A young priest was sent out to replace an older priest in a village  
in the missions, and the young priest had just finished his theology.  
He had gotten a PhD in theology, so his head was full of all the  
things he had learned. And on Saturday evening, at the village  
church, the old priest asked the young priest to say a few words. He  
still didn’t know the language and so the older priest said he would  
translate. The younger priest said, “My dear people, I believe in  
Liberationist Theology and in the Universal Priesthood of the laity.  
My Christology is from below rather than from above. My spirituality  
is horizontal rather than vertical and my ecclesiology is that of the  
Second Vatican Council, but tending more toward ‘Gaudium et Spes’  
rather than ‘Lumen Gentium.’” And then he nodded to the older priest  
to translate. And the older priest talked for a little while and he  
said, “Father has just said that he’s delighted to be here with you.  
He knows you’re all going to work very well together and he hopes you  
have a wonderful weekend.” ....Bet I had you worried there for a minute.

So our faith is simple but not necessarily easy. And that goes for  
the feast of the Trinity. When I was learning my theology, my least  
favorite course was the one on the Trinity because it was the most  
abstract and it seemed to be the coldest. And there were weird words  
that I could never understand like the ‘circumincession’ of the  
Trinity. I knew it was different from "circumcision" but I could  
never figure out how exactly it was different. And yet when I read  
the scriptures, like today’s scriptures, then it was a completely  
different message. Then it was St. Paul telling me that I am one of  
the family of the Trinity. That I can understand, that the Holy  
Spirit is poured out into our hearts, giving us the spirit of being  
sons and daughters of God, enabling us to call God the Father “Abba”,  
which means “Dad”. That I can understand. And that because Jesus is  
our brother, we inherit the family fortune, which means we actually  
own the Kingdom of God. It’s a wonderful thing to remember that  
family. It’s also a tall order to live up to it. So our calling is  
simple but not necessarily easy.

The same goes for the things that Jesus taught by his word and  
example. He gave us the two great Commandments; Love God with all  
your heart and soul and your neighbor as yourself. Simple, but not  
easy. But human problems are not to be solved by taking human life.  
Simple to say. Not easy. That holiness consists in feeding the  
hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the prisoner. Simple to say.  
Not easy. But the measure of our progress in the life of the Spirit  
is how well we are able to forgive. Simple. Not easy. That, in the  
words of St. Paul, we should pray at all times. Simple. Not easy. And  
because it isn’t easy, we need help. And we do have, in our Catholic  
Church, wonderful helps. The greatest of them all is the one we are  
about to partake of in a few minutes, in the Eucharist. And another  
wonderful help is belonging to a vibrant faith community. And that  
brings me to saying how glad I am now to be here with this vibrant  
faith community. For me, this is actually a dream assignment because  
I know so much about this community and how great it is, and of  
course Brian Joyce and how great he is, and you’ll see from the  
bulletin that he and I were together for some months many years ago.  
I think we were a good team then. Hopefully we will be now. I learned  
a lot from him then. I’m still a learner. We like to get together, he  
and I, every thirty years or so. And then I’m getting two Brians for  
the price of one. Brian Timoney...  It should never be boring, living  
with him. He grew up a stone’s throw away from where I did in  
Ireland, but since then, he has sailed the seven seas.

If you want to know what to call me, how about “Declan”? That’s the  
name my mother gave me, and it’s a good Irish name. If you’re not  
comfortable with that, call me whatever you like. Plain “Monsignor”  
will do. Only kidding. But please don’t expect me to be great at  
remembering your name because, of latter years, I just found it  
awfully hard to call people’s names. And the nicest thing you could  
ever do for me is to come up to me and say, “I’m John, just as I was  
John last week.” And that gives me an opportunity to say, “Of course  
I know you, John.” Because, well, the old gray cells, they ain’t what  
they used to be. So, Brothers and Sisters, I look forward to  
accompanying you on this journey, a journey that is simple, but not  
easy, this way that Jesus has laid out for us. And, in the meantime,  
I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.

rpb