Show Glory to the Holy Trinity: Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, how fitting it is that my last day as assistant to the parish priest of the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman is a Sunday – the beginning, and end, of a new week. How even more fitting that this closure of a cycle is on the Sunday when we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Fitting, because the theme that I will develop, animated by the teachings of the lectionary for this great feast, has been the theme that has animated my first year in pastoral life.

In the first reading we hear the words that Moses addresses to God

If I find favor with you, O Lord,
do come along in our company.
This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins,
and receive us as your own.

We are as stiff-necked and wicked and sinful as the people of Israel, our fathers in faith, and yet, the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – chose to come into our company and pitch tent among us. This tent is present in every Catholic Church in the world, and in this Cathedral our forefathers built a particularly beautiful tent for Him in the form of the Chapel of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

This chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is precious not only because God – the Most Holy Trinity – dwells there, but also for the instruction we receive on our faith and the importance of the Blessed Sacrament through the paintings on the walls. One of these paintings is a representation of the vision of Jacob, where he saw a stairway leading to heaven, and angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth. This place was where Jacob set up a shrine to honour God.

As I have preached so many times before, every tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament is the site of the ladder that allows us to reach heaven, and there are countless angels ascending and descending at this spot praising the Triune God in His glory.

My dear brothers and sisters, when Our Lord Jesus Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament, He is not present alone. Recall His words to the disciples in the Gospel according to John (14:10):

I am in the Father and the Father is in me

And further in the same chapter (14:21):

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,

and we will come to them and make our home with them.

Where the Son is, there is the Father; where the Father and Son are, the Holy Spirit who is born of their love also is. In other words, in every tabernacle where the Son – the ladder that bridges heaven and earth – is, the Father and the Holy Spirit are also present.

It should not, therefore, surprise us, that two of the prayers of Fatima, mention the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Sacrament in the same breath.

Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, my God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

And

Most Holy Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.

If this is the case, if God, the Holy Trinity dwells with us, should we not be more careful in our behaviour before the Blessed Sacrament? As we read in the first reading, the moment Moses realized he was in the presence of God, he:

at once bowed down to the ground in worship

This is the place where angels ascend and descend, and we should genuflect at the very least before the tabernacle, yet we are so stiff-necked, wicked and sinful that most people simply walk past the tabernacle without recognizing the God who dwells there, for no other reason, than for us! As I have said before, dear brothers and sisters, a mere bow is not sufficient, what makes us Catholic is the fact that we genuflect to demonstrate that we recognize the true and real presence of God among us.

In a recent catechism offered at the Wednesday public audience, Pope Leo appealed to us:

let us allow ourselves to be shaped inwardly by the rites, symbols, gestures and above all the living presence of Christ.

My dear brothers and sisters, the living presence of Christ is the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. With Him are the Father and the Holy Spirit. Let us allow, therefore, the traditions of our fathers, that showed profound respect to the Blessed Sacrament, to shape our lives and our souls as well.

And so, let us make the words of the Gospel acclamation today our own and promise to give:

Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
to God who is, who was, and who is to come.

May the Triune God bless you all. Keep me in your prayers.

(A version of this homily was preached in Concanim to the faithful at the Cathedral parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Old Goa on 31 May 31, 2026.)

(Image reference: The Holy Trinity, Sebastiano Conca, Chiesa di San Francesco Saverio, Rome.)

Remain in Jerusalem! Homily for Pentecost Sunday

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Our Lord; in the first reading last Sunday, we read that Our Lord commanded the disciples to not depart, or remain, in Jerusalem, and,

wait for “the promise of the Father
about which you have heard me speak;
for John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

This Sunday, when we celebrate the feast of the Pentecost, and the fulfillment of the promise of Our Lord, we read:

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.

Remain in Jerusalem, was the command of Our Lord to the disciples, and they were faithful to this commandment, remaining “all in one place together,” and earlier in Acts (1: 14) we read that:

They all joined together constantly in prayer,

along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

The word, the command, the request; “remain” is not foreign to the language of Our Lord. Listen, for example, to His words to His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before His Passion.

“I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” (Mt 23. 38)

These words allow us to understand that Jerusalem is not just a definite geographic location, it is also an attitude. It is an attitude of remaining in unity – with Holy Mother Church, an attitude of unity in prayer, an attitude of waiting for the Passion (including our own) to unfold, and an attitude of waiting for the fulfillment of the divine promises.

In the Gospel according to John (15: 9) Our Lord says to his disciples:

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide [or remain] in my love.

We understand Jerusalem, therefore, to be the place of the love of God the Father and God the Son; the Love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father. And where these two persons of the Holy Trinity are, can the third, the Holy Ghost be far behind?

And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.

With the entry of the Holy Spirit into the room, we have the laying of the foundation of the New Jerusalem which will be completed at the end of time.

Let us contemplate an aspect of St. John the evangelist’s vision of the New Jerusalem for just a moment:

It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels (Rev 21: 12)

Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. (Rev 21: 25)

The book of Revelation teaches us that the New Jerusalem has no gates because it will receive the nations and the kings of the earth (24) – in other words people will come in. But Our Lord’s words to Peter “and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it” (Mt 16: 18) teach us also that the task of the New Jerusalem is to go out through these open gates and combat the world.

Listen to the words from the first reading:

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Those of us who are filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of our Baptism, are enabled to proclaim the Kingdom of God to those people who have lived in darkness. As we hear in the Gospel today, through the apostles Our Lord Himself instructs us of our task, as citizens of His Jerusalem:

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

To employ the words of St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Brothers and sisters:
No one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

We have all been given the great gift of the Holy Spirit so that renewed at every Eucharist, we might sally forth from the great city of God, and do battle with the forces of darkness that lurk around us. It is our obligation to bring light to the world and convert the world to the recognition of the triumph of Our Lord. We are not alone in this battle, we have with us the Advocate, who will teach us what to say (and do) (Jn 14: 26).

Remain, therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, faithful to your tasks, and strong in His Love!

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the Cathedral parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria, on 23 May 2026.)

(Image reference: Pentecost (detail), El Greco, c. 1600, Museo del Prado, Madrid.)

Come and Worship: Homily for Ascension Sunday

My dear brothers and sisters in Our Lord Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of Our Lord to heaven. He ascended to heaven, in human form, so that He may sit at the right hand of the Father, forever interceding for us.

Contemplating the Gospel for this feast the following words attracted my attention:

              When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.

This sentence captures perfectly not only the attitude that should be ours on this feast, worship; but also the sentiment that often accompanies our response to Our Lord and Saviour, doubt.

The human being has worship in his DNA. Look all around us, not just Catholics, but every single human being, from every religious denomination, including those who claim to have no religion. You will see that as a species we are driven by a desire to worship. It is for this reason homo sapiens is also known as homo adorans – the worshipping man.

This drive for worship, however, can sometimes take us down the wrong road, where rather than worship God, the maker and the creator of the universe, we begin to worship his creations, whether other persons, spirits, nature, or indeed, ourselves.

We were warned in Sinai, when we were given the Ten Commandments:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. (Ex 20: 2-3)

And because it may be difficult to follow a God who has no name, and whose face we cannot see, in His bountiful mercy, God the Father, provided us with His Son, who deigned to take human form, and make it easier for us to worship Him.

Praise and sacrifice, the two components of worship are, once again, universal. Every member of homo adorans has an innate sense of it. Whether by human sacrifice, or the sacrifice of things we hold most precious, or with the use of hyperbole, homo adorans recognizes that there is no gift we can give that is sufficient for the one who created us.

We Catholics know that in His goodness, recognizing that there was no gift that we could bring that was worthy, God the Father guided us through history, training the people of Israel, preparing them – through their rituals and sacrifices – to anticipate the one single and perfect sacrifice, the offering of His Son on Calvary. Through the singing of the psalms in the Divine Office, which priests are obliged to offer five times a day, we are given hymns of praise which are not only fitting for the worship of God, but also as in any perfect worship, form us to be perfect. Having prayed the Divine Office for some years now, I heartily recommend this discipline to all who are serious about deepening their faith, and improving the quality of their worship.

Even though Catholics have these wonderful resources, we are, nevertheless, like the apostles, our fathers in the faith, prone to doubt.

“Is Jesus the Only begotten Son of God, or just another prophet, a learned teacher whom we have much to learn from?”

“Do I really need to go to Mass? Isn’t it enough that I am a good person?”

“Aren’t all religions equal?”

Worse, “Is Jesus really present in the Blessed Sacrament?”

Rather than attempt to answer these questions today, since they have answers that require time to be appreciated, I will respond by recommending that we turn back to worship as a way of obtaining answers to these questions. Worship properly undertaken will offer answers even to the most critical mind.

And so, go to Mass every Sunday, if not every day. Pray the rosary, take up parts of the Divine Office, perhaps just lauds and vespers for now, spend time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament, kneel at Mass, receive communion on the tongue. Orthopraxis, right action, will eventually lead you towards orthodoxy, right praise. Act right and all will be revealed to you.

I leave you, as a blessing, this quote from the extract of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that we read today:

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call

(A series of three homilies in preparation for the Solemnity of the Ascension preached at the Parish church of N.Srª da Immaculada Conceição, Pangim, can be found here.)

(Image reference: The Calling of the Apostles, Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1481, The Sistine Chapel, Rome.)