The Most Holy Trinity - Year B - 7th June 2009

Our Christian Logo

Watching people as they enter Catholic Churches can be interesting. Routinely as they approach the Holy Water font, they seem to flail their hands around, or jab fingers at their chest. What's going on is that they're making the Sign of the Cross almost unconsciously.

Were the water dyed, the effect could be quite startling! Not that I am suggesting we opt for such shock tactics, but on this feast of the Holy Trinity I would ask that we give some thought as to how we do make the sign of the cross.

The sign of the Cross is the Christian's logo or symbol. From the very beginning, at Baptism, when priests and parents sign a baby on the forehead, to the last farewell - again the sign of the Cross - over our coffin.

I am always impressed as how reverently parents and godparents make the sign of the cross on their baby's forehead at Baptism and when people are bidding farewell to a loved one before closing the coffin — but we should also be conscious as to how we make the in-between Signs of the Cross during our everyday life.

The Sign of the Cross signifies that the person making or receiving it belongs to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit - to the Trinity, in short. Often it's used so mindlessly and indiscriminately that we seldom think of what we are doing. We're too busy waiting for the sermon, the meal, the 'real' prayer that follows, that we don't notice that we have said the most powerful prayer already.

Properly done, in wordless movement, it expresses a great deal.

With the sign of the Cross, we indicate who we are and to whom we belong. By this blessing, with this simple sign and these simple words, we show we are no longer our own man or woman. Whatever follows, the prayer we pray, the meal we eat, the journey we take, the job we do, we do them not in our own name and for our glory, but in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and the glory of God.