“I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I covered not. I said ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’ and you took away the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32). If you are not willing to acknowledge that you are a sinner you are in the wrong Church. We are a Church of sinners, but we are striv- ing to be saints. We do not love sin; we hate sin but love the sinner that he may acknowledge his sin and be converted. Look back into the history of our first reading, we see King David, God’s chosen, acknowledging his sin of adultery. What does God do? He forgives, because King David acknowl- edges his sin! In our Gospel reading we see the Pharisee unwilling to acknowledge his sin and thus being condemned, however the sinful woman acknowledges her and is forgiven. Many are unwilling to receive the forgiveness of God, they are like the Pharisee saying, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” This is the greatest sin of all not trusting in the mercy of God. God is always ready to forgive, but we must be ready to acknowl- edge our sin and trust in his mercy. The truth is God really can love a bumbling sinful fool such as you.

Put aside your shame; believe in God’s mercy; and ask what areas of your heart need forgiveness. What sins have you not been willing to acknowledge before God? It is about time you acknowledge them and confess in the sacrament of confession, instituted by Christ. You will love much as the woman in the Gospel. For, “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little,” let us acknowledge our sin with the sinful woman and thus love Christ much.

In the Sacred Heart of Jesus & Immaculate Heart of Mary
Fr. Shaun Haggerty

How does God being Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, impact how you live your life? Should it impact you at all? Given it’s the most essential aspect and mystery of our Christian faith it should and does impact you! We as Christians should be able to easily answer this question, without batting an eye. It tells our identity!

We are created in the image and likeness of God. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Since, we are created in God’s image, and he is essentially Trinity, the more we know what it means for God to be Trinity, the more we will know who we are as man, male and female.

Therefore, the more we emulate the Trinity in our lives the more we live out our purpose in life and the more we flourish. Just to give a few examples: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all about selflessness, giving themselves away to the other in love. We are called to the same. If we only think about ourselves we are not following the image of God that we have been created in. The trinity is a communion of intimate love. Another example: we may be good at giving ourselves away for others, but we still need to be able to receive love from others, to allow others to draw close and not push them away, we are to be vulnerable before the other. If we are not open to love because of past hurts and scars, we are not following the image of God in whom we have been created.

There are numerous ways that the Trinity impacts our lives, all we need to do is meditate upon the relationship between the Three Persons, and we will begin to realize more fully how we are to live our lives.

I like to think of Fr. Morgan, Myself, and Deacon Bates as kind of a Trinity. Fr. Morgan is the Father because he is the pastor, but I am still waiting for him to be kind to me, I am the Son the second who endures all the pain and affliction the Father allows, and Deacon is the Holy Spirit for from whence he comes and to where goes no one knows! Ha!

In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Fr. Shaun Haggerty