Know - Grow - Go

How do we live lives of passion for our Lord while bringing others to him as well? We need to recognize that our attitudes and the tools we use to share the Good News matter - and some are better than others. To be effective in sharing the love of God and his Gospel, we need to get off our steamrollers and jump on our backhoes.

Satan, the accuser and father of lies, wants us to believe that God doesn’t really love us; that God can’t really be trusted and doesn’t want the best for us. That He’s just waiting for us to mess up, so He can punish us. Those are all lies, and we have to reject them and live in the truth that God does love us. He is trustworthy. He does want good for us. And coming to know Him and these truths i...

With Fr. Bill on vacation, we had Fr. Jim Rigert, C.S.C., from the University of Portland preside at our 9:30am Mass this past weekend. He spoke of how we are meant to participate in the life of the Risen Christ through our faith, our hope, and our love when we love one another in the Lord.

Life on our beautiful but broken planet has always been threatened by dangerous natural forces, by chance, by sin, and by those mysterious dark powers at war with God and with life. Our mission as children of God is to "sparkle with self-forgetfulness": to stand in the breach, to intercede, and even sometimes to risk our lives out of love for our neighbor. So this week, as you’re offering your day...

Make an extra effort this week to be more attentive and hospitable to others - to welcome your neighbor and show them the love and care that recognizes their inherent dignity as a child of God.

We are called to love our neighbor regardless of our differences, which means we do not avoid, reject, or cancel others. Is this easy? No - but the most important things rarely are.

It's sometimes necessary to say 'goodbye' in order to say 'hello'. Last week, we said 'goodbye' to Fr. Dave and Fr. Tony; this week, we say 'hello' to our new Pastor, Fr. Bill Holtzinger!

For his final homily at Holy Trinity, Fr. Dave reviews the three major themes that developed and drove his ministry these past 15 years: Invite God into everything in your life. When we put Him first, all else falls into place. This is not heaven. Expect and accept difficulties, questions, and the cross. Learn to carry a dynamic tension, knowing that in real life with real people most issues are n...

Sometimes we think we need to present a sanitized version of ourselves or of our lives to God, and then we wonder why we’re not healed. Why do we do that? Jesus ate with sinners, willingly. He touched the sick, physically. He sought out the lost, intentionally. He’s comfortable with our weakness, our brokenness, our foolishness. And in the Eucharist, he waits for us, like a parent waiting for thei...

In honor of Trinity Sunday, and with his departure approaching at the end of the month, Fr. Tony speaks to his personal and ongoing experience of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit during his time here at Holy Trinity.

When our focus is on God, then it's possible for us to be united together with all kinds of differences in our midst. That is what Pentecost is about: the coming down of the Spirit, renewing us and helping us to stay focused on God so we can be united.

Invite Jesus in to your life and ask Him what He wants you to do. As you begin to sense that He is telling you something, you have to respond. Little by little, you will begin to see Him moving within you – and, in that movement, you’ll experience the joy that comes with having Jesus in your life.

Jesus promises us that, yes, we are going to have suffering and crosses that we will have to deal with - and that he will work with us in those moments and bring good out of it. Oftentimes, we don't see it; but God will never let go of any of us, and he is working especially in the challenging moments of our lives. 

Church isn't a refuge; it's a raid on the kingdom of the enemy, designed to undermine his power. Every time we meet adversity, misfortune, misunderstanding, and hostility with patience, trust, forgiveness, and the strength that comes from God, Jesus' victory on the Cross spreads a little further.

God is love, and He loves us far more than we will ever comprehend, far more even than we can love each other or our own children (and that's a lot).

Fr. Dave reminds us that every time we receive Holy Communion, no matter what age we are, Jesus is saying directly to each of us: "Everything's okay, because I am with you." 

More than a few of us are likely often tempted to ask the Lord if He's really there. While He isn't likely to appear to us as He did with the apostles, you can be assured that He is calling out to each and every one of us. Take your doubt to Jesus and begin a conversation with Him. Just as He did with Thomas, He'll meet us where we are at any given time - even (and perhaps especially) in our doubt...

To be Eastered means that we accept and expect that our lives will have frustrations, setbacks, difficulties, and loss - along with many rich blessings - and that we accept and expect that we won't be exempted from any of that, any more than Jesus Himself wasn't exempted from that. That means that we must learn to live with the unknown and what we don't understand, trusting in God that He is activ...

Think about some aspect of your life, or that of someone you are close to, that you would like Jesus - who intimately understands pain and suffering - to bring His light love to. It was His suffering and dying on the cross, and, ultimately, His resurrection, that transforms our experiences from being meaningless to being redemptive. And that's why, every year, we celebrate this particular Friday a...

We all have parts of our life, of our personality, maybe even of our physical body, that reek, that we don’t like, that embarrass us, shame us, that we shield with anger or pride or defensiveness or other strategies. What the Lord shows to Peter - and to each of us, too - is that we don’t have to hide these things from Him. He didn’t come for the perfect; He works with who we are. And if we accept...

As part of our daily prayer this Holy Week (and beyond!), let's pray that we can imitate Jesus and be the kind of filter that filters out the negativity and brings only kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, graciousness, and forgiveness. Let's pray that the Holy Spirit will do that work within us, so that we, the whole community of us, can go out and change this world one encounter at a time - the...

What do we do with our loved ones whose lives are out of step with the Church? We love them; listen to them; accompany them. Share with them our own struggles and convictions. We keep them connected to Jesus through our love and prayers so that His grace can work in their lives. We can support those we love without celebrating every choice they make. As difficult and uncomfortable as it might be,...

Fr. Dave reads a contemporary version of the Prodigal Son parable and has the choir lead a response with the song "Hosea." The Prayers of the Faithful provide the application of Fr. Dave's core point: that God never gives up on us.   "Hosea". Text and music, Gregory Norbet, OSB, © 1972, The Benedictine Foundation of the State of Vermont, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Permission t...

Just as the gardener encourages patience and careful cultivation for the unproductive fig tree, God is patient and always willing to meet us where we're at - warts, defects, imperfections, and all. He needs only for us to open our hearts to His tender care.

The ultimate truth of our faith is this: when we die, Jesus alone will remain. Lent is about keeping that perspective front and center. Think about the Lenten practices you're committing to and use those as a way of remembering that He will be with you as you walk through every day of your life and into eternity, because Jesus alone remains.