The Family of God

Buona domenica a tutti! A Blessed Trinity Sunday to all of you.

Thanks to the Italian desk for the translation of Benedict XVI's talk at today's Angelus. The translator is curious if anyone heard a homily today as good as this.

Enjoy.

Dear brothers and sisters!

On this Sunday which follows Pentecost, we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, who helps us to understand the words of Jesus and who guides us to the fullness of truth (cf. John 14:26; 16:13), believers are able to know, so to speak, the intimacy of God himself, discovering that He is not infinite solitude, but a communion of light and of love, life given and received in an eternal dialogue among the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – Lover, Beloved, and Love (Amante, Amato, Amore), to echo Saint Augustine. In this world no one is able to see God, but He has made Himself known so that, with the Apostle John, we are able to affirm: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), “we have come know and to believe in the love God has for us” (Deus caritas est, 1; cf. 1 John 4:16). Whoever encounters the Christ, and enters into a relationship of friendship with Him, accepts this same Trinitarian Communion into his own soul, according to the promise of Jesus to the disciples: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home within him” (John 14:23).

For one who has faith, the whole universe speaks of the Triune God (Dio Uno e Trino). From interstellar space to microscopic particles, that is, everything that exists refers back to the one Being who communicates himself in the multiplicity and variety of the elements, as in an immense symphony. All things that have being are ordered according to a harmonious energy that we are able to call, by way of analogy, “love.” But only in the human person, free and capable of reason, does this energy become spiritual, become responsible love, as a response to God and neighbor in a sincere gift of oneself. In this love, human existence discovers its truth and its happiness. Among the various analogies by which believers glimpse to some degree the unspeakable mystery of the Triune God, I would like to cite that of the family. The family is called to be a community of love and of life, in which its diversity ought to converge to form a “parable of communion.”

The masterpiece of the Most Holy Trinity, among all creatures, is the Virgin Mary: in whose heart, humble and full of faith, God himself prepared a worthy dwelling to carry to completion the mystery of salvation. The divine Love discovered in her a perfect correspondence and in her womb the Only-begotten Son became man. With childlike confidence let us turn now to Mary and call upon her, that with her help, we may be able to progress in love and to make of our lives a canticle of praise to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

PHOTO: Reuters/Max Rossi

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