One thing we hear often as priests with regards to our preaching is we should, when we preach, make it applicable. Make it practical, relevant to our lives so it finds a way to break open the Scriptures or the feast, depending upon the day or the weekend, in such a way we can understand it, take it home, and apply it. Great encouragement! We need to be reminded

of that.

But here we are on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Perhaps, so it would seem in many ways, the most abstract, the most purely theological, the most irrelevant feast of all the feasts we celebrate throughout the course of the year in the Church. It would seem.

But I would argue and suggest, in fact, there is no feast that is more practical, more relevant, more important, perhaps with the exception of Holy Week and Christmas, for you and I to understand. And this for simply one reason: cause you and I are created in the image and likeness of God. If you and I don’t know who God is, we will never know what life is all about.

Only to the degree we know God, who has made himself known, will we ever know what we’re made for, how to live, how to find the happiness that every single person here and throughout the world craves. Cause we’re made in his image and his likeness.

So who is God? Well, the most basic thing you and I can say about God is he’s three. Three persons, one nature. Person answers the question: who is that? Nature answers the question: what is that? God is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; one nature, all sharing in divinity. These three persons live in a communion of love. As one person put it, they live in a reckless exchange of love, meaning they hold nothing back from each other, they pour all they have out to the other. Which means what, for you and me? It means this: you and I are made for relationships. For communion. For friendship. For love.

Love is the only thing. Real friendships. Sincere friendships are the only thing that will ever ultimately satisfy us. You and I have been created in God’s image and likeness who is love, this God who is three persons. First to be loved by God and by others. Second to love, first God and then others.

But it gets more practical than that, I think. Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, is not only true God but truly man, and therefore, it’s only to the degree you and I know him that you and I really understand how to live, of how to be human cause he’s the perfect human.

One way I meditate at times, or rather contemplate the life of Jesus, is to consider his hidden life. Those glimpses of who Jesus is that lie in between the verses of Scripture. Those moments of Jesus’ life that are absolutely ordinary. If Jesus is God and if God himself walked this earth revealing himself not just in the big ways with miracles but in everything he does, including the small ways, then those socalled ordinary moments reveal something too.

One image comes to mind is Jesus at Lazarus’ house with Martha and Mary. Three people, we know in the Gospels, with whom we know he was extremely close. Three of his best friends outside of the apostles. And imagine Jesus sitting there with them, finishing a meal, savoring a last bite with a bit of wine and afterwards says to Lazarus “that is really good wine. Could I please have some more?” And the point of that image isn’t to drink, the point there is to say “rest.” Relax. Play. God loves to play. It’s said in Scripture that God finds his delight in us. And with an image like that, God teaches us and gives us permission, especially on Sundays, to rest. To enjoy life which he has fashioned for us.

Another image to contemplate is Jesus in bed asleep. You can imagine him resting soundly in a place like Capernaum, a place he spent much of his time. Imagine Jesus sleeping while people were sick and dying. And the point here isn’t to be lazy. But it’s a challenge really to me and to us that if he, the Eternal Son of God, who was sent to save the world can sleep soundly at night, what are you and I doing up? Why are we restless? What enabled him to rest soundly that prevents me or you perhaps? He did that because of the trust he has in his Father.

So, the encouragement to us today is to do the same. Trust the Father. He has made all that is, most especially all of us and all those we love, let’s hand everyone we care for into his hands, trusting he who made us is certainly at work within our lives trying to bring about that which he has created us for.

Sunday, this time to rest, so let’s ask the Trinity to give us permission and the grace to play. To take a break. To enjoy each other. To be freed from the compulsions that so often control our lives. Let’s ask the Trinity for the grace to grow in trust and let’s ask him to invite us more deeply into the communion of love that is God and the grace to love each other as we should.

Sunday Mass begins at 11 a.m. with the sacrament of reconciliation at 10:15 a.m. Come pray with us at St. Michael Catholic Church located at 1004 W. Gentry in Henryetta.

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Hoffman First Baptist Church

4th St. & School • Hoffman 405-606-5603

Hoffman First Baptist Church is located at 4th St. & School in Hoffman. Come join us at Hoffman First Baptist Church as we study and learn about our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Sunday School Bible Study begins at 10 a.m. and is followed by Morning Worship at 11 a.m. Everyone is welcome and invited to attend.

--- Henryetta First Christian Church

Sunday School begins at 9 a.m. followed by Worship Service at 10 a.m. Come join us for worship! Everyone is welcome and invited to attend. Henryetta First Christian Church is located at 412 N. 5th Street. Pete Wilson is pastor.

The food pantry distribution will now be held the last Saturday of each month at 10 a.m.

--- Handy Chapel AME Church

1st & Broadway • Beggs Sunday Worship Service takes place at 10 a.m.