FROM THE BOOK OF HEAVEN

My daughter, the “I love you” is everything! The “I love you” is Love, it is Veneration, it is Esteem, it is Heroism, it is Sacrifice, it is Trust toward the one to whom it is directed. The “I love you” is to Possess the One who encloses the “I love you”. The “I love you” is a little word, but it weighs as much as Eternity! The “I love you” encloses everything, involves everyone; it diffuses itself, it restricts itself, it rises up high, it descend down to the bottom, it impresses itself everywhere, and it never stops.

…Its Origin is Eternal. In the “I love you” the Celestial Father Generated Me (Jesus), and in the “I love you” the Holy Spirit Proceeded. In the “I love you” the Eternal FIAT made the whole creation, and in the “I love you” It forgave guilty man and redeemed him.

Pope Benedict: Love within the Trinity Overflows into Forgiveness for Man

…“So, in the mystery of the cross, there are three Divine Persons,” …

“The Father, who gave his only begotten Son for the salvation of the world, the Son, who carries out the Will of the Father to the very end and the Holy Spirit – poured out by Jesus at the moment of his death – who comes to render us participants in Divine Life, to transform our lives, so that our lives are animated by Divine Love.”

“The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, because God is Love: the Father gives everything to the Son, the Son receives everything from the Father with gratitude, and the Holy Spirit is like the fruit of this mutual Love between the Father and Son,” said the Pope describing the Holy Trinity – the Christian proposition that God is three persons but one divine nature – as the “first and greatest mystery of our faith.”

To illustrate the Holy Trinity’s Mercy for man, the Pope drew upon the first Bible passage read at today’s Mass. It recounted the disobedience of the Jewish people who, after being led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses, wanted a golden idol instead of God.

“All seems lost, all friendship broken,” said the Pope.

“Yet, despite having committed the gravest of sins, God, through the intercession of Moses, decides to forgive His people and calls Moses to ascend the mountain once more to receive His law, the Ten Commandments.”

God then describes himself to Moses as “a Merciful and Gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” In these words, said the Pope, “there can be no clearer revelation” of the Trinity’s Benevolence towards man.

“We have a God who renounces the destruction of the sinner and wants to show His Love in an even more profound and surprising way right in front of the sinner in order to always offer the possibility of conversion and forgiveness.”

The culmination of this Divine Offer said the Pope, drawing upon today’s Gospel reading, is the Incarnation of God-made-man in the person of Jesus Christ.

“The evangelist John refers to this statement of Jesus: ‘God so Loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have Eternal Life’.”

So while some may presume a God who would “come to judge the world, to destroy evil, to punish those who work in darkness” instead, said the Pope, “He shows He Loves the world, He Loves man, despite his sinfulness, and sends what is His most precious possession: His only begotten Son.”