Jesus Christ is Risen Today—Alleluia!

Dear Friends,

“Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!” With these joyful words, we awaken once more to the song that has echoed through the centuries—the song of life stronger than death, hope stronger than fear, love stronger than anything that would hold us back.

Easter is not simply a day we celebrate; it is a reality we are invited to enter. As the hymn proclaims, “our triumphant holy day” calls us to lift our hearts and voices, to join creation itself in praise. The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. Christ is alive—and because he lives, we are given new life as well.

Easter joy is not shallow or fleeting. It is born out of the depths of Good Friday and carried through the silence of Holy Saturday. And so our “hymns of praise then let us sing” are not naïve, but courageous—rooted in the promise that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God.

I invite you to join us this Sunday, as we gather to celebrate the resurrection. Come and hear the Good News again. Come and sing “Alleluia.” Come and be renewed in the life that the Risen Christ offers to all.

Easter Blessings,           

Paul+

Blessed Holy Week

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

This Sunday, we begin our Holy Week journey.

We lift our palm branches high, waving and crying out,
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest.”

For a brief moment, we try to place ourselves among the crowd some two thousand years ago—
spirits lifted, hearts full of hope and expectation.
At last, things are turning.
At last, things will be made right.

This must be the beginning—
the long-awaited procession into a kingdom of righteousness and justice.

And yet… how quickly things turn.

Hopes are dashed.
Dreams are shattered.
Expectations crumble.

Life, as we know, is unpredictable.
In a moment, everything can change.
The world can turn upside down in an instant—
like shifting sands beneath our feet,
like winds that rise without warning,
like floods that overwhelm both land and soul.

How, then, do we steady ourselves?

It is for such a world and time as this that our Lord came.
Christ entered into the very heart of instability—
standing on shifting sands,
facing the howling winds of rage,
and walking through the floodwaters of fear.

Yet always, he remained rooted in love.

In him, we find our anchor.
In him, we find life and hope.

And so we, too—fully human, deeply vulnerable—
are invited to walk this path.
With faith in God’s goodness,
and trust in the enduring love revealed in Christ,
we find our way forward.

Beloved, I invite you into this most sacred journey—
not away from uncertainty,
but through it.

Through the trials and travails of life,
held always by the certainty and constancy
of God’s unchanging love,

as revealed to us

in the life, death, and resurrection

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed Holy Week,

Paul+

Holy Week

God’s Chosen Family

Dear friends,

Greetings from Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY, where a group of Trinity folks are enjoying a time of prayer, discussion, and renewal before Holy Week and Easter.  While we have primarily been discussing the Gospels for Holy Week, our conversation has also included the lessons and sermons we have heard in worship with the brothers. Today we observed the Feast of St. Joseph, one of two major feasts that falls during Lent – the other is the Annunciation on March 25. Today’s sermon began with a mention of the Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child in the Book of Common Prayer, a short liturgy to give thanks for a newborn baby or to give thanks for the adoption of a child at any age.  In the case of adoption, the priest presents the child to his or her parents, saying, “As God has made us his children by adoption and grace, may you receive N. as your own son (daughter).” The service then continues with the Magnificat, the Song of Mary.

In Jesus Christ, God configures our relationships in ways that transcend biological heredity. St. Joseph is, of course, a model of this kind of relationship, acting as an adoptive earthly father for Jesus. But each one of us is adopted as a child of God through Jesus Christ our brother. God doesn’t stand at a spiritual or physical distance from us. Rather, he takes on our humanity and names each one of us as beloved children. In doing so, he also gives us to each other as chosen family – chosen by God from before the foundation of the world. As we prepare to walk the way of the cross, there is no better time to contemplate the Church as a family in Christ, a family constituted even from the Cross itself. In St. John’s passion narrative, we read:

‘Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.’

We often think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church, but here on Good Friday, at the very foot of the Cross, Jesus knits his followers together. May we walk these days of Holy Week knowing that we are so much more than a loose affiliation of church members, we are family to each other in a very real sense.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

Kara+

PS On March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, Archbishop Sarah Mullally will be enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral. While the service won’t be available live due to BBC restrictions, you can watch it here after the broadcast.

I’m Sorry, but I Don’t Understand.

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

As I write this letter, I’m sitting in the teachers’ lounge at the school where Sophia is working in Madrid, Spain. My Spanish is elementary at best. The teachers come in and warmly welcome me, but after a brief exchange most conversations quickly and politely come to an end. If we continue, we both have to work very hard because we are, quite literally, speaking different languages with very limited fluency in the other. Two phrases I do know are : “Lo siento, pero no entiendo.” (I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.) “Hablo solo un poco de español.” (I speak only a little Spanish.)

So…it takes work—real work—if we want to engage in conversation. It takes patience, creativity, and a willingness to explore different ways of communicating.

This can also be true at times even when we speak the same language—it can seem as if we don’t. Even if we understand every word being said, we may not truly comprehend one another. We see the world through different eyes. We hold different perspectives and opinions about what is true, or right, or good. We may be speaking the same language, but we still fail to understand—and sometimes, even when we do understand, we simply no longer want to engage.

It takes work and commitment, especially in our current reality, to truly communicate with one another—to genuinely seek understanding and to discern a way forward. Many of us are tempted to take the easier path: to throw up our hands and walk away. After all, it’s so much easier to be with people who speak the same language and think the same way we do.

We must resist, however, that temptation and do the hard work to keep the conversation alive. Only then do we have any real possibility of finding a way forward. And perhaps that way forward, precisely because of our differences, will be richer and more vibrant for everyone.

Peace and blessings,
Paul+

Olga y Marta (Two of Sophia’s co-workers)

Seeing with Fresh Eyes

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

 Some weeks ago, I shared that a friend took me to Longwood Gardens for my birthday. It was a cold January day, but within the warmth and beauty of the arboretum, we discovered such color and life. It was an oasis in the middle of the barren landscape of winter.

When I stepped into the first conservatory, my glasses immediately fogged from the dramatic change in temperature and climate. After taking them off and letting my eyes adjust, I simply stood there—eyes wide—slowly turning in place, trying to take it all in. Everywhere I looked there was beauty: vibrant flowers, towering palms, rich greens, and bright colors alive in the middle of winter.

My friend stood nearby with a huge smile on his face and began to laugh.

“I love bringing people here and watching their reaction,” he said. “Because there’s nothing like seeing it for the very first time.”

And he’s right.

There is something sacred about experiencing things for the first time. The first time we taste something delicious, smell the fragrance of a flower, hear a beautiful piece of music, or witness a breathtaking landscape—we are filled with awe, wonder, excitement, and life. But over time, familiarity quietly dulls our awareness. What once filled us with amazement becomes ordinary. What once made us pause becomes something we pass by without noticing.

What a loss.

The French writer Marcel Proust once wrote,
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

And G. K. Chesterton reminds us,
“The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”

In this season, I invite us to awaken our souls again to the gifts of God and life that surround us—to see again, as if for the very first time, the sunrise in the morning sky, the faces of those we love, the taste of our favorite food, the sound of a song that stirs our hearts.

To see again, with fresh eyes, the gift of God’s love alive in the world—so that our hearts may be stirred, our souls nourished, and our spirits enlivened.

Lenten Blessings,

Paul+

Lent: A New Heart and Spirit

Lent is a time when the Church calls us to consider what it means to live a new and redeemed life in Christ. This year, I think I’m experiencing the season in a much more visceral way than usual after a closer brush with mortality than I would have desired. For me, the past month has been an uncomfortably literal experience of Ezekiel 36:26: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.”  (Sorry, I had to make this joke at least once, and I have now done so.)

More seriously, this season truly is about changes of heart and how they happen. In our gospel this Sunday, we will hear the story of Nicodemus who famously comes to Jesus at night, and who is invited to a life beyond his imaginings – a new life. In this passage, Jesus tells Nicodemus about a new birth coming from above, and we hear the promise that God makes to us in Jesus Christ: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to the end that all that believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  We hear of being born from above, born again, and just like Nicodemus we may find ourselves becoming a little disconcerted by the whole thing. Change is hard, and all-encompassing, life-upending change is even harder.

Nicodemus discovers that you can’t be a disciple in secret. Sooner or later, the way God changes us will show. As Andrew MacGowan writes, what Jesus means is that “your life must change in a way so radical that it can be spoken of as rebirth,” and “the changed character of your life will reveal that your true identity belongs to a reality other than this world.” The two meanings support one another, showing that the change Jesus calls for and offers is not just incremental or partial (even though it may not be instantaneous), nor is it driven by our own initiative. We’re not in control of birth, after all, and we’re not in control of how we are given a new birth in Jesus Christ.  

Recall the famous prologue to John that we read at Christmas: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.” Our faith is a gift. We can no more propel ourselves into faith than we can give birth to ourselves. We are not self-generated believers. But as we are given this gift of faith, as we are given these possibilities of something new, we may find that we end up being changed in ways we never would have expected.

Yours in Christ,

Kara+

PS From now through Easter, I am on a partial short-term leave and working reduced hours while I am in cardiac rehab. Part of this involves not working in the evenings, which is why you won’t see me at Pub Theology or the Wednesday night Lent programs. I’m incredibly grateful to Fr. Paul and especially to our intrepid interns Rachel, Rob, and Emma for stepping up in the meantime. If you would like to make an appointment during Lent, my hours look like this:

Mondays            9am - 12pm

Tuesdays           1pm - 4 pm

Wednesdays                12pm - 4pm

Thursdays                   Variable appointments

Sundays            7am - 12pm, 4pm - 6pm

Remembering Dr. John Bertalot

It is with sadness that we share the news that Dr. John Bertalot died on February 21, 2026, at the age of 94.

Many at Trinity Church will remember John for the joy, beauty, and reverence he brought to our music ministry during his years as Director of Music. His leadership shaped not only the choir’s sound, but also the congregation’s understanding of music as prayer.

Before coming to Princeton, Dr. Bertalot served for many years as Director of Music and Organist at Blackburn Cathedral in England, where he established a choral tradition of international renown. His work as a teacher, conductor, and author influenced church musicians around the world. Yet, even more so, he was a man of deep faith and a generous spirit. We give thanks for his life and faithful ministry.

We will be offering a service of Choral Evensong on Sunday, May 3, in thanksgiving and celebration of Dr. Bertalot.

More details will be forthcoming.

May light perpetual shine upon him.