God Is Love, Pope Affirms, But Not in ‘Sentimental’ Sense

The Holy Father celebrated the feast of the Most Holy Trinity yesterday.

(photo: Catholic News Agency)

VATICAN CITY — As he celebrated the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, Pope Francis spoke about how God is love, but not in an “emotional” or “sentimental” way.

“The light of Easter and Pentecost have renewed in us each year the joy and wonder of faith that recognizes that God is not something vague, abstract, but has a name: ‘God is love,’” the Pope said May 26, before reciting the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square.

And this love “is not sentimental, emotional, but the love of the Father who is the source of all life, the love of the Son who died on the cross and rose, the love of the Spirit who renews man and the world,” he stated.

Pope Francis then reflected on how the Trinity “is not the product of human reasoning; it is the face which God himself revealed, not from the top of a throne, but walking with humanity in the history of the people of Israel, and above all in Jesus of Nazareth.

“Jesus is the Son who made us know the merciful Father and brought to the world his ‘fire,’ the Holy Spirit,” he said.

On today’s feast, he explained, “we praise God not for a particular mystery, but for himself, ‘for his glory is immense,’ as the liturgical hymn says. We praise him and thank him because he is love and for how he calls us to enter the embrace of his communion, which is eternal life.”

Because of celebrations for the Year of Faith in previous weeks, today was the first time in a month that the Pope delivered his words from the window of the papal apartment.

Without those festivities, the crowd was also not as large as before, but it made up for it with the presence of a troupe of people dressed in medieval garb — accompanied by a section of drums and trumpets — a large delegation from an Italian military association and a group of faithful from China who came to Rome to pray for their local Church.

Pope Francis explained to the assembly that he had just finished making his first trip as pontiff to a parish in the Rome Diocese, and he thanked the Lord for the visit.

He also asked the crowd to “pray for my pastoral service in this Church, which has the mission of presiding in universal charity.”

Before reciting the Angelus with the faithful, Pope Francis said, “we entrust our praise to the hands of the Virgin Mary.

“She, the most humble of creatures, through Christ, has already reached the goal of our earthly pilgrimage: She is already in the glory of the Trinity. She shines for us as a sign of sure hope and solace and accompanies us on the path.”

Edward Reginald Frampton, “The Voyage of St. Brendan,” 1908, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin.

Which Way Is Heaven?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystic west was inspired by the legendary voyage of St. Brendan, who sailed on a quest for a Paradise in the midst and mists of the ocean.