The Three Solemnities after Pentecost

From: Pope Benedict XVI

Angelus Address  June 7, 2009

Following Eastertide, which culminates with the feast of Pentecost, the liturgy foresees these three solemnities of the Lord: today, the Most Holy Trinity; on Thursday, that of Corpus Domini, which, in many countries, Italy among them, is celebrated next Sunday; finally, on Friday in two weeks, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Each one of these liturgical observances manifests a perspective from which the whole mystery of the Christian faith is embraced: respectively, the reality of God one and three, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the divine-human center of the Person of Christ. They are in truth aspects of the one mystery of salvation, which, in a certain sense, summarize the whole path of the revelation of Jesus, from the incarnation to the death and resurrection to the ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit... 

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The Trinity does not live in a splendid solitude, but is rather inexhaustible font of life that unceasingly gives itself and communicates itself.

We can in some way intuit this, whether we observe the macro-universe: our earth, the planets, the stars, the galaxies; or the micro-universe: cells, atoms, elementary particles. The “name” of the Most Holy Trinity is in a certain way impressed upon everything that exists, because everything that exists, down to the least particle, is a being in relation, and thus God-relation shines forth, ultimately creative Love shines forth. All comes from love, tends toward love, and is moved by love, naturally, according to different grades of consciousness and freedom. “O Lord, our Lord, / how wondrous is your name over all the earth!” (Psalm 8:2) -- the Psalmist exclaims. In speaking of the “name” the Bible indicates God himself, his truest identity; an identity that shines forth in the whole of creation, where every being, by the very fact of existing and by the “fabric” of which it is made, refers to a transcendent Principle, to eternal and infinite Life that gives itself, in a word: to Love. “In him,” St. Paul says, on the Areopagus in Athens, “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: only love makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and be loved. Using an analogy suggested by biology, we could say the human “genome” is profoundly imprinted with the Trinity, of God-Love.

From: H.E. Bishop Paul Wilhelm von Keppler (1852-1926)

Sermon preached at the German Katholikentag in Stuttgart, 1925 (Translation: Rorate Cæli)

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— that is the shortest creed, a creed given by the Savior Himself. It is the Savior’s highest revelation, and His greatest gift of light. He alone could say it, for, “no man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” (John 1:18) It is the epitome of salvation, the foundation of the faith, the anchor of hope, the source of love. It is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that children are baptized, marriages are solemnized, priests are ordained, churches are consecrated, sinners are absolved, sick persons are anointed, and the dead are buried.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— this Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is the exemplar and first cause of all true unity and concord, of every flourishing community, of all authentic peace. The further humanity distances itself from the Triune God, the more hopeless and incurable its disunity and strife become. Separate from God every bond of friendship, every bond of love, every bond of marriage, every bond of peoples becomes fragile and unsound. Our human community depends on its link to the Trinity, on the encompassing unity of the Trinity.

The whole purpose and final goal of our community, and all our lives, is nothing other than this: glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. But, worried voices as us, what about the public good? The glory of God is the common good of the people. The glory of God is the salvation and happiness of humanity. The glory of God is the safety of the state, and the security of legitimate authority. If only our world would realize this! If only it would understand the words of out Lord: “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)