Word of the day

A reading from the Book of Proverbs
8:22-31

Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.

"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."

A reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans
5:1-5

Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Fro the Gospel according to John
16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you."

The Father - the Son - the Holy Spirit.
Divine Unity of the Trinity.
Christ pronounced this mystery in human words. And he left it to the Holy Spirit, at his coming: 'When . . . the Spirit of truth will come, he will guide you into all truth' (John 16: 13). Each of us is introduced into this ‘whole truth’ already through Baptism.
We live by this truth daily, when we begin prayer and work ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’.

Why, in pronouncing with these words the name of the inscrutable divine mystery, the name of the living God who Is, do we at the same time, on our foreheads, shoulders and hearts, make the sign of the Cross?

Because the Cross is the final word of God's Trinitarian mystery in the history of the salvation of mankind.

When Christ says of the Holy Spirit: ‘he will take of mine and proclaim it to you’, these words refer in a special way to the sacrifice of the Cross.
The living God has definitively entered the history of creation, the history of mankind, precisely through this sacrifice.
Man, looking at the architecture of the cosmos, enters into the depths of the Creator's eternal Wisdom.
Man, looking at the Cross, knows the love that permeates this Wisdom and all His work.
He knows the love that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5).
He knows that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4: 16).
That is why the Holy Spirit has been given to us . . . has been given to our hearts. It was given in the Cross of Christ, in his redemptive sacrifice.
God is love. This is the name of Him who Is.
In this name ‘we stand and boast in hope of the glory of God’ (cf. Rom 5:2).
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, to God who is, who was, and who is to come!