Vatican City, Jun 11, 2006 / 22:00 pm
With a crowd of thousands gathered in St. Peter’s square for the praying of the Angelus on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the infinite love of God and the call to enter into communion with Him.
Making his comments on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Father, said that through the Holy Spirit which, “helps us to understand the words of Jesus and guides us to the fullness of truth, believers can experience ... intimacy with God Himself, discovering that He is not infinite solitude, but a communion of light and love."
Commenting on the fact that God can seem distant, Pope Benedict said, “In this world, no one can see God, but He made Himself known so that, with John the Apostle, we can affirm: 'God is love.'”
The Christian community, he said, has, “come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. Whoever meets Christ and enters into friendship with Him, welcomes Trinitarian communion into his soul."
"For those with faith, all the universe speaks of God, One and Triune. ... Everything that exists leads back to a Being Who communicates Himself in the multiplicity and variety of elements, as in an immense symphony,” the Pope said.
Because all existence comes from God, the Holy Father said, everything that exists shares in a sense in the “harmonic dynamism” of what humans call “love”.
“But,” he continued, “only in human beings ... does this dynamism become spiritual, does it become responsible love: a response to God and to others in a sincere giving of self. In this love, human beings find their truth and happiness."
There are, said Benedict XVI, "various analogies of the ineffable mystery of God, One and Triune." In this context he mentioned the family, which "is called to be a community of love and of life, in which differences must come together to form a 'parabola of communion'." Another "masterwork of the Most Holy Trinity" is the Virgin Mary, because "divine love found perfect correspondence in her, and in her womb the only begotten Son became man."
After the Angelus prayer, the Pope invited the faithful to participate, on Thursday, June 15, in the traditional procession for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, which every year passes from the Basilica of St. John Lateran, along Rome's Via Merulana, to the Basilica of St. Mary Major. It is, said the Holy Father, "an occasion that expresses the faith and love of the Christian community for their Lord present in the Eucharist."