Most Holy Trinity Sunday...

In a word, the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity have endeavoured to show the love which God has borne us, that we may love him through gratitude.

 It is, then, but just that we love that God who has been the first to love us, and to put us under so many obligations by so many proofs of tender love.

“Let us, therefore, love God, because God first hath loved us." (1 John iv. 19.)

Oh! what a treasure is charity! it is an infinite treasure, because it makes us partakers of the friendship of God.

”She is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God." (Wis. vii. 14.)

But, to acquire this treasure, it is necessary to detach the heart from earthly things.

“Detach the heart from creatures," says St. Teresa, "and you shall find God."

In a heart filled with earthly affections, there is no room for divine love.

Let us therefore continually implore the Lord in our prayers, communions, and visits to the blessed sacrament, to give us his holy love; for this love will expel from our souls all affections for the things of this earth.

”When," says St. Francis de Sales, ”a house is on fire, all that is within is thrown out through the windows."

By these words the saint meant, that when a soul is inflamed with divine love, s/he easily detaches him/herself from creatures: and Father Paul Segneri, the younger, used to say,

that divine love is a thief that robs us of all earthly affections, and makes us exclaim:

”What, O my Lord, but thee alone, do I desire ?"

Homily preached by St Alphonsus Liguori