The grace, love, and fellowship of the Holy Trinity (Thomas Howard)

   The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

   Ah.  We are safe.  What we find flowing from that ineffable Trinity is grace, love, and fellowship.  We are welcomed, and received, and empowered.  It is like arriving in heaven.  Indeed. it is, says the Church:  the liturgy is the clearest picture you will have on earth of how things appear in the City of God.  And it is even more than mere picture:  it is pledge [sacrament], that is, foretaste.

   And also with you.

   Here in the liturgy, as the celebrant greets us with the grace, love, and fellowship of the Holy Trinity, we find that this charity coming from the celebrant calls forth our own fervent wish that he, too, may know this grace, love, and fellowship.

--Thomas Howard, On Being Catholic     

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