Today we gather as a faith community to worship the One True God, the Holy Trinity, by giving him our thanks and praise for all his blessings, and we entrust to God our life and mission.
We worship the God of the Old Testament and believe Moses who said in today’s first reading, “This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other. You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper.” Dt. 4:39-40.
We believe that God is one and that he made us in his image and likeness. An image is a reflection and thus we have a spiritual soul that has an intellect, by which we can reflect on God as a divine person. We are also “like” God, since we have free will, and thus we can choose to be like God by doing that which is good, better or best.
This is revealed to us in the Old Testament, Genesis, chapter one, when God says: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.”
But why does the one, true God use the plural “us” and “our”?
We know that God’s chosen people, the Israelites, who were later named the Jews, believed in only One God. This divine truth made them distinct from the nations around them who believed in many gods, and who were often hostile to Israel. But they strove to live out God’s statutes and commandments to receive God’s protection, blessings and mercy as his family of faith.
This mystery of God saying, “Let us make man, in our image after our likeness” was a seed of revelation that was fully revealed for us in Jesus Christ, who reveals who God is within his divine nature: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love between them, for God is Infinite Life, Love and Truth.
Since God is infinite, we cannot get our finite minds completely around this mystery, but we humbly accept it as supernatural faith because God the Son came to earth through Mary and revealed that he was the Son of God and the Son of Mary. Jesus Christ is the source of infinite life, love and truth, and he fulfills humanity’s deepest desire for his infinite life, love and truth through his Bride, the Catholic Church.
In the Old Testament the individual dignity of God is of upmost importance, and in the New Testament the Trinity of God is equally important, and these divine testaments together fully reveal that Jesus Christ is the Divine Head of his spouse, the Catholic Church.
The Catholic faith shapes our culture since we pro-claim the inviolable dignity of every innocent human being because God creates every human soul immediately and directly in his image and likeness at conception. Every pre-born baby has inviolable dignity, that is God’s law, and thus every preborn baby should be protected against violence. This truth should be manifest in our human laws since it was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that God is the giver of unalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, in that order, with the gift of human life being the first human right.
Since God is the giver, sustainer and goal of every human life through his natural law, every human being is created with equal natural dignity, a reflection that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal in their divine dignity.
One characteristic of our great nation is that we have the United States Constitution which outlines the three equal branches of government. The legislative branch, that makes the law according to the natural law of God, if it is to be a true law; the judicial branch that adjudicates the law in light of the natural law as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and our United States Constitution; and the executive branch which executes the laws that protect individuals and communities from violence and wayward government officials, if it is lived correctly.
In today’s Gospel the risen Lord Jesus sends the Apostles to go and teach all nations how to follow the Natural Law of God’s Ten Commandments, and then baptize them in the name of God (not the names of God since God is one); baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Christ’s Church prepares individuals and nations for the reception of Christ’s Supernatural Law of saving grace in the seven sacraments, beginning with baptism, which initiates us into becoming Catholic Christian disciples.
The promise of Christ in the final sentence of the today’s Gospel of Matthew states: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Mt. 28:20. Jesus Christ is truly with us through his Catholic Church, and preeminently in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. It is Jesus Christ in the Eucharist who is the source and summit of our faith as individuals, and as a Church community living in the mystery of God, the Holy Trinity.
On this Memorial weekend, let us remember the men and women who fought, suffered and died to preserve that truth that God is one, and that God wants all mankind to live in a community of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” that all might freely choose to follow Jesus Christ faithfully. For Jesus Christ leads us into the faith that God is Love: The Holy Trinity: The Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whom we participate as his disciples through his seven sacraments.
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Thomas McCabe
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