Author: Deji Okegbile

Trinity Sunday began to be observed in England under St Thomas Becket in the 10th century and then spread to the rest of Western Christendom. Holy Trinity Sunday is the First Sunday after Pentecost, ushering in the season when the church hears about Jesus’ ministry and then about the church’s own ministry. Trinity Sunday is celebrated as symbolic of the unity of the God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Jn 3:1-17). The endless paradoxes in the Athanasian creed: ‘not three eternals, but one eternal, not three uncreated, but one uncreated…’  may sound like some great riddle with tendency to glaze over. The doctrine of the Trinity is not just a later invention of Greek philosophy but a pointer to the simple faith of the Galilean fishermen. Trinity Sunday, can be fraught with vulnerable analogies. Water as solid, liquid, gas. Egg as shell, white, yolk. Person as parent, sibling, child.  As we celebrate some of the most beautiful mysteries of our faith, the Trinity, Pentecost, and the Ascension, we are invited to look at our lives and communities with new eyes, and to welcome the Spirit that “renew[s] the face of the earth” into the dusty corners of our churches (Psalm 104:30). The Trinity calls us to redefine our expectations of God and to allow the Spirit to reveal new faces of herself. The Easter and Pentecost seasons close with...

What has the juxtaposition of the start of Lent and Valentine Day got to do with the days of moral free falls? Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘to educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.’ Moral decline begins when transcendent moral values, which have proven to be beneficial over time, are discarded in preference to various ideas which man finds more conducive to achieving our sin-tainted human nature – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1Jn 2:16). According to a Catholic legend, St Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. One of Valentine’s favourite duties as a priest was to marry people according to God’s command. The reflection is that sometimes it is dangerous to stand up against injustice, hatred, and prejudice. Sometimes it is difficult to oppose the world’s view of things. Sometimes it’s difficult to proclaim the truth of God’s Love, and that is what St. Valentine did! It is not always easy to stand for Jesus. It was not easy for Valentine. One night, Valentine did hear footsteps at his door. The couple he was marrying escaped, but he was caught. Valentine paid for...

None of the legends and other folklores of green beer or leprechauns, banishing snakes from Ireland, using shamrocks to teach the Trinity, or walking stick growing into a living tree has anything to do with the real Patrick. St Patrick’s Day is more important than what he did in Ireland because of what he symbolizes in such a season as this and at a time when the church is loosing its identity, authority, and bearing.  Succat, meaning ‘warlike’ in modern Welsh and later known as St Patrick was born about the year A.D 372 A.D to a British family of Calpurnius, deacon of the church of Bonavern and Conchessa, sister to the celebrated Martin, archbishop of Tours. At his tender age, Conchessa, instilled into Succat’s heart the doctrines of Christianity. At sixteen years of age, Succat was captured by a band of Scottish slave-dealing pirates who sold him to the Druid chieftain, Milcho, who reigned in the north of Ireland. For six years Patrick herded the cattle of this ruthless pagan chieftain. Alone and in the solitary pasture, Succat, ‘the young slave called to mind the divine lessons which his pious mother had so often read to him.’ Like the prodigal son, in the heathen land, he surrendered his life to Jesus of whom Conchessa had so often spoken. Patrick’s “Confession” tells us the summary of his conversion: “When I...