lived close to nature, close to the elements, close to God and close to homelessness, poverty and starvation. They were under constant threat, from invasion by Vikings and other Germanic tribes, from Anglo-Saxon, Norman and Roman imperialism, from all sorts of forces that were bigger and more powerful than they were. Nor was it just their land and their livelihoods that were threatened but their language, their culture, their institutions and their beliefs. It has been said that there are two kinds of people in history - those who do things to others and those who have things done to them. The Celts as a race indisputably belong to the second category. Their story is one of' oppression, suffering and progressive marginalization - the same way that was trodden by Jesus in his time on earth. But it is a story, too, of remarkable hope, imagination, wholeness and simplicity, qualities that we are beginning to discern our own need of in a society that for all its outward sophistication and success is perhaps just as threatened and suffers just as much.”
  • Sermon Starters (Trinity Sunday)(A)(2020)

    by Scott Hoezee
    George Buttrick was once on an airplane scribbling out sermon notes on a legal pad. The man next to him asked what he was doing and so Buttrick said, “I’m working on next Sunday’s sermon–I’m a preacher.” “Oh yeah,” the man replied, “religion! I like to keep my religion simple–I don’t like complicated doctrines. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ The Golden Rule–that’s my religion!” “I see,” Rev. Buttrick replied, “and what is it that you do.” “Well, I teach in the science department at the university. I’m an astronomer.” “Ah yes, astronomy,” Buttrick shot back. “Well, I don’t like to get very technical about such things. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’ That’s my astronomy–why would anyone ever need more than that!?”
  • Painful Goodbyes and the Ascension

    by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
    I was 22 years old when in the space of four months both of my parents, still young, died. For my siblings and me the pain was searing. Initially we were nearly overwhelmed with a sense of being orphaned, abandoned, of losing a vital life-connection (that, ironically, we had mostly taken for granted until then). And our feelings were mainly cold. There’s little that’s warm in death. But time is a great healer. After a while, and for me this took several years, the coldness disappeared and my parents’ deaths were no longer a painful thing. I felt again their presence, now as a warm, nurturing spirit that was with me all time. The coldness of death turned into warmth. They had gone away but now they could give me their love and blessing in a way that they never could fully while they were alive. Their going away eventually created a deeper and purer presence...

Illustrated Resources from 2017 to 2019

  • Roots

    by Phil Bloom
    You may have heard that the father of the Big Bang theory was a Catholic priest - Fr. Georges LeMaitre. He didn't set out with the idea of proving God's existence. Still, before him most scientists - including Albert Einstein - thought the universe existed eternally. LeMaitre's theory indicates that time, space and matter do not eternally exist but had a starting point - about 14 billion years ago. That is a long time, but for God no time at all. For him the big bang is just as much "now" as is today or for that matter tomorrow. For us who live in time our existence connects back to that initial burst of light - and to God himself...
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2017)

    by Scott Hoezee
    the Trinity is a mystery and it is a hard doctrine to understand. But in the richness of the mystery there are things we need to know and should want to know about. Simplicity is not always a virtue. The fine preacher George Buttrick was once on an airplane scribbling out sermon notes on a legal pad. The man next to him asked what he was doing and so Buttrick said, “I’m working on next Sunday’s sermon–I’m a preacher.” “Oh yeah,” the man replied, “religion! I like to keep my religion simple–I don’t like complicated doctrines. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ The Golden Rule–that’s my religion!” “I see,” Rev. Buttrick replied, “and what is it that you do.” “Well, I teach in the science department at the university. I’m an astronomer.” “Ah yes, astronomy,” Buttrick shot back. “Well, I don’t like to get very technical about such things. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’ That’s my astronomy–why would anyone ever need more than that!?”...
  • But Some Doubted

    by Janet Hunt
    I sat in wonder this last week when I attended our local High School Baccalaureate. For in that space of time when, at least in my experience, genuine surprises are seldom ours to experience, a high school senior stepped to the podium to tell her faith story. Only unlike the witness of many on occasions such as these, her story was not one of unwavering faith. Rather, Jessica spoke of how she took her faith for granted as a child and so was unprepared for the day when her academic learning and her own life experience called it into question. Indeed, she spoke specifically of her anger at God when a good friend was diagnosed with cancer. And she spoke of spending a long night with this life-long friend watching as he peacefully took his last breath. She spoke of how her prayers moved from anger to acceptance to gratitude and she spoke of how she came to understand God as one who walked with her.
  • Understanding the Incomprehensible

    by Jim McCrea
    When I was growing up, one of my favorite shows was “Mission Impossible.” It was an adventure show in which a team of highly-trained spies regularly did the seemingly impossible — and they were able to do it week after week in less than an hour. Years later, Tom Cruise starred in a series of movies based on the television series premise. In either case, the leader of the team is given a cassette tape which details their next assignment. That tape always begins with the words, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is...” followed by a description of some hopeless task that no one in their right mind would even think of attempting. Then, after the details of the mission are spelled out, the tape ends with the words, “As always, should you or any of your I.M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.” The Christian church has its own form of “Mission Impossible.” That is, trying to describe or even understand the Trinity, the concept of one God in three persons.
  • Go!

    Art and Faith by Lynn Miller
    They (the disciples) did, indeed, go into all the world according to these traditions, and make disciples in all these places. They might have sailed on boats or ridden a horse or camel, but the majority of their travel would have involved walking. Their sandals were more utilitarian than the shoes pictured here, but these shoes remind us of the world into which we are called to go. And like those first apostles who heard the word "Go", Jesus is with us always, even to the end of the age.
  • Singing the Trinity

    by Andrew Prior
    There's a song about that, which shows the difference between the ways the poor and the rich met Jesus: I don't know how to love him What to do, how to move him I've been changed, yes really changed In these past few days, when I've seen myself I seem like someone else I don't know how to take this I don't see why he moves me He's a man. He's just a man… He changed people. But he was just a man… and he was also a threat to social stability.
  • The Great Promise

    by David Russell
    A few weeks ago, Westboro Baptist Church came to Ames. This is the group that protests all over the country – against gay people, at churches, at the funerals of soldiers. Incredibly hateful stuff. My impulse was to just stay away, as they are just looking for attention. But they were going to protest at Ames High School. I felt like with students seeing this going on, there needed to be support for students. And this was my neighborhood. When she was in high school, I remembered Marian Thompson saying that a lot of her friends could not believe she was Baptist – because they thought that all Baptists were like Westboro. So I felt like I needed to be there to give witness to what real Baptists are like. I walked over to the high school about 7:00 am that morning and it was a surreal experience. There were a few protesters from Westboro Baptist Church, with their hateful signs and strange stuff playing over a portable PA system. They had signs saying God Hates – well, I won’t use their incendiary language, but basically signs saying that everybody except them is going straight to hell. And there were about 150 people there to support students and stand against hatred. With all kinds of signs talking about what God hates, I brought a sign along that just said, “God is love.” It was my little effort to witness for Jesus and I didn’t have to leave my neighborhood. But in a world with so much hate, a message of love can be very powerful...
  • Trinity: Image of the Community That Is God

    Video by Desmond Tutu
    Isn’t it wonderful that we have this Doctrine of the Trinity that speaks of God as a fellowship, a community. And so, you have this wonderful image of the community that is God, the Trinity. So that, all eternity the One who is called Father pours out all of God’s being into the Son….and the Son returning from all eternity this love and you have this movement between the two that is so tremendous that it is God the Holy Spirit.

Illustrated Resources from 2012 to 2016

  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2014)

    by Delmer Chilton
    ("The most difficult course I took in college was 'Art Appreciation'. Not that it was all that difficult in itself, it was simply very difficult for me. Imagine a southern boy, fresh off the farm, sitting in a dark room with a tiny French woman showing slides and encouraging us to, 'live into the painting'. 'Let it speak to you,' she chirped, 'invite the art to commune with your spirit'. To say I didn't get it would be a vast understatement...")
  • This Is a Football

    by Steve Godfrey
    ("Vince Lombardi was famous for starting every Green Bay Packer season by holding up a football and saying, 'Gentleman, this is a football'. The point was to get back to the very basics of the game to provide a sure foundation for everything that would follow. Jesus conversation with his disciples on the mountain of Galilee was his "this is the football" speech...")
  • Celebrate the Holy Trinity

    by Denis Hanly, MM
    A gypsy man stopped at a well in a town square for a drink. After he drank he continued gazing into the well as if he was looking down at someone at the bottom of the well. A little boy saw him, and though the man was big and tall and rough and ready, he had a kindly face, and so the little boy approached him. “Who lives down there?” the little boy asked. And the gypsy man answers him, “God lives down there. God does.” And the little boy says, “Can I see him, too?” “Of course, you can,” said the gentle gypsy man. And he picks him up in his arms and he leans him over the well. And the little boy looks down deep into the well, but all he could see was his own pale reflection in the water below. Disappointed, he turned to the gypsy man. “But all I can see is me,” he said. “All I can see is me.” “Ah,” said the gypsy man, looking into his eyes. “Now you know where God lives.” And he picks the little boy up and puts him on the ground, and he looks into his eyes and he says, “God lives in you.”...
  • Trinity Sunday (B)(2015)

    by Charles Irvin
    ("In his book Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy presented an extraterrestrial being persistently signaling these questions to earthlings: 'Do you read? What do you read? Are you in trouble? How did you get in trouble? If you are in trouble, have you sought help? If you did, did help come? If it did, did you accept it? Do you know who you are? Do you know what you are doing? Do you love? Do you know how to love? Are you loved?...")
  • The Tipping Point

    by Philip McLarty
    Have you seen the movie, Letters to God? You can check it out at the Webster Parish Library. It's based on the story of an eight-year-old boy named Tyler Doughtie and his battle with cancer. As the story goes, Tyler wrote letters to God every day, not begging God to be healed, though he certainly wanted to get well, but expressing the full range of his emotions and his concern for those around him. The postman read his letters and shared them with others. They touched everyone who read them and inspired them to look to God with the simple faith of a child. Tyler died in 2005, but his legacy goes on. At the end of the movie there's a whole gallery of pictures of those who've written their own "letters to God" in their fight against cancer...
  • Doubt Whispers

    by Larry Patten
    ("They worshiped Jesus. The ancient Greek could also be translated as 'bowed'. Whether it's translated into English as the more emotionally charged worship or the physical action of bowing, all of the disciples apparently participated in this final response to the risen Christ. Along with worshiping/bowing, some of Jesus' inner circle—maybe ten of the eleven, maybe only one—felt . . . doubt...")
  • Trust

    by Andrew Prior
    (includes several quotes)
  • The Great Omission

    by Charles Reeb
    ("He was a young man still living at home. He was rather quiet and kept to himself. One day his coworker found him in the restroom crying. His coworker asked him if he could help. The young man confided in him. He told him that his girlfriend was pregnant, and he had just revealed this to his parents the night before. They are very strict and religious. They screamed at him and said that he had embarrassed them and shamed the family and told him that he should never set foot in their house again...")
  • The Spirit in Trinity

    by Nancy Rockwell
    ("Trinity. St. Patrick's hymn to it, written on his death bed, sings of images of earth and heaven, sea and wind, 'Christ in all: I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three. I bind unto myself today, the virtues of the starlit heaven, the glorious sun's life-giving ray, the whiteness of the moon at even, the flashing of the lightning free, the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, the stable earth, the deep salt sea, around the old appointed rocks...)
  • The Richness of the Mystery of God

    by Ron Rolheiser, OMI
    ("All of us, believers and atheists, need to be more humble in our language about God. The idea of God needs to stretch, not shrink, the human imagination. Our actual experience of God, just as for ancient polytheism, is forever eating away at all simplistic conceptions of God. Thank God, for the complexity of the doctrine of the Trinity!...")
  • A Model for Unity

    by Paul Rooney
    ["A man named Paul Prudhomme is an American chef who made a cooking symbol very famous. It was called the 'holy trinity' by him (and later on, by many other chefs). It is the basis for Louisiana cooking: more specifically for Cajun and Louisiana Creole dishes. It consists of three things: onions, bell peppers and celery in equal amounts..."]
  • The Biggest One of All

    by David Sellery
    From Augustine to Aquinas, from Kung to Merton, of all the inspired souls who have probed this great mystery, CS Lewis speaks to me with down-to-earth logic. In Beyond Personality he wrote: “All sorts of people are fond of repeating that: ‘God is love.’ But the words have no meaning unless God is at least two persons. If God was only a single person, then before the world was made he was not love.”
  • The Nano-Punch of Pentecost

    Sermon Starter by Leonard Sweet
    ("Matthew 28:16-20 is identified as the 'Commissioning of the Disciples' text. It is a hotly contested text, to say the least. The phrase 'The Great Commission' doesn't appear in the Bible, and wasn't widely used until the early 20th century, when the phrase and the text became wed-locked forever. In these few verses Matthew manages to encapsulate the whole of his gospel story...")

Illustrated Resources from 2008 to 2011

  • Cowboys and Christians

    by Bruce Ball
    ("Cowboy Joe was had just come back from going to church for the first time, and was in the bunkhouse telling the other cowhands about his experience. He said, 'When I got there, I parked my pick-up in the corral'. Charlie, a worldly cowboy said, 'That would be the parking lot, Joe.' Joe continued, 'I walked up the trail to the door.' Charlie said, 'That would be the sidewalk.'...") (RIght click on the text and drag your mouse over it to highlight the text.)
  • The Making of a Disciple

    by Luke Bouman
    My son's part in this story called the Trinity began when he was just about 2 months old, still feisty from colic, but cute and loved and, by all accounts, hungry...
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2011)

    by Delmer Chilton
    In the book Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver tells of his first encounter with Christianity, in a religion class at Soledad Prison. He remembered being asked to come up with an explanation of the Trinity. He studied the text and the Bible and had an idea. He said they went to class and the teacher, a local minister, asked if anyone could explain the Trinity. Several people raised their hands, Cleaver included. The minister/teacher pointed to first one, then another. After each one, he said. “Wrong, sit down.” Before he got to Cleaver, he quit and said, “This is the point. It’s impossible to explain the Trinity without getting it wrong.” Cleaver was glad he had not been called on. He was sure his comparison to three-in-one oil was going to get a giant putdown. Although his teaching style was a bit rude, the teacher had a point. Explaining the Trinity is tricky, nigh on to impossible.
  • In the Beginning

    Narrative Sermon by Frank Fisher, Obl. OSB
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2011)

    by Scott Hoezee
    ("A friend of mine was frustrated some while back at a meeting where at least a couple of people were hemming and hawing in liberal-fashion about taking this or that aspect of the Bible literally. This prompted my preacher friend to relate a story of something that happened to him probably thirty years ago. One Sunday he preached about Jesus' resurrection...")
  • Blah, Blah, Blah...Love

    by James Lemler
    ("Diogenes Allen asked people far and wide about their experience of being loved and then wrote a marvelous book simply and accurately titled Love. My favorite entry was from a young woman who described her experience as a little girl sitting on her father's lap in a small church...")
  • *In the Image of Love

    by Jim McCrea
    ("I read an interesting article online yesterday. The title was Time-Traveling Male Sea Monkeys Make Bad Mates. Mind you, this was posted on a science and technology website — not a science fiction site — so how could I possibly resist reading that? It turns out that sea monkey eggs can lay dormant for years before hatching...")
  • *Finding Neverland

    by Virginia Miner
    ("Finding Neverland, starring Johnny Depp, is based on the true story of James Barrie, a playwright and author of Peter Pan. It tells of J.M.Barrie’s relationship with the family of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her sons, who were the inspiration for the images of Peter Pan...")
  • Turning the Great Commission on Its Ear

    by Rob Nash
    ("Listening is not one of my natural gifts. My 17-year-old son recently said something like this to me - 'Dad, you sure do seem to have picked jobs where you get to do a lot of the talking'....") (You will need free passwords to access this site.)
  • *Trinity Sunday (B)(2009)

    by Paul O'Reilly, SJ
    ("Three days before my aunt Marion died, I went to see her. She was obviously very ill, very weak and she could barely talk to me. But I was delighted that she knew who I was and what she wanted to say to me. But she said something to me that I did not understand: 'I will always be with you'. She said it twice. And, in truth, I will never know exactly what she meant by that...")
  • Opposable Faith

    by Larry Patten
    ("I'm thinking of 'D' because I've been thinking about two of the most dangerous 'D' words in the Bible. One is dominion...The other is doubt...")
  • Dancing into the Life of God

    by Andrew Prior
    ("Each year, in December, we had a school social; the dance. My parents insisted that I should go. I hated it. I was un-sociable. I don't like crowds, I'm shy, and I'm what my family calls... 'spatially challenged'. That means: pig ugly clumsy. I can't dance..")
  • Blessing of the Ordinary

    by Jan Richardson
    ("Let these words lay themselves like a blessing upon your head, your shoulders as if, like hands, they could pass on to you what you most need for this day as if they could anoint you not merely for the path ahead...")
  • Trinity Sunday: A Spiral-Shaped Path

    by Jan Richardson
    ("The Carmina Gadelica, a collection of prayers, poems, and blessings that Alexander Carmichael gathered in the Scottish islands and highlands in the 19th century, offers a feast of examples of this rich relationship with the Trinity...")
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2008)

    by James V. Stockton
    includes several quotes
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2011)

    by David Wendel
    in early television, the reason folks always sat on three sides of a table for meals, was not just to provide the camera with a clear shot of all the faces - that was one practical reason, of course, but there was another reason, as well...
  • Jesus the Vagabond

    by William Willimon
    ("All the gospels present Jesus on a continual road trip--God in motion, urgently making a way to us in defeat of the desert in which we wander. Some of Jesus' best words were spoken on the run. So, if you want to know about Jesus, you've got to meet him on the road...")
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2011)

    by David Zersen
    In The Weeping Camel, a mother camel rejects her offspring and won't have anything to do with it. The culture in Mongolia has a custom that asks a violinist to come and play music for the mother camel in a situation like this..." and other illustrations - recommended!!
  • Illustrations (Trinity)(A)(2008)

    by Tim Zingale
    ("A story is told of the years before China became Communist. The board of directors of a large American company wanted to secure a well-qualified man to handle their business interests in China. He had to not only have the ability to talk the language but he had to be familiar with the customs as well. Furthermore, he had to be a man of tact, strong personality, and administrative ability...")
  • The Trinity

    by Tim Zingale
    ("There was a little church in Scotland which years ago as the ushers were returning to the altar with the offering plates, a little boy sitting next to the aisle tugged at the sleeve of one of the men and whispered,'Please put the plate down on the floor.' Bewildered, the usher obeyed. Then the boy preceded to step into the plate..." and other short illustrations)

Illustrated Resources (and Other Resources of Merit) from the Archives

  • The Principles of Evangelism

    by Mark Adams
    ("Rebecca Pippert, author of Out of the Salt Shaker: Into the World tells of a time she was sitting in her car at a traffic light with her window rolled down. As the light turned green a car drove by and it's occupant threw something into her car hitting her on the cheek..." and other illustrations)
  • Reaching in the Name of Christ

    by Mark Adams
    ("All this reminds me of a story from the life of Alexander the Great, who of course was one of the greatest generals who ever lived, conquering almost the entire known world with his vast army. One night during a campaign, Alexander couldn't sleep and left his tent to walk around the camp. He came across a soldier asleep on guard duty-a very serious offense..." and other illustrations)
  • The Trinity: Dancing Sarah's Circle

    by Mickey Anders
    ("Justo L. Gonzalez, director of the Hispanic Theological Initiative at Emory University, says that some people approach the Trinity like it was a crossword puzzle...")
  • What's in a Name?

    by Hubert Beck
    ("Take your name, e.g. Your surname is a short-hand way to tell about a whole family of people. If you 'unpack' that name you find all kinds of history – men and women who have been successful and others who have hardly scraped through life; those who lived long and those who died young; some highly educated and others barely educated at all...")
  • Mission Impossible

    by Peter Blackburn
    ("The scene was the little lane off George Street, Brisbane. A car and a motor bike were both in some hurry in and out of the courtyard of the Lands Department building. There was not a great deal of room at the best of times. The bike made it - just - but in the process a bin was knocked over and the car's paintwork was scratched...")
  • Where Are We Heading?

    by Peter Blackburn
    ("Douglas Hyde was a member of the Communist Party for twenty years. For a significant part of that time he was news editor of the London Daily Worker. Then, on March 14th 1948 he handed in his resignation as news editor and a week later announced that he had renounced Communism and was joining the Catholic Church....")
  • Ascension (A)(1999)

    by Doug Bratt
    ("This week I read about a woman who was involved in demonstrations against her oppressive and unjust government in South America. Authorities arrested her and put her in solitary confinement. Her cell was cold and damp. Its toilet was just a bucket in the corner and its bed was merely a thin mattress on the floor. Her cell had no window and only a single light bulb...")
  • A Curious Community

    by Amy Butler
    Thomas Troeger, a Presbyterian pastor and gifted preacher, tells a story of an experience he had once. He wrote: “One day several years ago I was in a department store buying myself a new shirt when a complete stranger walked up to me and said, ‘You must be Henry Troeger's son.’ I looked at this person and I said, ‘I don't believe I have ever seen you.’ He said, ‘Oh, no, you have never met me at all, but a long time ago I worked with your father. I was a close colleague of his and when I saw you across the aisle of the store, I said to myself, `I'd know that face anywhere.' You are the very image of your father.’ For several weeks after that, I would sometimes be going down the street, and maybe come around a corner, and catch my reflection in a store window. [I started to see myself] with the eyes of someone else. It is not like looking into the mirror in the morning. I would come around the corner, catch that reflection and I would think, ‘That's Henry Troeger.’ All of a sudden I would be seeing how I bore the image of my father.”...
  • *Why We Evangelize

    by John Christianson
    ("It was November, about two weeks before Thanksgiving. Evelyn telephoned me. She scraped by on Social Security but a couple of unexpected expenses had totally exhausted her resources. We had helped her before. We had included her in our seasonal distribution of funds at Christmas time. Could we possibly do it again?...")
  • *Joy in the Journey

    by Tom Cox
    ("Detectives look for clues after an incident, bereaved relatives divide the estate of a loved one. Computer users leave electronic "footprints" all the time; the delete key does not wipe them out. It seems that one way or another we all leave traces after us- reminders of our presence at a particular place and time...")
  • The Call of Discipleship

    by James R. Davis
    ("A story was told about a church in Atlanta. A man noticed in the Yellow Pages, in the listing of restaurants, an entry for a place called Church of God Grill. The peculiar name aroused his curiosity and he dialed the number. A man answered with a cheery, 'Hello! Church of God Grill!'...")
  • 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?...")
  • Join the Rescue Squad

    by Adrian Dieleman
    "There is a legend which recounts the return of Jesus to glory after his time on earth. He bore the marks of his cruel cross and shameful death. The angel Gabriel approached him and asked, 'Master, do they know all about how you loved them and what you did for them?' 'No,' replied Jesus, 'not yet. Right now only a handful of people in Palestine know..."
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(1999)

    by Mary G. Durkin
    ("Once upon a time, a young woman, who had not been inside a church for a long time, rather hesitantly entered a church and sat in the last pew. During the homily, she began to cry. One of the hospitality ministers noticed her looking through her purse for a tissue and leaned over and offered her one...")
  • Explaining God

    by Danny Dutton
    ("One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn't make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk, He can just leave that to mothers and fathers...")
  • It Takes Three to Make Whole

    by Ernest Munachi Ezeogu, CSSP
    "The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian who wanted so much to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and to be able to explain it logically. One day as he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore..."
  • *Going Home

    by Ron Forrest
    ("The story is told of a young man who graduated from high school and then very nervously and with great anxiety enrolled in a local college. The first day that classes began his professor introduced himself and then he challenged the very nervous young freshmen sitting before him to get to know someone they didn't already know. A particular young man stood up and looked around; then a gentle hand touched his shoulder....")
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2005)

    by Grant Gallup
    ("Matthew Fox, the sometime Dominican, graduated from Rome into Catholicism, authored a book called A Spirituality Named Compassion. In it he tells the difference between the two spiritualities symbolized by the climbing song and the dancing song...")
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(2002)

    by Katherine Merrell Glenn
    Augustus William Hare, a nineteenth century divine, wrote in The English Sermon the familiar, classic, and still useful reflection on the Trinity: 'One of the comparisons or likenesses I am speaking of is taken from the most glorious object which our eyes see, the sun. That ball of light and heat, which we call most properly the sun, may be compared to the Father, from whom both the Word and the Spirit come..." and another illustration
  • Trinity Sunday (B)(2006)

    by Andrew Greeley
    ("'How many of you would like to go to a baseball game with me', the enthusiastic parish priest said to a bunch of teens. 'I have twenty tickets to a Sox game tomorrow afternoon.' About twenty five kids, even some girl kids, put up their hands...")
  • Trinity Sunday (B)(1997)

    by Andrew Greeley
    ("A group of three young mothers who lived on the same street agreed to pool their time and resources so that they could help each other take care of their kids and at the same time provide one another with a little free time. It worked fine, the kids liked it, the fathers liked it...")
  • Trinity Sunday (A)(1996)

    by Andrew Greeley
    ("Once upon a time there was a sophomore basketball team which was, to tell the truth, something less skilled than the Chicago Bulls. Or that was the way they seemed. They couldn't shoot very well, their passing was sloppy, they almost never got a rebound...")
  • 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..."
  • Special Ops

    from Homiletics Online
    ("Together, they're a nightmare for enemies of the United States - a wake-up-screaming, bed-sheet-soaking, bone-chilling nightmare. They're clandestine commandos. Also known as Navy SEAL's, Army Rangers, Green Berets, Marines and Air Force Special Operations teams, these elite military personnel are trained to launch small-scale attacks from aboard Navy ships. Call them , for short...")
  • The Great Comfort

    by John Jewell
    ("For twenty five years I prayed for my agnostic brother Brian. He simply had no interest in God. 'If there is a God,' he was fond of saying, 'Then he should be fired. Just look at this mess our world is in'...")
  • Puzzling Out the Trinity

    by Beth Johnston
    Old Turtle is a delightful and beautifully illustrated children's book which has won several prominent awards. It is a book about God's creation and God's call for all of creation to live in peace and harmony. It is also a book about God. The book is a myth in the best sense of that word, a story with deep meaning that seeks to explain things as they are and teach people how to be in the world.
  • Following Orders

    by David Leininger
    I recall reading of a water shortage a few years ago in Kodiac, Alaska. An order came from the commanding general there that passes and liberty would be cancelled until the water supply was back to normal. All the armed forces complied except a small outpost of Seabees, about 30 in number, under the command of a rough-and-ready warrant officer. Saturday evening came and the Seabees stormed the nearly abandoned city only to be rounded up by the MP's and returned to their base. The chief warrant officer was brought before the provost marshall and asked if he had received the general's order. "Yes, Sir." "Then why didn't you comply?" roared the provost. "Well, Sir, I didn't think it applied to us." "And why not?" "Because, Sir, when my men go to town, they don't drink no water."...
  • The Nearness of God

    by Samuel T. Lloyd III
    ("a woman was a distinguished leader in the art community in the city. She talked about the tremendous richness of her life and her many blessings, including especially her grown children. But when it came to talking about her faith what she said shocked me. 'What I most often feel when I think of God is fear..." and another illustration)
  • Go, Go, Go, Go, Go

    by Edward Markquart
    ("His last name was Wurmbrand, from Romania. I knew about Wurmbrand from Romania. Wurmbrand who had been a victim of Communist torture in Romania, Wurmbrand who seemed to secretly relish reliving and retelling horror stories of being tortured for Christ in Communist camps...")
  • *Over the Bent World Broods

    by Jim McCrea
    ("One group of pictures stood out to me because they were what was called 'stereographic' pictures in the 1850's when these photos were produced. That is, each scene was presented through a pair of photographs, designed to be seen through a special viewer that would enable the person looking at the pictures to see something of a three-dimensional image..." and additional quotes)
  • Thinking Globally, Acting Locally

    by Gordon Moyes
    ("I have just read in ACTION PARTNERS of the death of Rev Joe Penrose a Chaplain to a Hobart Baptist Nursing Home. Joe Penrose and his wife Olive had been missionaries in the Sudan. I once asked them how they became missionaries. Olive explained: 'In the 1930s, my dad was a policeman. One day he dragged a middle-aged man out of the harbour near where lots of homeless people lived...")
  • 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...")
  • *Ascension (A)(2002)

    by Paul O'Reilly, SJ
    ("When I was growing up in my country, there was a very great leader of the Catholic church. His name was Cardinal Heenan. In every way, he was a big man ­ 72 when I knew him. 6 foot 4 tall, broad and strong. But the biggest thing about him was an enormous booming voice which filled every room he ever entered...")
  • The Great Commission

    by William Oldland
    A Roman Catholic missionary by the name of Donovan went to Africa. He was in an area called Masailand. The church had missionaries there for a long time. They had established schools and hospitals. The missionaries took supplies to the schools and brought in the sick. Donovan noticed something odd. No one was speaking to the Masai about God. The schools and hospitals were full, large amounts of money were spent, but the Masai were not responding. In fact, they were considered true pagans. As soon as a Masai student finished school they went back to their tribe never to be heard from again. Noticing this peculiar set of circumstances, Donovan decided to do something radical. He wrote his bishop and asked for permission to take the Gospel to the Masai. He went to the villages and made a deal with the chiefs and elders. He brought no supplies. He would come by once a week to the village. He would talk with them about God and Jesus Christ. At the end of one year the tribe could ask him to stay and teach and baptize or they could ask him to leave and promise never to return. In order to do his teaching he had to rewrite some of the parables...
  • The Three in One

    by William Oldland
    ("One theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, has developed an interesting concept of the Trinity that follows the basic concept of our creeds. The basic concept is that they are three persons of one substance...)
  • In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

    by Ray Osborne
    ("In his work The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer asks the questions, 'What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us to-day?' Bonhoeffer's answers are rooted in grace and God’s Word. The book builds to a stunning conclusion: its closing chapter, 'The Image of Christ', describes the believer's spiritual life as participation in Christ's incarnation...")
  • Bad Arithmetic Makes Good Theology

    by John Pavelko
    ("Jim Burton was born with cerebral palsy. At age three, he could walk if someone held him and his braces were locked. Women from the church would come and help him exercise. Each day he would try to talk but the words would never came. After the exercise session, Jim would stand in the door smiling and waving good-bye to the women who gave him their time and love..." and another illustration)
  • The Peter Principle

    by Gerry Pierse, C.Ss.R
    ("Some years ago Mr. Peter gave us THE PETER PRINCIPLE which said that most things went wrong in society because people tended to be promoted to the level of their incompetence. For example, a teacher is very gifted with children, she can set simple boundaries of discipline that give them security...")
  • Preaching the Gospel in Academy and Society

    by William Placher
    ("In their recent book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon tell the story of the rabbi in Greenville, South Carolina, a friend, who used to challenge the values of the society around him by telling his children, 'That's fine for everyone else, but it's not fine for you. You are special. You are different. You are a Jew. You have a different story. A different set of values.'...")
  • 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...")
  • Training Camp

    by Martin Singley
    ("Once upon a time, down on the rugged coast of Maine where shipwrecks often happen because of a dangerous shoal, there was a crude little lifesaving station...)
  • Ripped from the Headlines: In Every Nook and Cranny

    by John Standiford
    ("West Virginians began burying their fallen coal miners. Friends and families of the twelve miners who died in the Sago Mine disaster mourned their losses. But as The New York Times news service reported, “At the same time, those mourners celebrated the lives and legacies of men who prided themselves on making a living by harvesting coal from deep within the earth...")
  • Go!

    by Billy Strayhorn
    ("This morning I'm going to use a word that some people say shouldn't be used in mixed company. Some say it should NEVER be used from the pulpit because it will run off any visitors you have. And still others say it is so repulsive a word that it should never be used at all. I'm going to go out on a limb this morning and use that word. And I hope it doesn't offend your sensibilities too much. I'm talking about the "E" word, evangelism..." and other illustrations)
  • He's Everywhere, He's Everywhere!

    by Billy D. Strayhorn
    ("Secretary of State Colin Powell tells in his autobiography of an incident during Operation Desert Storm that deeply affected him. Newscaster Sam Donaldson was interviewing a young, African-American private. 'How do you think the battle will go? Are you afraid?' The private replied, 'We'll do okay . . . I'm not afraid because I'm with my family.'...." and other illustrations)
  • 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)
  • Coming Home

    by Alex Thomas
    "In his introduction to Turning To Christ, Urban T. Holmes tells a story that he had heard about John Rathbone Oliver, a pioneer in American psychiatry. He said: 'I do not know whether or not the story is true, but it does not matter. Oliver was brought up in the Episcopal Church and was even a choirboy for a time. Then he left the church and pursued his medical and psychiatric studies..." and other quotes
  • What Are You Trying to Say?

    by Alex Thomas
    "I was moved by a story by Stella Shepard how the presence of her mother became real to her after her mother's death. Here it is in part: 'Time didn't ease the pain of losing my mother. Each day brought new sorrow since her death over a year ago; often I found myself fighting back unexpected tears..."
  • Time to Get Moving

    by Keith Wagner
    ("Two years ago my wife and I traveled to Maine. On the way we visited a Normal Rockwell Museum in a little town in Vermont. The building was an old church that had been converted to a museum. There were hundreds of paintings and artifacts about Rockwell's life and work. Rockwell lived in that little town and the people he painted were all residents..." and other illustrations)
  • 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.'...")
  • Ministry With a Purpose

    by David Zimmerman
    ("In 1851, Queen Victoria and the city of London played host to "The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations"...")
  • The Trinity - Huh?

    by Tim Zingale
    ("A child tells his father: 'our teacher was trying to explain the Trinity, you know, God in three persons?' The father answers 'Son, I REALLY think this is a Mom question, don't you?' C: Dad.... P: All right, what is your question? C: Well, I guess it is just confusing. I mean, I have never met a Trinity before...")

Other Resources from 2015 and 2016

Other Resources from 2008 to 2010

Other Resources from 2004 to 2007

Other Resources from the Ascension 2002

Other Resources for the Trinity from the Archives

Other Resources for the Ascension and General from the Archives

Resources from the Bookstore

  • *Between Loss and Promise

    by William J. Bausch (from Storytelling the Word)
  • Puccini's Last Opera

    by William J. Bausch
    Puccini's last opera "Turandot" is completed by his students after his death.
  • *Trinity Sunday (B)

    by William J. Bausch (from Storytelling the Word)
    ("a priest friend of mine was summoned one day to the chancery and told, 'Father, we are sending you to this old, inner city parish. There are some wonderful people there; yet they are old and the church and the parish have been in decline for the past 20 years. Just a handful of people left now, so they won't expect much ministry from you...")

Children's Resources and Dramas

The Classics

Recursos en Español

Currently Unavailable

  • What Are You Trying to Say?

    by Alex Thomas
    ("I was moved by a story by Stella Shepard how the presence of her mother became real to her after her mother's death. Here it is in part: 'Time didn't ease the pain of losing my mother. Each day brought new sorrow since her death over a year ago; often I found myself fighting back unexpected tears...")
  • Trinity Sunday

    by Don Schwager
  • Inconvenient Truth

    by Bob Cornwall
  • What a Mission We Have!

    (Puppet Script by Louise Ferry)
  • Tips for Discipleship: Go, Baptize and Preach

    by John and Robin McCullough-Bade
  • Children's Literature

    from Union Presbyterian Seminary
  • Trinity Sunday

    by Joyce Ann Zimmerman
  • Illustrations

    by Tim Zingale
  • Easter Sunday

    by Dorothy Okray
    ("The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian who really wanted to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and to be able to explain it logically. One day as he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a hole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup, came and poured it into the hole she had made in the sand...")
  • God in Community (Trinity)

    by David Russell
    ("The story is told of an aging Jew crossing the street in front of a Roman Catholic Church who was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver. Half-conscious and lying in the street, a priest ran out of the church to administer last rites. 'Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?' the priest asked. The old man cried, 'I'm dying, and this guy is asking me riddles!'..." and other illustrations)
  • Ascensión del Señor (A)(2020)

    por Charlie Johnson, OP
  • Santísima Trinidad (B)(2021)

    por Regina McCarthy, OP