1 June 2011: The Christian’s relations with the Holy Trinity

‘Our relations with God the Father’

What is a Christian? A person who enjoys a special relationship to God the Father, whose child he or she became in holy Baptism. What Jesus Christ is by ‘nature’, the Christian is by ‘adoption’. He receives by spiritual regeneration, according to his capacity, what the Word received in his eternal generation. “You have received”, says St Paul, “the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15).

The son of a poor man adopted by a powerful monarch and invested with all the privileges of a legitimate son, would be conferred a great honor! Yet this is but a faint image of our adoption by God in Baptism.

What are our obligations towards so generous and loving a Father? Surely, to love him with all our hearts, and to prove our love-- first, by avoiding all that could displease him, even the most trivial faults or failure in our norms; second, by trying to please him more and more by the practice of virtue; and third, by striving diligently in the perfection of our state, in the words of Jesus Christ: “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48)

Ref: Cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, p311

Believing in God Is the First Truth

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.” This is ‘the first truth of the faith’, the first article of our Creed. Creatures give testimony of God the Creator. The more man lets himself be carried away by the eloquence of creatures, their richness and beauty, the more need to adore the Creator grows in him and ought to grow in him. On our knees before the Lord, let us prostrate ourselves and adore.

These are not extravagant words. They confirm the perennial ways of the fundamental logic of the Faith and of the thought about the cosmos as well; about the macrocosmos and microcosmos. The Faith confirms itself in a particular way as ‘reasonable worship’.

I ask you to think about this disproportion which really exists in gigantic areas of contemporary civilization. The better man knows the cosmos, the less he seems to feel obliged to ‘bend the knee’ and ‘prostrate himself’ before the Creator. Need we ask why?

Do people think that knowledge of the world and enjoyment of effects deriving from it make man master of creation? But should men not think, rather, that what man knows, the astonishing richnesses of the microscosmos and dimensions of the macrocosmos, he finds, as it were, ‘ready-made’; and that what he produces on that basis he owes to the wealth of raw materials in the created world?

Could contemporary man not think there may be a fundamental ‘injustice’ toward the Creator in the entire direction of development of his civilization and mentality?

“Come let us go down on bended knees before Him who has created this.”

Ref: Cf “Prayers and Devotions from Pope John Paul II”, 1984, pp112-3

Our faith rests on the Trinity

Christians are baptized in the ‘name’ of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their ‘names’, for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy Trinity.

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is central to the Christian faith and life; the mystery of God in himself. Thus, the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. The most fundamental teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith’.

The whole mystery of salvation is identical with the history of the way and means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin’.

The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the ‘mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God’.

Ref: “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, Nos. 233, 234, 237

Going (and returning) to the Trinity through Mary

St Alphonsus of Liguori says that the main role Christ entrusted to Mary is the dispensing of mercy, in which service Mary employs all her prerogatives. St Josemaria Escrivá adds: “When I was young I wrote (with the conviction that coalesced around my daily visits to ‘Our Lady of the Pillar’: ‘To Jesus one goes and to him we return through Mary.’ (“Libro de Aragon”)

If our welcome to divine intimacy is possible because of the Son, it is only right that in reaching the Son we return to his Mother, Mary. Neither are we surprised that Christians, who go with Mary to Jesus, also ‘return’ to him, if unfortunately they had wandered away.” (“Libro de Aragon”)

In this maternal task, Mary’s mission is not to mitigate divine justice. Isn’t God always good and merciful? Our Mother’s mission, rather, is to ready our hearts to receive the graces her Son has in store for us. That is why it is always helpful to return to her when we prepare ourselves to receive the sacrament of penance.

The Virgin always provides the shortest and most secure path to God; a most pleasant path that does not demand special conditions. She welcomes us in any shape, even if we can barely take a step. That is when she proves to be closest to us, ‘awakening in Christians a supernatural desire to act “as members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19)’.

She bestows on us the gift of being ushered into the divine family. “Turn to our Lady -- daughter, Mother, and Spouse of God and our mother as well -- and ask her to obtain more graces for you from the blessed Trinity: graces of faith, hope, love, and contrition. ... (cf St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Forge”, 227)

Ref: F Fernandez-Carvajal, ‘et al’, “Children of God”, 1997, pp60-62

Our Lady

“Virgin Immaculate, my Mother, do not abandon me. See how my poor heart is filled with tears. I do not want to offend my God!

“I already know, and I trust I shall never forget, that I am worth nothing. My smallness and my loneliness weigh upon me so much! But ...I am not alone. You, Sweet Lady, and my Father God will never leave me.

“Faced with the rebellion of my flesh and all manner of diabolical arguments against my Faith, I love Jesus and I believe -- I do Love and do Believe.”

Ref: St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Forge”, 215)

• Memorial of Our Lady of the Star, at Aquileia, Italy. This church is so called, because it is affirmed that a star was seen in open day on the head of St. Bernardine of Siena, when, preaching at Aquileia, he applied to the Blessed Virgin that passage of the Apocalypse, where it is said that there were twelve stars on her head.—(See his life in Surius.) “Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar (http://www.bethlehemobserver.com)
• Our Lady of the Star, Aquileia, Italy (15th Century). (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Our Lady, Health of the Sick (Kevelær, Germany). (MaryLinks Calendar.htm); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Our Lady of Grace (Montreal, Canada) (www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.html); (MaryLinks Calendar.htm); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Mediatrix of All Grace. (http://mariedenazareth.com)
• The Immaculate Heart of Mary. (http://mariedenazareth.com)