Birth of Christ

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Thursday, 25 December 2014 : Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, Christmas Mass (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the great day of great joy! The day when the Lord came into this world, assuming the form of a humble Man, born in a manger, to be the Saviour of the world, through whom this world would be delivered from its afflictions of sin and death. A Royal Child had been born for us and His Name is Jesus, the Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

Today is the culmination of the four weeks of preparation which we have begun since the first Sunday of Advent, and in this period of time, we have done our preparation for the coming of Christ, to rejoice greatly in His entry into the world. He is God, the Divine Word through which God willed the world and all of creations into being, but He did not hesitate to descend down upon us and assume our earthly identity as a Man, born of the Virgin, His mother Mary.

And in this, Christ is the culmination and perfect fulfillment of all the prophecies which prophets and messengers of God throughout the ages had prophesied about Him. They all talked of the day when the Lord would come and save His people, Israel, and this Saviour is none other than the Lord, just as king David and many prophets saw, the One who is to come to bring salvation to the world. He was also to be born of the House of David, as the Heir of David, the fulfillment of yet another of God’s promise, that He made to David, ‘Your descendants will sit on your throne forever.’

St. John the Evangelist spoke of Him in the Gospel he wrote, that He is Word, and He is eternal with God, not created but begotten from the Father, as One of the Holy Trinity, perfectly united to each other through love. And it is so wonderful that He has decided to come to us, to dwell among us and to be present among us, as the Lord who cares and loves for His people. He would not want them to be lost to the darkness.

The prophet Isaiah mentioned how a people in the darkness had seen a great Light. This Light is the Christ our Saviour, who brought His Light to lighten our path. We mankind have lived long in the darkness, caused by our sin and disobedience against God. We have for long lost our way and do not know where we ought to go in life, ever since we detached ourselves from the Lord’s guidance.

Disobedience of men against God brought us from the lives lived in full trust of the Lord, into a life filled with selfish desires and the desires to preserve ourselves, to gain more for ourselves, in possessions, wealth, for more worldly fame and praise, and to trust more in ourselves rather than to put our trust in the Lord. Temptations after temptations come our way, and we tend to lose our path, as we follow the false leads of temptation, greed, desire and many others.

We have deserved damnation and death for the paths of sin we had taken in life. But our Lord who loves us very much is willing to give us another chance, to change our ways and to be reoriented in our lives, so that while once we followed our own human desires, now we should trust rather in the Light which Christ had brought into the world, for He is the True Light that dispels all forms of lies and tricks that Satan and the evil one had brought unto us.

If I would give an analogy, the coming of Christ into the world is like ships being lost in the darkness of the sea, with no land in sight, and with dangerous rocks and waves threatening to sink the ships. We are the ships that travel through that sea filled with storms and rocks, which represent the challenges and temptations that we face in this life. Then, the coming of the Lord is like a great Light, which disperses the darkness, and gives hope to all those in the ship, because as all sailors knew, a light is a sign for land, like the light of a lighthouse.

That light shows the path the ships should take, to avoid the rocks and dangers that are scattered throughout the sea, that is our life journey. And this light to us, the Light of salvation, is our Lord Jesus Christ, born to us in Bethlehem on this day, over two millennia ago, as the manifestation of God’s desire to bring us back to Himself, and to bring a new hope of life to us.

To this extent, God who does not wish us to be lost to Him, chose to assume the humility of a servant, born as a Man, and not just any man. He is King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, and the Master of all the universe, and yet, this King was born in a manger within a stable suitable only for animals and not for human use. His Kingship is not one of power and greed, as the kingdoms and nations of this world are, but one that is based on love.

He laid down His life for us, by dying on the cross, so that through His death, we may be free from our sins and our sins He bore with Him as He climbed that hill of Calvary, out of that same love. By His obedience to the Father He had brought us from our state of sin and darkness into the new light of hope.

And why do we ponder this on this day of great joy? That is because Christmas cannot be separated from the Passion of the Lord, His death and resurrection, or otherwise, Christmas will be meaningless. Christmas is part of that grand celebration of God’s love, through which He made Himself Man, that He might carry out to perfection what the Lord had intended for us, that is to be liberated from our slavery and bondage to sin, and to bring us back to Himself.

His care and concern for us is great, and He is a true King who cares for all of His people. He did not come into this world to boast of Himself, His power or His might, but He came to serve His people with love, teaching them the way how they ought to live their lives that they may avoid those that bring about harm to them. Remember what I have just told you about the light of the lighthouse and the ship lost in the darkness?

The light of Christ is that light, and His teachings are the light that leads the people, the ships, to Himself, avoiding the dangers and the darkness that threaten to destroy us and harm us. He offers us this freely, and if only that we would follow Him, then we are sure to be safe and protected from any harm that may threaten us. Not the kind of threat that harms our body, but instead those threats that can harm our eternal soul, such as sin.

If we look at the story of Christmas, we can see clearly how most of us have the attitudes that do not allow us to welcome Christ into our lives. He has offered us salvation and grace in Him, but are we willing to accept Him and all that He offered us? The temptations and allures of this world, of many kinds of possessions, material goods, even sexual vices and pleasures of the flesh surely seem more enticing to us than to follow Christ and His ways.

Mary and Joseph were not able to find any place in any of the inns and houses of Bethlehem, and therefore they had no choice but to find a stable instead. No one has a place available for the Lord, whose coming was imminent then. Mary was about to give birth, and all those inns lost out on the opportunity to be the place where the Lord and Saviour was to be born, and instead, a humble stable and the animals became the witness of the Good News that had come to its full truth and fulfillment with the birth of Jesus.

Therefore, let us ask ourselves. Have we opened the door wide for Christ when He comes to us, or did we instead close the door in front of Him or did not even bother to open it to Him? If the latter is the case, more often than not, we are too full of ourselves, so that we are unable to open our heart to Christ. It is in our nature to think first about ourselves, our pride and selfishness, our desire for more goods and things of this world.

Thus, this Christmas, let us all realise that God wants to be with us, and He wants to come into our lives, and when He knocks at the door, do not let Him pass us by because we are too full of ourselves and therefore unable to accept Him into us. Let us all be humble and lower ourselves, sinners as we are, and yet God is willing to forgive us and accept us back into His loving embrace.

But we have one last thing to consider. The Lord who was born as a Child, Emmanuel, which means God is with us, is not just a symbolic meaning, but it is truly real. God is truly with us, and He is with us still, within us who are faithful to Him, and who have been accepted as the members of His Church. We believe in His Real Presence in the Eucharist, and whenever we receive the Most Holy Eucharist, God Himself came into us and dwell within us.

Therefore, even as we rejoice in this great celebration of Christmas, let us also be aware that all of us are the dwellings of the Lord Most High God, Jesus Christ our King. Yes, the very same One who was born in a manger on this Christmas day. He had dwelled in us and will never leave us, ever since He gave Himself up as a worthy sacrifice for our sins, giving us His Body and Blood, His very Presence and Essence for us, that all of us who have share in Him, will never fall and die, but will enjoy the fruits of eternal life.

Nonetheless, we have to heed what St. Paul had written in his letter to the Corinthians, when he reminded them about them, the faithful, as the Temple of God, the places where the Lord Himself resides in. We are the Temple and the House of God, and God dwells in us. Therefore, it is only fitting that this Temple be kept pure and holy at all times, and thus, this Christmas, let us all be renewed with a new resolve in our lives, so that we will be ever more faithful disciples of the Lord, appreciating and accepting His love, and practicing what He had taught us, in our own actions in life.

The Lord will one day come again, and this Christmas should be a season to celebrate and rejoice the love of God, but also for self-introspection and rediscovery of our faith. Do not wait until it is too late, lest we be caught unready and unprepared. Do not be like the inns and the houses of Bethlehem which were full, and were not able to receive the Lord into their places, and thus we should not close ourselves or isolate ourselves from the love of God made evident and real through Jesus.

May the joy of Christmas be with us all, not the false joy of parties and drunken revelries, not in the shopping and the goods, not in the bright lights and decorations, but the true Joy of knowing and having the Love of God made manifest and dwelling among us, through Jesus Christ our Lord, the Royal Child born on this day in Bethlehem, over two millennia ago, the proof of God’s love for us. May He find us ready and alert when He comes again, all of us filled with the true joy of Christmas and sharing the love He had given us, with one another. God bless us all. Amen.

Merry Christmas! Buon Natale! May the peace and love of Christ be with all of us!

 

First Reading (Christmas Vigil Mass) :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/22/wednesday-24-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-vigil-mass-first-reading/

 

Psalm (Christmas Vigil Mass) :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/22/wednesday-24-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-vigil-mass-psalm/

 

Second Reading (Christmas Vigil Mass) :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/22/wednesday-24-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-vigil-mass-second-reading/

 

Gospel Reading (Christmas Vigil Mass) :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/22/wednesday-24-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-vigil-mass-gospel-reading/

 

First Reading :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/23/thursday-25-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-mass-first-reading/

 

Psalm :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/23/thursday-25-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-mass-psalm/

 

Second Reading :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/23/thursday-25-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-mass-second-reading/

 

Gospel Reading :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/23/thursday-25-december-2014-solemnity-of-the-nativity-of-the-lord-christmas-mass-gospel-reading/

 

Epistle (Usus Antiquior) :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/22/usus-antiquior-feast-of-the-nativity-of-our-lord-christmas-day-i-classis-thursday-25-december-2014-epistle/

 

Gospel (Usus Antiquior) :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/22/usus-antiquior-feast-of-the-nativity-of-our-lord-christmas-day-i-classis-thursday-25-december-2014-holy-gospel/

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Sunday, 8 December 2013 : Second Sunday of Advent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Today, we hear about the story of St. John the Baptist, the one who became the herald and the messenger of the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, the One who was to save the world. St. John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus was the one who prepared the way for the Lord, not with loud trumpets and the song of angels, but with the call in the desert, the call for the repentance of peoples.

For mankind had been long under the thrall of sin, such that they were long enslaved by the evils of sin. They were not prepared to receive the Lord in that state. They have to be prepared first, that when the Lord came, they were in a state where they would be more receptive to the messages of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

John gained great successes, because throngs of people came to him to be baptised at the Jordan, and committed themselves to the repentance over their sins. Yet, this does not mean that he had an easy job, as you all would notice, how, just as Jesus had encountered opposition and challenges from them, John too faced the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who trusted only in themselves and in their religious knowledge and truth, and not in the revelation brought first by John and made whole by Christ.

They were the people whose sense of self-righteousness brought the people of God to ruin. They thought that they had been very pious and faithful to the Lord by obeying all of His commandments and laws without fail, but they had gotten it all wrong. When they did all those rituals and commandments, they did them not for God, but for themselves.

They liked to be praised on the streets, in the Temple, and by whoever they met along the way. They were the pious ones, the influential ones, the powerful ones, the ones with authority over the people, as leaders and teachers of the people especially in the matters pertaining to the faith, and yet they failed, miserably. They looked and thought highly upon themselves and condemned others who did not do what they had done.

They questioned John because they first saw in him, a rival to their teaching authority and their influence. They also questioned him because they did not look highly and kindly on him, just as later on they would not have high regards for Jesus either. For them, the faith is all about obedience, observation, and most importantly, to them, the obedience of the people to their way and method of teaching, including the way of thinking and the way they had interpreted the faith for the people.

In this, they had misled the people, and brought them to damnation instead of to salvation, and that was why John was so angry at them, for these people had abused their authority as leaders of the people, leading them to the wrong way. John showed the people a preview of the work of salvation in Jesus, that is mercy and love.

If the Pharisees condemned sinners and people they thought as unworthy as sinners, thinking that they did not deserve salvation, unlike them, and if the Sadducees jeered on those who put their faith in the resurrection and new life in God after this world, John and later Jesus Himself, showed that the nature of God is love, compassion, kindness, and mercy.

The Lord is slow to anger and rich in mercy, and if only that we repent and turn our back from our lives of sin, the Lord will welcome us with wide, open hands, to welcome us into His kingdom, the rewards He had repeatedly promised us through Jesus Himself. In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly said to His disciples and to the people, that all who believe in Him will not die but live, a new and eternal life. Jesus also repeatedly stressed that the Lord shows mercy to those who seek His forgiveness

Jesus did not make all those promises as if they are empty promises. That is because they are all real, brethren! Jesus made these promises to us, and seal them with none other than His own sacrifice on the cross. Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection three days after that are the culmination of the long-planned plan of salvation God had crafted for us all, ever since we fell into sin. And John, who cried in the desert asking the people to repent, made the first step in the fulfillment of that plan.

Yes, brethren, Jesus offered Himself freely to us, and His salvation He also offered freely to us, from up there on the cross. He did not die for nothing. He died so that we can live. We ought to heed the call of St. John the Baptist, and begin to reflect on our own selves if we had not done so, on whether we have repented from our sinfulness and change our ways for the better, or whether we have ignored the heeding of the Lord made clear through John.

We often play the part of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, that is to be jealous of others who steal our glory, to fear those who are going to humiliate us or take away the authority away from us. We often become judgmental of others, thinking of the faults in others while failing to see the failures that we ourselves possessed. This is why, we, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, despite our sinfulness and weaknesses, did not go and make an effort to change ourselves.

We are often too busy to spend some time with the Lord, and instead our faith becomes more like a chore and a routine rather than true faith and devotion. We go to church every Sunday, attend the Mass, receive the Holy Communion, and then we go back, go back to our daily routines, and we repeat this again and again, over and over again. If I ask you, what is the meaning behind all of these routines?

The Lord has given His all to us, He even died for us, for our sake, to spare us the fate of death, and He even sent a messenger to prepare the way for Him, and to act as an extra set of mouth to remind the people of the importance for them to repent, and to realise how much their God loves them. But we are often not serious in our love for Him, because we are too busy with our own businesses, with our own daily routines, and with the world!

Yes, just as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the teachers of the Law. They were too busy in their own world of righteousness and in their fallacy of salvation, that they failed to notice the Messiah when He came into the world, and they rejected Him, just as they had doubted and rejected John at the Jordan. This is the path to damnation, and we have a choice here, brothers and sisters. Will we choose to go the same way as they had done?

This Advent season has entered its second week, and in another three weeks, we will be celebrating the birth and the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ into this world at Christmas. He abandoned the glory of heaven and even His own divinity so that He can be with us, and eventually to sacrifice Himself for us. That is how serious and strong is His love for us. Are we able to do the same for Christ?

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today onwards, heed the call of St. John the Baptist, to repent for the kingdom of God is near. It is coming soon, and we do not know when it will exactly come. We certainly do not want to be caught unprepared when Christ comes again in His glory to judge all creations. It is up to us, whether we want to be judged with the righteous and enter the eternal glory of heaven, or with the damned, to suffer eternally in hell, a total separation from the love of God.

May the Lord watch over us, and help us to make a wise decision, that our lives will be able to change for the better, and no longer sin, but to love more tenderly from now on, that we will truly be worthy of being called, the children of God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 8 December 2013 : Second Sunday of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 11 : 1-10

From the stump of Jesse a shoot will come forth; from his roots a branch will grow and bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him – a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and power, a Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

Not by appearances will He judge, nor by what is said must He decide, but with justice He will judge the poor and with righteousness decide for the meek. Like a rod, His word will strike the oppressor, and the breath of His lips slay the wicked. Justice will be the girdle of His waist, truth the girdle of His loins.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will rest beside the kid, the calf and the lion cub will feed together and a little child will lead them. Befriending each other, the cow and the bear will see their young ones lie down together. Like cattle, the lion will eat hay.

By the cobra’s den the infant will play. The child will put his hand into the viper’s lair. No one will harm or destroy over My holy mountain, for as water fills the sea, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.

On that day the “Root of Jesse” will be raised as a signal for the nations. The people will come in search of Him, thus making His dwelling place glorious.

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Sunday, 26 May 2013 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Trinity Sunday (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a most important part of our faith, that is our belief in the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Today we commemorate the triune unity of our God, three aspects of the One God, Three but One, One but Three. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that is the wonder and the mystery of our faith, my brethren.

We hear about the Holy Trinity all the time, and in fact, whenever we make the sign of the cross, we are uttering the Holy Name of the Trinity, that is the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and during our baptism too, we are sealed in baptism by the Name of the Trinity. What is then this Trinity, and how does it form the basic tenet of our faith?

It is false to think that we worship three different Gods or three different divine persons in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The three of them are one in unity, in a mysterious and indivisible bond of unity, and yet different from one another. Father is not Son, and is not the Holy Spirit, and neither is Son the Father, and neither is He the Holy Spirit, and the same applies to the Holy Spirit as well.

Just imagine a fire, a physical fire with flames that we can see with our eyes. Yes, we can see a fire, and that is the physical fire, because fire produces light that our eyes perceive as the flames of fire, and yet, we can also feel fire through other means, how? Precisely by its heat, which we feel as the warm sensation on our skin when we are near a fire. Then, there is yet, the kinetic energy of the fire, which is what is causing the heat, but certainly, just like heat, is invisible from our eyes.

These different characteristics of the fire is exactly like what the Holy Trinity is truly about, as three different dimensions and characteristics of the same, one thing, in this case, fire. Another example would be ice, in which the same can be observed. We can see the physical form of the ice, as a crystal-like solid, and we can touch and feel the ice, the slippery surface of the ice, and feel the coldness of the ice, even when we do not touch the ice. All of these are just like the Holy Trinity, three dimensions of the one, same being.

Or just like St. Patrick, how he tried to explain about the Holy Trinity to the pagan peoples of ancient Ireland, when he managed to convert them to the cause of Christ, by using the three-leaf clover, which has three lobes within one clover, as a symbol of the Holy Trinity, with each side representing one member of the Holy Trinity, and the entirety of the three sides forming a union of the Holy Trinity represented by the clover leaf.

That is the Holy Trinity of the One God that we believe in. None of them can exist without the other, because they are one in unity, and indivisible, you cannot take one out of the Trinity and expect to have the whole being the same as before, and that is if we can even take anyone of the three out, because it is as I had mentioned, indivisible and no power can divide the perfect unity between the Three members of the Holy Trinity.

We cannot take the heat out of the fire and expect the fire to be the same, and neither can we take out the flames, its physical shape, and expect to have a fire that is still what we call as fire, and neither can we take out the cold from the ice, and still expect to have ice as we know it. The heat, the shape, and the visible form of the flame, and the cold, the touch, and the form of the ice are inseparable from one another. They are clearly different, one aspect from another, but they are one, and they form one thing, that is the fire, or the ice.

That is our Holy Trinity, the God that we believe in, the God who is our Saviour, the one and true God. Who was very evident in the Gospel, at the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan River, when God the Father spoke in a loud voice that ‘This is My Son, the Beloved. My favour rests on Him.’, and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus, the Son of God. All three persons of the Holy Trinity at the same scene indeed. That is why, in our own baptism, we too are sealed in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, just as Jesus Himself commanded His apostles, to make disciples of all nations.

The Holy Trinity is the centre of our faith, and in our Creed, we always reiterate our faith in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God but with three different persona, united as one and indivisible, each with roles that complement each other, and each are united with one another in a perfect union of love.

We must always profess our faith in the Holy Trinity, my brothers and sisters, in God the Father who loves us and who created us from dust, and who gave us the breath of life through the Holy Spirit that gives life as the Lord of life, who proceeds from both the Father Himself and through Jesus His Son, whom He sent out of His great and infinite love for us, willing to redeem us and save us from our eternal damnation caused by our rebellion against His will at the beginning of time.

Though mankind through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, our ancestors, have sinned before God and therefore deserves death, but He does not give us up to death, but give us a new hope and a new chance through His Son, who came upon this world as a lowly and humble man like us. The Son of God Most High incarnate as a poor man, the Son of Mary, born in a stable, though He is a King.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour and Lord, is the Word of God, and if we read the Gospel of John, at its beginning, we note that the Word of God is with God, since the beginning of time, and this Word of God became flesh, and came upon us, in the form of Jesus, so that God’s will that mankind be saved can become a reality, just as Christ had once made God’s creation a reality.

For it is through the Word of God that creation was made, in the Book of Genesis, which gave us the account of creation, God spoke, and creation beckons, and earth with all its goodness was made, together with the entire universe, including us, mankind, which He created last. This Word of God is God’s speech, and indivisible from Him, just as the Spirit is also indivisible, and existed since the beginning of time, when the Spirit of God also floated in the nothingness that is before creation. This again prove that our God is one God, but one God with three distinct persona, but yet united as one and indivisible in perfect unity.

God created us in His own image, and we are in the likeness of God, just as Jesus incarnate as one of us, made God even closer and more personal to all of us. Then to us, to those who believe in Him, in His work of salvation through the cross, He gave us the final gift of the Most Holy Trinity, that is the Holy Spirit, the last member of the Three, who empowers us and gives us strength in our hearts, and in the case of the Apostles, gave them the courage and faith to persevere and preach the Good News to many, that many too were saved, just as all of us today are saved, brothers and sisters in Christ.

The concept of the Holy Trinity in one God is truly not easy to be understood, brethren, and it is to be so, because indeed, in our faith, there are mysteries that our human mind are unable to solve, but we should not worry about that, and neither should we try to claim that we know more than God by trying to understand the Holy Trinity more than what we know through the teachings of the Church, which are the teachings of the Apostles passed down to us, through unbroken chain of apostles and faithful disciples of the Lord throughout history.

What matters is, let the Lord remain in our hearts, and keep His presence strong in us always, remembering at all times, the love of God our creator and our Father, the saving sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son, whom we receive frequently in the Most Holy Eucharist, through which He gave us His own flesh and blood to eat, for us to have part in Him, and in the Holy Spirit that He has given all of us who believe in Him, and who remains in our hearts, bearing much fruits of the Holy Spirit, most important of which, that is love.

Let us profess the Holy Trinity in all that we do, in all our lives, and commit ourselves to the Trinity, most easily through our use of the sign of the cross, whenever we pray, and whenever we ask the Lord for guidance. Do not be afraid to make the sign of the cross, my brothers and sisters in Christ, for the sign of the cross, that is in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, marks the saving passion of our Lord on the cross, which brought salvation to all of us, and even more so, it also highlight to all who see us, as ones who believe in the One God with Three divine natures, that is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, three persons, in one God, indivisible in perfect union of love.

May the Holy Trinity remain within our hearts always, and may all of us be strengthened with courage to profess our faith in our words, our actions, and all our dealings with all those whom we meet in our lives, that through our actions, the Holy Trinity is reflected and is shown to all those who have yet to believe in God. May God be with all of us, today, and forever more.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.