[00:07] Praise be Jesus and Mary. We celebrate today the very first truth of Christianity. This is the truth that distinguishes Christianity or that distinguishes the truth the true religion from every false one. This is the first different differentiating truth. What is that? The holy trinity. That God is not just God. He is father, son, and holy spirit. This is something

[00:38] essential. We need to know the true identity of God. I mean, something that belongs to him because of that eternal and perfect love that he is. It wouldn't make much sense to speak. Well, it just would be it would be against the perfection of divine love to think of a God who is perfect. Perfect in love but just one person in eternity. Love is always an exchange. It's always it brings about a unity of

[01:10] heart, a unity of mind and intent. There's a self-giving. There's a fruitfulness. And all these things we find in the most holy trinity. three persons in three persons united by a most perfect and eternal and divine love. So St. John in his epistle tells us that God is love. Job once again what is love? Love is not just a feeling as most

[01:40] of our society seems to think nowadays. Love is a gift of self. It's a gift of self for the other. It's an authentic love as I mentioned is also fruitful. It bears life. And this is everything that we know about this in the natural order is actually just a reflection of that which is even but much more perfect in the supernatural order in the divine order of things. God in creating the world has wanted to reflect his own perfections in the

[02:11] world. So we're not talking about here about projecting projecting what we understand of ourselves in the natural order upon God. We're just talking about understanding what we have as a reflection of his own perfections. That's what God has wanted to reflect in the family for example where there's a love which is a total mutual gift of one to the other and which is also fruitful and which is above all union of mind, heart and will. True love unites mind,

[02:41] heart and will. And we find this in the most holy trinity. The father eternally knows himself. He knows his own divine perfections. And that thought, that understanding of himself is so perfect that it's another himself. It's the son. It's the word. That thought which is not just intellectual but becomes another himself. That's the word. The father and the son know each other. They love each other. And their mutual love is so

[03:13] perfect, so divine, so eternal that it's not just, you know, an exchange between them. It's a third person, the Holy Spirit. God didn't create us because he was lonely. Now, God is a divine family, father, son, and holy spirit. He created us precisely be- because of the self-giving nature of love. He wanted to create creatures capable of sharing in his own divine life, entering into his

[03:43] own family. That's what this is all about. That's what baptism does. I baptize you in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. We're entering into the divine family. God is adopting us as children. That is exactly what happens in baptism. Divine life is communicated to the soul and we are literally adopted as God's children into his household. There's one creature who has responded to this in the most perfect way and that

[04:15] is the blessed virgin Mary. Created you know by God loved by him from eternity in the sense that he knew her from eternity. wanted to create her in the fullness of time. And he created her just endearing her and embellishing her with the the greatest perfections possible to a creature, putting her in a position to to give the best and and highest and most perfect response. And so we find her as she who is the perfect

[04:48] response on the part of creation to God's love. We find her in this incredibly high dignity of daughter of the father, mother of the son, and spouse of the holy spirit. That doesn't mean that she's become an integral part of the trinity because no creature can. God is complete in himself. But God, as I said before, wants to bring us into his own family. And so here is brought one creature into the very life of the trinity. Even though this creature is on the outside,

[05:19] but he's now sharing in his own divine life to the point of making her mother of the church, mother of his own son, making her share in the very paternity so to you know of the father toward the son by making her mother of the son. We need to know recognize and appreciate this incredible dignity that God has given us in baptism by making us his children. You know, and as

[05:50] I already tried to explain, understand the calling that is in this. God is wanting us to be sharers, partakers of his own family life, to enter into his own family. We need to keep this in mind every time we feel you know the temptation to dejection you know desperation if that ever should turn up or just you know lacking in hope and recognize realize that we have an incredible grounds for

[06:20] hope. God loves us with this incredible divine eternal love and desires us to enter into his own household for eternity. And that begins right now to the degree in which we enter into this and live this as children of God. So there's reason here for incredible hope and joy. Obviously, it requires a response that is coherent, you know, with the dignity and the nature of this call. So, I can't

[06:51] just say, "Okay, that's nice. God adopts me as a child and I'm just going to go on with my life and I won't even think about this." No, love requires a response. It requires a correspondence. So we have to live as children of God, conscious of God's love for us, conscious of this love of the father, son and holy spirit and give our response living as God's children. So let us turn to our blessed mother. Let us turn to her particularly for our families so that they may truly become

[07:23] this reflection of the perfection of unity and self-giving love that we find in the Holy Trinity. That's what every family is called to reflect. And it's impossible to reflect that without being united to the Trinity, without living a life of union with God. So as to draw from them this perfection of love. Praise be Jesus and Mary now and forever.