June 3, 2026
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation
We will continue to-morrow our meditations upon the worship due to the Most Holy Trinity, and we will reflect upon two acts of this worship: the first is the sign of the cross; the second is the practice of Christian charity, modelled upon the union of the three divine Persons between themselves. We will then make the resolution: 1st, henceforth to make the sign of the cross with great reverence, to see in this sign our profession of faith in the mystery of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of the Redemption; and through this consideration to love to make it in the morning at our awakening, and in the evening when we lie down, and during the day at our meals and before our principal actions; 2d, to renew in ourselves charity toward our neighbor, by applying ourselves to make all those with whom we are connected happy, and by suffering all things from others and never making any one suffer ourselves. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of Our Lord: “O Father, that they may be one, as we also are one!” (John xvii. 22.)
Meditation for the Morning
Let us transport ourselves in spirit to the highest heavens. Let us there adore the Most Holy Trinity, let us prostrate ourselves before the darkness which environs it (Ps. xvii. 12), as well as before the inaccessible light in the depths of which it dwells (I. Tim. vi. 16). Let us humbly confess that its knowledge marvellously surpasses the range of our understanding, and that with all our efforts we could not reach it (Ps. cxxxviii. 6). Let us unite ourselves with the inexhaustible admiration of the blessed throughout eternity; and whilst waiting to share in it, let us meditate on two means of honoring the Most Holy Trinity.
FIRST POINT
The Sign of the Cross a Means of Honoring the Most Holy Trinity
The sign of the cross, rightly understood, is a magnificent compendium of the whole of Christianity. The words which accompany it proclaim one sole God in three Persons; and the sign itself traced by the hand recalls to mind the sacrifice of Calvary, which was the most sublime homage which could be received by the supreme God. Thus the Most Holy Trinity has always had so much pleasure in this sign, that it has made it the instrument of the greatest miracles. By virtue of this sign, the primitive Christians made the devils keep silence, tremble, or take flight; it delivered the possessed, threw down idols, worked divers marvels; and the Church has always taught that, made with faith and piety, it is a sign which effaces venial sin, makes temptation depart from us, and merits grace for us. In harmony with this doctrine, she never utters a prayer, she never bestows a benediction, without mingling this sign with her holy ceremonies. If, at the present day, the sacred sign is often sterile and inefficacious in our hands, on what must the fault be laid, if it be not that we make it with heart-breaking routine, without reverence, without faith; and that we pronounce the adorable names of the three Persons without thinking of them; the mind and the heart have nothing to do with it, the lips and the hands alone are concerned in this pious action. Is it not evident that the Most Holy Trinity cannot either feel itself to be honored by a wholly material worship or recompense those who perform it? As it is spirit and truth it requires a worship of spirit and truth. Let us here examine ourselves; let us be humiliated by so many signs of the cross made through routine, without reverence or attention, and let us understand the necessity of performing in a holy manner a thing so holy.
SECOND POINT
The Union of the three Divine Persons the Model of Christian Charity
Children of the Trinity, it becomes us to be its imitators. There is no surer means of pleasing it than to resemble it, by uniting all our hearts together by charity, even as the three divine Persons are united together by nature. Holy Father, grant that they may be all one by charity, as we are one by nature, that their hearts may be but as one heart, that they may be consummated in the unity of mutual love, and that the charity which unites Me to Thee may bind them all together in its sweet bonds (John xvii. 21, 22), that is to say, that as the three divine Persons understand each other perfectly, always love one another tenderly, and are but one sole God, although there are three Persons, so we also ought to cause to disappear from our mutual relations all misunderstanding, all coldness, all division, all sensitiveness, and be united together as one heart and one soul. Such was the marvellous spectacle given to the astonished world by the primitive Christians, which forced the heathen to exclaim: “See how they love one another.” Such was the all-powerful charm by which Christianity in its cradle gained all hearts. Oh, how beautiful would be the earth, if now, as then, this doctrine were understood and practised! Let us examine our conscience upon this important point of Christian morality.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.