What God Wants

We would think that the Gospel for the feast of the Most Holy Trinity would be a long and complex explanation of the mystery of God’s nature, hard to explain and impossible to understand.  And yet, the words chosen by the Church to unfold the divine nature of the Trinity are a mere three or four lines of text, words, however, that succeed in encapsulating the simple essence of God and his relationship with us, his creatures.

The main message in this Gospel is essentially all we need to save our souls and enjoy union with God forever in heaven.  What is this message?

Our Lord’s mandate to his apostles, their successors, and indeed all the faithful, including ourselves, is to  “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”  God our Creator had given us his creatures a commandment.  It is to convey the truths revealed by God, the truths of our faith, to all mankind—all nations, all governments, all societies, everyone!  All men, women and children have the right to hear these truths, so that they can legitimately choose between heaven and hell, salvation and damnation.  Without this knowledge, they are ignorant orphans floundering through this world without the guidance of the Church, without the sustenance of the sacraments.  It is our most solemn duty to bring our faith in God to others by whatever means available to us.

This is why the Church has constantly throughout her history sent out missionaries to every part of the world, fulfilling Christ’s commandment to bring souls into the Church through the sacrament of baptism.  Most of us have other duties of life that prevent us from preaching to the hottentots of Africa and the tribes of the Amazon jungle.  We have families to support, children to feed.  Our missionary role may not be that of the Holy Ghost Fathers or other missionary orders, but it is our mission nevertheless.  It is fulfilled by passing down the faith to our children, bringing salvation to them and future generations.  It may seem a small and insignificant thing in the big picture, but is an essential role that enables the big picture of the Church’s mission to survive and flourish.  Our duty is clear—have our children baptized, bring them into the fold, teach them the wonders of God’s creation and the beauties of the faith and Ten Commandments, and then keep them in that fold as best as we can.  We are conscious of our children’s free will to leave that fold eventually, doing what they want and not God.  This is why we must do our best to train them in their young and formative years so that when they do choose to exercise that free will they may make the right choice, appreciating all the benefits that come from leading a godly and righteous life.  If they choose otherwise, this is our anguish, and we must at least pray like St. Monica for our children one day to see the light.

I mentioned that there is a second message in today’s Gospel.  to teach is further enunciated by our Lord in his mandate today.  Not only should we teach all nations the truths of the faith, we must also teach them “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”  We must constantly obey all Ten Commandments, all the precepts of the Church, and above all Christ’s greatest commandment to love God above all things, and his second great commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Note that Christ does not command us to keep the faith, to be baptized, or to obey his commandments.  He is speaking to apostles and to us who already have the faith and are doing our best to lead a good life.  His message is that we must teach the faith to and baptize others, teach others to obey the commandments.   He is making the point that if we love our neighbor as ourselves, then our neighbor’s salvation should be considered as we think of our own.  We must yearn that our neighbor share the wonderful truths of the faith.  And if we obey the commandments, we should be similarly concerned that our neighbor does the same.  For the sake of his soul.

Note too that when our children or other converts are baptized, it is not in the name of God, not in the name of Christ alone, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.  We are called to union with God in his entirety, not with one or other of these three Persons.  In fact this would be theologically impossible, and we are reminded of this very important truth by the words of baptism.  Our union with God is based on God’s own union of Trinity.  We don’t need to hear all the explanations of this very profound truth, but we should be aware of the simplicity of God—he is one simple divine essence, not composed of various conflicting movements like our own intellect and will.  Since Adam and Eve, we poor humans are constantly at war with ourselves, wanting to do one thing or another, and yet knowing we shouldn’t.  God has no such conflict within himself, and he has endowed the Church with a similar nature, the mark of being “one” as well as holy and catholic and apostolic.  The Church is the new Jerusalem, as described in Psalm 121: “Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself.”

That being said, I cannot not mention the evil shift that has taken place in Christ’s Holy Church since Vatican II.  This new false parallel Church (as Archbishop Vigano describes it) now seeks to betray the mandate Christ gave them in today’s Gospel.  Bergoglio has forbidden his priests from performing their essential role of “teaching all nations.”  He has forbidden them to proselytize, to convert people to the Catholic faith.  He would rather leave them in ignorance to fend for themselves.  He would rather disobey Christ who told the apostles and their successors to teach and baptize.  Pure and simple, he has betrayed God’s most essential message and we must pray with all our might that he may either convert or be deposed.  St. Peter himself, in the Acts of the Apostles, told us what must be done with the likes of Bergoglio when he quoted the Book of Psalms, where it is written, “Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.”  Let us pray that enough members of his church finally realize the evils that Vatican II have unleashed, and do what the law prescribes should happen to any heretical priest, bishop or pope.

If this mandate of Christ contained in today’s Gospel had been faithfully followed by all his disciples, then today the whole world would be members of Christ’s fold, the Catholic Church, eagerly seeking out the few who remain outside it, and loyally keeping the commandments.  God the Holy Ghost would dwell in the temple of our souls, and Christ would find his presence within us through the Holy Eucharist.  All mankind would be united in the Church, with one baptism, one faith, on one unswerving path to heaven where we may finally fulfill our union with God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  This would have been our world were it not for the sin of Adam and the ravages of man’s fallen nature.  This is the destiny that Christ prepared for us, this is why we were created, this is why he dwelt amongst us, this is why he died.  This is why he built a Church upon St. Peter the Rock, and this is why today, when Peter’s successors have betrayed the very essence of who we are and why we exist, we must seek out the divine and most Holy Trinity, whose all-seeing eye first sought us.