On the Sunday after Pentecost, the Church celebrates the Holy Trinity. As it comes towards the end of the Easter cycle, it is as if the Church has saved the best for last. This feast celebrates the mystery of the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
On 11th February 1858, accompanied by her sister and a friend, Bernadette went to Massabielle, next to the Gave, to collect bones and dead wood. Taking off her stockings to cross the stream and go into the Grotto, she heard a noise that sounded like a gust of wind. She looked up at the Grotto. “I saw a lady dressed in white: she was wearing a white dress, also a white veil, a blue sash and a yellow rose on each foot.” Seized by fear, Bernadette’s first reaction was to take out her rosary and make a sign of the Cross to receive protection from above, but her arm did not obey her. It was not until the Lady, whom she saw in the hollow of the Rock, made a beautiful sign of the Cross that she, too, was able to complete the prayer: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The great adventure of the apparitions began, like all celebrations in the Church, with a sign of the Cross calling on the Triune God.
The Christian faith professes one God in three separate persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The word “trinity” makes it possible to expound the mystery of a unique God in three persons.
Every liturgical act begins “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” and is punctuated by “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”. It is because they have been baptised “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” that Christians can celebrate the Covenant: not only to let themselves be open to the Trinity’s action of salvation, but to enter into the very life of the three divine Persons.
«It is significant that, during the first apparition to Bernadette, Mary begins the encounter with the sign of the Cross. More than a simple sign, it is an initiation into the mysteries of the faith that Bernadette receives from Mary.
The sign of the Cross is a kind of synthesis of our faith, for it tells how much God loves us; it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins. »
