Free Republic

White Double of the First Class ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST, the Holy Apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master, they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations and baptizing men in the name of the Holy Trinity It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honor the mystery of One God in Three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet it was not till after many centuries that...

May 27, 2018 The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Reading 1 Dt 4:32-34, 39-40 Moses said to the people:"Ask now of the days of old, before your time,ever since God created man upon the earth;ask from one end of the sky to the other:Did anything so great ever happen before?Was it ever heard of?Did a people ever hear the voice of Godspeaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himselffrom the midst of another nation,by testings, by signs and wonders, by war,with strong hand...

Loving the Spirit Holy Spirit may be harder to relate to as a person, but we can know him through his fruits and works Msgr. Charles Pope Question: I have difficulty relating to the Holy Spirit. Is the Spirit a person? Are there any suggestions that you can make? — Name, location withheld Answer: Many do struggle to relate to the Holy Spirit as a person for two reasons. First, the images of Father and Son speak to our human experience of personhood. A father or a son is person whom we can see and relate to. But in English,...

Now, John Fa of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Trinity, Jersey, says Neanderthals eventually bit the dust because they were unable to adapt their hunting to small animals like rabbits. Fa and his colleagues counted up the skeletons of animals found in three excavation sites in Spain and southern France. Up until 30,000 years ago, the remains of large animals such as deer were abundant in caves. But around that time, coinciding with the disappearance of Neanderthals, rabbit remains became more prevalent. The authors postulate that humans were more successful at switching to catching and eating rabbits. It's not...

We are in a time of the first ever mass conversions of Muslims,” Father Mitch Pacwa SJ told me in a phone interview. “God is doing a mighty work among them.” Pacwa said that mass conversions are happening even in very fundamentalist countries. There is rapidly growing number of conversions especially on the edges of the Muslim world in the western and southern parts of Africa, he said. “Africa is now growing predominantly Christian despite crackdowns,” Pacwa said. Some of the noteworthy countries he mentioned include Iran, reported to have 3 million Christians, and Indonesia with reports of 2 million...

Donors have pulled back and incoming students have decided to go elsewhere in response to the firestorm that erupted from a professor’s racially-charged Facebook posts, Trinity College’s president said Monday. Joanne Berger-Sweeney said 16 incoming students have withdrawn and past donors have chosen not to contribute to the school this year, resulting in about a $200,000 loss in donations. Both groups specifically cited the national uproar surrounding Professor Johnny Eric Williams’ posts, she said.

It was on this date in 1945 that, for good or ill, the "nuclear age" began, with the explosion of the first experimental atomic bomb, code-named Trinity, in the western desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Trinity, with a yield equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT, was the first spherical implosion bomb, developed at Los Alamos under the auspices of the Manhattan Project during World War II. The weapon designers were so confident of the success of the simpler gun-barrel configuration that the device of that type dropped on Hiroshima only three weeks later had never been tested. The subsequent Nagasaki...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH)– Trinity College in Hartford is closed in response to a threat Wednesday afternoon. The college tweeted out that due to threats received, the Trinity College campus, at 300 Summit Street, is now closed until further notice. College officials also tweeted that campus buildings were only card ID access only. The nature of the threat is unknown at this time.

One and One and One Are One - A Homily for Trinity Sunday Msgr. Charles Pope • June 10, 2017 • There is an old spiritual that says, “My God is so high you can’t get over Him. He’s so low you can’t get under Him. He’s so wide you can’t get around Him. You must come in, by and through the Lamb.”It’s not a bad way of saying that God is “other.” He is beyond what human words can describe, beyond what human thoughts can conjure. On the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity we do well to...

June 11, 2017 The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Reading 1 Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinaias the LORD had commanded him,taking along the two stone tablets. Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses thereand proclaimed his name, "LORD."Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,"The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord,do come along in our company.This is indeed...

“The Athanasian Creed: Incomprehensible?”Today is Trinity Sunday--or, more properly called, the Feast of the Holy Trinity--and as such, this is the one day in the year when we confess the Athanasian Creed. Actually, we believe, teach, and confess the Athanasian Creed 365 days a year; it’s just this is the one day in the year when we speak it aloud in church during the service. You see, the church confesses three ecumenical creeds: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. They are called “ecumenical” creeds, because they are held all across Christendom. The Apostles’ Creed is the...

It is beyond my power of discernment to identify the most over-the-top comment criticizing President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord. But this tweet by a Harvard professor named Joyce Chaplin is surely a contender: The USA, created by int’l community in Treaty of Paris in 1783, betrays int’l community by withdrawing from #parisclimateagreement today. Chaplin teaches American Studies. Yet, she appears not to know how America was created. Ted Cruz reminded her: Just sad. Tenured chair at Harvard, doesn’t seem to know how USA was created. Not a treaty. Declaration+Revolutionary War+Constitution=USA. He added: Lefty academics...

Why Did the Second Person of the Trinity Become Incarnate Rather Than the Father or the Holy Spirit? Msgr. Charles Pope • December 19, 2016 • As we continue to await the fast-approaching Feast of Holy Christmas, it is good to ponder some aspects of the Incarnation. Among the questions for us to consider is why it was the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, that became incarnate, rather than the Father or the Holy Spirit.Most people have never even thought of this question let alone sought to answer it. God could have chosen many different ways...

Beyond creeds. All attempts to articulate the Triune Godhead that I have seen focus on inconsequentials. The nature of the Trinity is rather simple but I can't come up with a way to express it compactly so please bear with me. You will acknowledge that God in His Omnipotence has the power to create a perfect copy of me, a color Xerox of me if you will. Such a copy might be so perfect that the copy would be convinced that he actually WAS me. My family couldn't tell the difference either because he would share every single attribute I...

The alleged abuse happened during nap time, documents from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office show. The details of the case are so disturbing and so unthinkable, that those who hear the facts have a visceral reaction. They wince. They make faces. Some look down and sigh.

By the time Bud Spencer attracted legions of Italian spaghetti western film fans, including Quentin Tarantino, he had done more than most people do in a lifetime. After a life in which he worked as a multi-sport Olympic athlete, politician, entrepreneur, pilot and, yes, an actor, Spencer died on Monday at a hospital in Rome. He was 86, but he had packed centuries into those years. “My father died peacefully at 6:15 p.m. and did not suffer from pain, he had all of us next to him and his last words were ‘Thank you’,” his son Giuseppe Pedersoli, a film...

The troubles for the “Trinity Root” began with an inquiry about touching up the sculpture’s patina. (snip) But according to Mr. Tobin and his manager, Kathleen Rogers, the conversation about patina opened a larger discussion about the sculpture’s placement: Now, they fear it will be moved or “just disappear,” said Ms. Rogers. (snip) Ms. Rogers is unconvinced. “There’s something in the works for them to find a way to get rid of it,” she said. “Trinity Root” was inspired by the story of a massive sycamore tree that shielded—and some say helped to save—the nearby St. Paul’s Chapel from the...

“St. Patrick’s Breastplate: I Bind unto Myself Today” In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Happy St. Patrick’s Day! “What??” you’re saying. “Pastor, have you lost your mind? St. Patrick’s Day was back on March 17. This is now May something. What’s up with this ‘Happy St. Patrick’s Day’?” Well, alright, I’ll tell you, since you asked. This day is not really St. Patrick’s Day. But it is a day on which St. Patrick can teach us something about what this day really is about, and that is, it’s Trinity Sunday....

One and One and One Are One - A Homily for Trinity Sunday Msgr. Charles Pope • May 21, 2016 • There is an old spiritual that says, “My God is so high you can’t get over Him. He’s so low you can’t get under Him. He’s so wide you can’t get around Him. You must come in, by and through the Lamb.”It’s not a bad way of saying that God is “other.” He is beyond what human words can describe, beyond what human thoughts can conjure. And on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, we do well...

May 22, 2016 The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Reading 1 Prv 8:22-31 Thus says the wisdom of God:"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;from of old I was poured forth,at the first, before the earth.When there were no depths I was brought forth,when there were no fountains or springs of water;before the mountains were settled into place,before the hills, I was brought forth;while as yet the earth and fields were not made,nor the first clods of the world. "When the Lord established the heavens I was there,when he...