"Baptize them in the Name of the Father and of the Son...": Trinity Sunday

Liturgic day: Trinity Sunday (B)

 

Gospel text (Mt 28,16-20): As for the Eleven disciples, they went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Jesus, they bowed before him, although some doubted. Then Jesus approached them and said, «I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples from all nations. Baptize them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to fulfill all that I have commanded you. I am with you always until the end of this world».

Comment: Mons. F. Xavier CIURANETA i Aymí Emeritus Bishop of Lleida (Lleida, Spain)

Today, our liturgy invites us to worship the Holy Trinity, our God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One only God in three Persons, in whose name we have been baptized. Through the grace of the Baptism we are called down here to participate in the life of the Holy Trinity, in the darkness of faith, and, later on, after death, in eternity. Through the Sacrament of Baptism we are made to share the divine life, getting to be sons of God Father, brothers of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit. With the Baptism our Christian life has begun by receiving the vocation of sanctity. Baptism makes us people who belong to Him, He who excels as the Holy one, the «three times Holy» (cf. Is 6:3).

The gift of sanctity we have been granted through the Baptism requires faithfulness for a task of evangelic conversion which must always guide the life of God's children: «This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality» (1Thess 4:3). This is a compromise affecting all those that have been baptized. «All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity» (Vatican II Council, Lumen gentium, 40).

If our Baptism was the true entrance to God’s sanctity, we could not satisfy ourselves with a mediocre, routine and superficial Christian life. We are called to perfection in our love, inasmuch the Baptism has introduced us in the life and intimacy of God’s love.

With deep gratitude for the benevolent design of our God, who has called us to participate in his live of love, let us today and always worship and praise him. «Blessed be God the Father and his Only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit: for he has shown that he loves us» (Entrance Antiphon to the Mass).

Source: www.evangeli.net