Trinity Archives - Catechist's Journey

8 Steps to Energize Your Faith video series

8 Steps to Energize Your Faith, Step Four: Build and Celebrate Relationships

What does the doctrine of the Trinity have to do with our everyday living? Quite a bit, actually! We are all made in the image and likeness of God, and our God just happens to be a community of Persons. In other words, one of God’s defining attributes is relationality. God reveals himself to us as a community of three Persons—the Trinity—whose love is so great and so intimate that God is One. We can […]

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Praying with the Trinity

Darcy Osby

The Trinity is a beautiful mystery that cannot be fully explained or understood through human language, which makes it a challenge to communicate to children when we rely on words in our catechesis. The early Christians came to know God as trinitarian through their lived experiences of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We can help children to identify their own experiences of the Persons of the Trinity and therefore come to a […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Celebrating Relationships and Trinity Sunday

Joe Paprocki

We have learned many things during this pandemic, one of which is just how much we value relationships. For Catholics, that should come as no surprise, since we believe we are made in the image and likeness of a relational God—a community of Persons whose relationship is so intimate that they are One! In today’s episode of Pop-Up Catechesis, we look at the notion of celebrating relationships in anticipation of Trinity Sunday (June 7, 2020). […]

Spirituality of the Catechist: Online Retreat for Catechists

Don’t Chase God; Be Caught Instead

Jayne Ragasa-Mondoy

This reflection is part of the Spirituality of the Catechist Online Retreat. Craig, Janice, and their two young daughters could always be counted on to participate in parish family life programs. By all accounts Craig was the super-Catholic dad: a humble man of faith; a role model for other dads. After a particularly long afternoon of family-ministry activities, I noticed Craig sitting in a far corner of the church lawn. I wandered over, sat beside […]

Teaching the Trinity

Denise Gorss

Several of my students experienced a “light-bulb moment” in our recent discussion of the Trinity. So often we sow seeds never to see whether they take root, much less grow; seeing faces light up in understanding is always a fun moment. Our guiding text for the day was Finding God, Grade 7, Chapter 1. Even though this is the first chapter in the text, I usually skip over it until we’ve been in class together […]

Explaining the Holy Trinity

Lisa Jones

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”—these are words we use every time we pray the Sign of the Cross. Even young children know them. The prayer expresses the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, that God reveals himself in Three Persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is difficult for anyone to understand, especially young children. St. Patrick famously explained the Trinity by relating God in Three […]

The Most Holy Trinity – A Feast of Heaven and Earth and Close Encounters

Joe Paprocki

There seems to be no shortage of movies about the lives of human beings AFTER the earth is destroyed (Wall-E, Oblivion, After Earth, just to name a few). We seem to be resigned to the notion that our penchant for disposability will result in the eventual destruction of this planet. Unfortunately, too much of Christianity does little to combat this notion since the false notion persists that our ultimate destiny is to escape this planet […]

Year of Faith Retreat – Week 1, Day 3: A Family Resemblance to God (The Trinity)

Joe Paprocki

WEEK ONE: The Creed DAY 3: A Family Resemblance to God (The Trinity) To whom do you bear a family resemblance? It can be a physical resemblance or a personality trait that you share. As baptized Catholics, we are members of God’s family, made in his image and likeness. The question for us today is, “do we bear a family resemblance to our God?” Of course, we are not talking about a physical resemblance, because God […]

A Mighty Wind!

Joe Paprocki

This past Monday evening, Chicago lived up to its name as the “windy city” (although that name originated not as a description of the climate in Chicago but of the politics!) with wind gusts reaching 40-50 mph. A good night to be teaching about the Holy Spirit! Sure enough, just as I told the young people that we would be learning about the Holy Spirit, a huge gust of wind blew through an open window, […]

Teaching About the Holy Spirit and the Trinity

Joe Paprocki

I’ve had just enough time to prepare my lesson for tonight and have not left enough time to tell you about it in detail! Suffice to say that we will be learning about the Holy Spirit and how we are never alone because of the Spirit’s presence. We’ll focus on the word ADVOCATE to talk about how the Spirit helps us (my aide is a nurse and I’ve asked her to talk about how as […]