Angelus: Love is at the heart of the Trinity

(Vatican Radio) On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Pope Francis spoke about the love that is at the heart of the divine life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

It is, he said, “a life of profound communion and perfect love, the origin and end of the whole universe and of every creature.”

But the Holy Trinity is also the model of the Church “in which we are called to love one another as Jesus has loved us.” Love, Pope Francis said, is the distinctive mark of the Christian.

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As Christians, “we are called to bear witness to and announce the message that ‘God is love,’ that God is not distant or insensible to our human affairs.” God, the Pope said, “is close to us, He is always by our side, He walks with us to share our joys and our sorrows, our hopes and our struggles.” He loves human beings so much that He sent His only Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, into the world, that the world might be saved through Jesus.

It is the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis continued, “the gift of the Risen Jesus,” that “communicates the divine life to us and so makes us enter into the dynamism of the Trinity, a dynamism of love, of communion, of reciprocal service, of sharing.” A person, a family, a parish that loves others for the sake of love is a “reflection of the Trinity.”

But although true love is without limits, true love also knows when to limit itself in order “to meet the other, to respect the liberty of the other.” Drawing the connection between the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity and next week’s Feast of Corpus Christi, Pope Francis said “the Eucharist is like the ‘burning bush’ in which the Trinity humbly dwells and communicates Itself.” He reminded the faithful of the custom of Rome of celebrating the Mass of Corpus Christi in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, followed by a Eucharistic procession to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major. “I invite Romans and pilgrims to participate,” the Pope said, “in order to express our desire to be a people ‘gathered in the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”