We do that so naturally, so instinctively, don’t we? I’m speaking of course about the sign of the cross. It’s almost as reflexive to us Catholics as breathing or blinking our eyes. And it should be! For the sign of the cross is the first prayer most Catholics learn—invoking the three divine persons of the Holy Trinity while marking ourselves with the sign of our salvation—the Holy Cross of Christ.
Most of us were taught by our first catechists, our parents, how to sign ourselves. I always love to see parents picking up their little ones, dipping their little fingers in the holy water font and tracing the cross, forming a habit that they will take with them into eternity. We do well to begin each day invoking the trinity with the sign of the cross, signing ourselves before getting out of bed—hopefully, even before checking our iphones. Most of our formal prayer, as Catholics, begins invoking the trinity with the sign of the cross. We are absolved, we are confirmed, we are anointed, and we will be buried with that sign of the cross.
We invoke the Trinity in moments of danger and difficulty and penitence. Sometimes we even find baseball players making the sign of the cross as they come up to home plate. Whenever I go to restaurants I look around to see if people are making the sign of the cross before they eat. At funerals and weddings you can often tell who the non-Catholics are by who makes the sign of the cross or not. And this makes sense because the sign of the cross signifies an IDENTITY! You know if someone is Catholic if they begin their prayer “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.
The sign of the cross professes the two most important doctrines of our Faith.
The first doctrine is of course the Doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, which we celebrate in a special way this Trinity Sunday. God is a Trinity of Divine Persons—the Divine Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are consubstantial, coeternal, coequal, distinct, yet united.
The catechism says, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith’. The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.”
I had a class in seminary one semester simply called “Trinity” in which we studied the theological history of the Church’s understanding of this great mystery. It was one of the most difficult classes in seminary—as we attempted to grasp infinite mystery revealed in the primary Christian doctrine.
The second doctrine expressed in the sign of the cross flows from the first: by the cross we are saved. Every time we sign ourselves with the cross, we confess our faith that by the cross, the incarnate Son, the second person of the Trinity, won for us eternal life.
Trinity and Cross. It’s no accident that these two themes converge in the Church’s most fundamental prayer, the sign of the cross: for the cross is an image in time of the Trinity’s life and love in eternity. The love poured out on the cross is the most powerful sign of the love of God in himself and his love for us. So when we make the sign of the cross, we call to mind the love that conquers all sin and death and evil, the love which is the cause of our salvation.
St. Francis Xavier, perhaps the greatest missionary in Church history after St. Paul, baptized thousands of people. As a missionary in the far east, he wrote about the difficulty he had in catechizing all these people—preparing them for baptism. Thousands of people would be in the villages, clamoring for baptism, yearning for membership in the Church. Francis Xavier wrote that he considered it enough if he could properly teach them that in making that sign of the cross they were professing their faith in the one true God—God the Father who creates us and loves us, God the Son who took flesh and died for our salvation, and God the Holy Spirit who strengthens us with his gifts—if he could teach them that, and that Jesus, God the Son offered them salvation through the cross that he would trace over them—he felt that that was enough for baptism.
When we stand before the judgment seat of Almighty God, our passports won’t help us, any academic degrees aren’t going to do much good, any stock portfolios, our check book, our driver’s license, our proof of American citizenship or lack thereof aren’t going to do us a bit of good. But by the sign of the cross, we are claimed for Christ, we are identified as those children of God redeemed by the Cross of Christ, members of God’s Holy Church, who profess, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be our Loving and Almighty God.
Just as we make the sign of the Cross each time we pray, in order to direct our prayer to the one true God, may this Trinity Sunday, help direct our lives. The true God is not a creature of our own making, a product of our imaginations. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we bow our lives to his majesty, we surrender our wills to His Divine Will, his commandments, and plead his mercy.
Everything we do is meant to be directed to the Holy Trinity, done to honor the Holy Trinity, out of love for the Holy Trinity. May we invoke the Trinity many times every day, that God’s very being, His Life, may infuse us, change us, propel and animate us, that our choices may lead us to his presence, that he may possess us, in the words of our first reading, and that we may possess the mind and heart of Our Lord and Redeemer.
May our faith in the Triune God keep us from all sin, protect us from all evil, and may all of our actions, all of our choices, all our decisions, all of our sacrifices be done for the glory of the Triune God and salvation of souls.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Thank you , Fr. Kevin. We pray for you continually. I share these blog posts with my children.
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