16/06/2019

The Holy Trinity and the Church

[leia este artigo em português na nossa edição em papel]

This Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. For the Diocese of Coimbra, this Sunday is also the Diocesan Church Day. All dioceses have a day like this, in which they celebrate the fact that they are a portion of the people of God who live their faith in a specific territory (the diocese) with their bishop as head. In the Diocese of Coimbra, since some decades this was the day chosen to celebrate this "being Church". The reason for associating the diocesan Church with the Holy Trinity is easy to understand: we Christians (whether in Coimbra or in another diocese) we are called to be a Church in the image of the Most Holy Trinity. Just as among the three Persons of the Holy Trinity there is unity and charity, so we Christians must be united. Jesus, at the Last Supper, prayed to the Father for us, asking: "May they be one, as We are One". We are called to be "one" in a unity of faith and charity. Unity of faith, believing all in the same, in the same faith that was transmitted to us from the beginning as teaching of the original and authentic Church (without letting ourselves be led astray by strange doctrines or certain novelties that are, sometimes, only the fruit of human boasting). And unity in charity, bearing in mind the Christian meaning of the word “charity”: even if the world misunderstands the word, for us Christians, charity means love. Not a any love, but that love of communion that exists in God. The Holy Spirit is the union between the Father and the Son (but not an abstract union, because He is Person), so we also call Him the Spirit of Charity. Therefore, not surprise we celebrate the Holy Trinity on the Sunday just after Pentecost. It is the Holy Spirit who builds among us the unity of the Church, leading us to believe the same faith and to live the same communion of love.
Fr. Orlando Guerra Henriques

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