Category: Faith & Life

This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. We can say that the Trinity is the House of love. Through it love overflows, the world made flesh and made His dwelling among us  and the human being is created us in the image and likeness of God’s love. However, due to his natural limitations and because he freely sinned, he lived partially distant from the Trinitarian communion. Even so, God did not abandon him, manifesting His grace to him in different ways until redemption was fully accomplished in the salvific life of Jesus Christ. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises that He will send the Holy Spirit to teach us all the truth. This shows that we cannot have access to the fullness of truth nor know ourselves deeply without the help of the Trinity. This is because the human being is not self-referential. Creation and its existence are incomprehensible without the Trinity: “the mystery at its highest level, the mystery par excellence” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger). Based on Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, this mystery can be called “love.” Since he who loves must love something or someone, the very logic of love demands that – in divine life – there be plurality, authority, communication, reciprocity, that is, it is not just a gift of oneself, like a mirror that reflects its own image, but rather a gift in itself that, like glass, allows the ray of light to pass through it.

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The life of an authentic Christian is a virtuous life: following the Virtuous One Jesus Christ, God and Man.  A virtuous life is the life of a disciple of Christ who practices virtues: the seven virtues (and their respective allies) which according to St. Thomas Aquinas make a good Christian. The Magnificent Seven:  faith, hope and charity (the theological virtues), and prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (the cardinal moral virtues). 

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The Church celebrates the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord this Thursday. In some places however, such as Macau, this date is not a holiday, hence the celebration is moved to the following Sunday. This dogma of the Catholic faith teaches that, forty days after His Resurrection, the physical manifestation of Jesus on Earth ends: He ascends to heaven and seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

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After stepping out to the main balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica as Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost identified himself not by nationality, but as being “a son of Saint Augustine, an Augustinian”. That sense of identity, Father Javier González claims, is more than symbolic and unquestionably influences the pope’s spiritual and theological outlook. The former Prior Provincial of the Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary is confident that Pope Leo XIV will continue the legacy of his predecessor, albeit with a much more moderate style. The Spanish missionary – who as a Dominican follows the Rule of Saint Augustine – believes Pope Leo will strive to safeguard the Church’s prophetic value and her loyalty to the Gospel of Christ. Fidelity to the Gospel, Father González says, is the only limit the Holy Father will face. 

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Some days ago, I was meditating on my journey of life. Four important words came up: forgiveness, the cross, compassion and prayer. It convinced me that these four words are excellent vitamins of another kind for the journey of this life. I decided to share my reflection with my dear readers. 

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A renewed understanding of hope – human as well as Christian – has helped me through the years to become increasingly aware of the unique significance of this day, of today. From the perspective of faith, of spiritual-moral life, what is the meaning of “today”?

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