Men - Initiate, Protect, and Promote Love
This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. When God created the “masculine” to initiate, protect, and promote love, He gave the created world a sign of Himself, the Blessed Trinity! While the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit act as one—we can examine each Person of the Trinity to derive a better understanding of who God created men to be.
Father: God the Father is the initiator of love; He is the creator! All men are designed to love with a father’s heart—to live as sign of God the Father in the created world. Man’s fatherhood—a vocation of initiating, creating, and sustaining life is a participation in God’s Fatherhood.
Son: Jesus, the Son of God, lived the perfection of masculinity. Through His teachings, commands, and perfect virtue, Jesus modeled perfect Sonship protecting the Father’s life and love against temptation, sin, and death. Men are called in a unique way to live their masculinity as protectors of God’s love—they are to safeguard the love of God against evil within their hearts, homes, and communities.
Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, is the love between the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit makes His home in the hearts of the faithful and gives them the supernatural ability to live the imitatio Christi—a life lived for heaven. As initiators and protectors of love, men are called to live as promoters of that love by living as spiritual leaders within their homes and communities.
In Sunday's Gospel, we read one of the most well-known verses within Sacred Scripture, 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. (John 3:16) In a beautiful way, through this verse, John reveals the Blessed Trinity as the Initiator, Protector, and Promoter of God's eternal love. God's design for the masculine is for him to completely conform his heart to the will of God so that the truth of John 3:16 is encountered in its fullness in every home throughout the world.
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