Special St. Patrick's Day Trinity Reflection - March 17, 2021

March 17, 2021

St. Patrick's Day Trinity Reflection - March 17, 2021


I’m sure many of us have heard of the analogy of the shamrock, the 3-leaf clover, as a way to imagine God: there are 3 leaves but one plant.

I remember hearing this analogy from when I was very young.


My great-grandparents were immigrants from Ireland. They came from Ireland in the early 1900s, met, and had my grandmother and her sister.


When I was little, my dad worked 3 jobs to support our family and for a few years we lived with our grandparents. Even though I was no older than 4 years old, I have some of the most vivid, beautiful memories of that time.


I remember my grandmother used to take my sister and I to this big, beautiful tree across the street from their house. It was on the property of a public elementary school but we were always welcome to come to the tree.


There were plenty of clovers in the grass and my grandmother (Nanny, as we call her) would pick many of them and she would call my sister and I over to her. She would say, “you see this? This is how you can understand God. He is 3 persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But He is one God”.


I remember my little brain couldn’t really wrap my mind around it, but I could tell it was important to my Nanny and so it was important to me.


Because of this, the doctrine of the Trinity has always been special to me. My Nanny is now suffering in late stages of Alzheimer’s. She has her good and bad days. She lives in New Jersey so I don’t get to see her that often and I don’t know if she remembers me.



However. She taught me, from my earliest days, about God. I would say that she is one of the main reasons that I am Catholic and practicing my faith and in love with God today.


The Trinity is difficult to understand, it’s why we call it a “mystery”. We will never fully understand it in this lifetime; but God loves us despite our lack of understanding. He has something to teach us and tell us in each member of His Trinity. Just like I didn’t understand when Nanny told me about the Trinity, I saw her love and the importance of it. And I believed and haven’t stopped believing.


May we have that same love and trust in our Heavenly Father, who loves us more than any earthly person can and may we say, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”


(Reposted from Trinity Sunday 2020.)

From the Pastor

From the Pastor - First Sunday of Advent

By John Putnam • December 2, 2025
Today we begin the beautiful season of Advent — a season of preparation. For what are we preparing? The celebration of the birth of our Savior, and the anticipation of His second coming. These are weighty tasks with eternal consequences. So, let us as Christian stewards make the words of the Prophet Isaiah our motto for the season: “Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways and we may walk in his paths.” In the weeks leading up to Christmas, it seems everywhere we turn we are pushed to spend more, do more, entertain more, and generally rush around at a frantic pace — all to create a “perfect” Christmas day. In contrast to this worldly pressure, the Church’s guidance to use these weeks as a time to focus on our spiritual lives can indeed seem like a mountain climb. But the intentional and wise use of the gift of time is exactly what the Christian steward is called to do, and with even greater intensity during Advent. How can we use our time to prepare for a holy celebration of Jesus’ birth on Dec. 25 and for his second coming at a date we do not know? We can push back against the world’s pressure to have the “perfect Christmas.” Scale back on the material kind of gift-giving, the complicated menus, the unessential trappings of the season so that we have more time for the spiritual preparations: Confession, weekday Mass, adoration, family prayer time, lighting the Advent wreath, acts of kindness. It may feel like a mountain climb, but in the end, we will be prepared to celebrate a truly meaningful Christmas, we will have become more like our Savior, and we will be ready for Him to come again. Let’s go climb the Lord’s mountain! © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2025 From the Pastor Advent brings a time of new beginning. A new liturgical year is upon us, but it is also a time to prepare our hearts for something – for the coming of the Lord. The first weeks of Advent focus on the Lord’s coming at the end of time, and the latter weeks of Advent focus on preparing to celebrate His coming at the Nativity. Both, however, are interconnected. The first coming of the Lord facilitates His coming into our hearts, which, in the end, facilitates His second coming to judge the living and the dead. The “in between” of these two comings is where time and eternity come together. We are called to live each day in expectation of His coming. We are called to hope for His coming and to expect it even when it seems long delayed. It is in this expectation that we must learn to live our lives. Daily life is messy and unpredictable. We must deal with disappointments, sickness and loss. Yet, we do so as people of hope who know that in these crosses, there lies ultimate joy because of the love of the Father who sent his Son to love us to the end. As we begin a new journey in a new liturgical year, let us do so with joyful expectation. Knowing that the end of the journey, if we are faithful, is paradise.

From the Pastor - Solemnity of Christ the King

By John Putnam • November 21, 2025
On this Feast of Christ the King, our readings show us that we serve the greatest of Kings, who is at the same time the humblest of Kings. Christ is the perfect model of servant leadership. And what an indescribable privilege that He has called us to be servant leaders — stewards in the work of advancing His Kingdom. In our second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Paul describes the great power and dignity that characterize Christ the King. “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.” It makes you want to stand up and cheer. That’s our King! Yet, what a contrasting description of the same King we find in our Gospel passage, from Luke. Now we see our King nailed to the Cross. Everyone from rulers to soldiers, to the criminals on either side of Christ is mocking, sneering, and reviling him. They tauntingly urge him to prove His kingship by coming down from the Cross to end his suffering with a great show of power. “if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” But He does not. Amazingly, it is in this moment of seeming-weakness and humiliation, when all appears hopeless and lost, that the full breadth of his greatness as king is displayed. Though all things were created through and for Him — Christ chooses to live entirely for others, for us! What does this mean for us as his followers and stewards of His kingdom? It is precisely that our lives are not about us. They are about Christ and others. And we will advance his kingdom to the extent that we embrace this mindset: my life is not about me; it is about serving the King of kings. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2025