VATICAN God is like a family gathered around the table

Francis explained at the Angelus that, “When we hear about a Father and a Son it makes us feel at home, it makes us savor the close, compassionate and tender presence of God.” He expressed his closeness to the injured from the train accident in Orissa: “I assure my prayers to the families and the injured.”

Vatican City () – “We can imagine God as a family gathered around the table, where life is shared”, Pope Francis said today when he addressed the faithful gathered in Saint Peter’s Square to pray the Angelus on the solemnity of the Holy Trinity.

Commenting on the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus (Jn 3, 16-18) that today’s liturgy proposes, the pontiff observed that hearing about God as the relationship between a Father and a Son “disrupts the image we have of God.” “Because the very word, ‘God’, suggests a singular, majestic and distant reality, while hearing about a Father and a Son makes us feel at home. On the other hand, the table, which is at the same time an altar, It is a symbol that some icons use to represent the Trinity. It is an image that speaks to us of a communion God”. This image – Francis continued – “makes us savor the presence of God: a close, compassionate and tender presence. The Holy Spirit does with us the same thing that Jesus did with Nicodemus: we could say that he invites us to sit at the table with God to share his love. And that’s what happens at every Mass.”

But it is also what the sign of the cross reveals about the mystery of the Trinity, “the simplest gesture, which we learned as children” and which the Pope invited the faithful who were in the square to make. “By tracing the cross on our body – he explained – we remember how much God loved us, to the point of giving his life for us; and we repeat to ourselves that his love envelops us completely, from top to bottom, from left to right, like a hug that never leaves us. And at the same time we commit ourselves to bear witness to God-love, creating communion in his name ”.

That is why he invited us to ask ourselves: “Do we bear witness to God’s love or has it become a concept, something we have already heard, that no longer mobilizes or provokes life? Do our communities know how to love? Are they families? Do we always keep the door open, do we know how to welcome everyone as brothers and sisters? Do we offer everyone the food of God’s forgiveness and the wine of evangelical joy? Does it breathe an air of home or does it look like an office or a reserved place where only the chosen ones enter?

“Mary – he concluded – help us to live the Church as that house where we love each other like a family, to the glory of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.

At the end of his reflection, Francis renewed his closeness to the victims of the rail accident in India: “I assure you of my prayers,” he said, “I am close to the injured and their families. May the Heavenly Father welcome the souls of the deceased into his kingdom”. Finally, he returned to entrust to Mary” the peoples tested by the scourge of war, especially the beloved and martyred Ukraine “.