HELLY how are you? This is Archbishop Sok Wiliegas. I'm greeting you from the Archbishop Laiisi Saflinger in the Guru Pane and welcome to the Light of Faith. The question is from Mark and he asks us, why do Catholics make the sign of the cross? The sign of the cross is the symbol of God's love for us. Jesus, the only big garden sign of God, died in the cross and that was the height of his love for us. There is no greater love than to die for your loved one and Jesus needs that. So when we Catholics make a sign of the cross, we are actually saying we believe in God's love for us, we believe that God loves me and nothing will make God change his mind in loving me. The love of God for me is unconditional and because God loves me, I have been changed. I am not the same anymore, I am a new person, I am a new man, I am a new woman because I have been touched with the love of God. Because we have been touched with the love of God, so we make the sign of the cross in ourselves also. And this time we are saying I accept that God loves me and I proclaim that God loves me. So in making the sign of the cross, we always use our right hand. The right hand is the hand of authority as when you swear, as when you take your oath. The right hand is also the right hand of power. Like Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father. So we say this person is the right hand man of the personal authority, we say this person has power. So we use our right hand to signify two things, power and authority. So we are staking all our powers, we are staking all our authority, we are staking our honor as we make the sign of the cross. We put the hand on our forehead and say in the name of the Father. Why the forehead? Because inside the forehead is our brain. And brain is the organ for thinking. So when we make a sign of the cross and put our hands on our forehead, we are actually saying my mind belongs to God. I want to know God more, I want to know God more in the scriptures, I want to know God more in the teachings of the church, I want to know God more in prayer. That is why it is very important that we Catholics read the Catechism, read the scriptures, attend seminars because these are ways for us to get to know God more. Because as philosophers say, you cannot love what you do not know. So if you want to love God, you have to know Him first, you have to meet Him. And then our hand goes down to our chest. Because inside our chest is our heart. And the heart is a symbol of love. So here we are actually saying my love belongs to God. Here we say my mind belongs to God, my love belongs to God. You cannot love anyone equal to God. You should not love anything equal to God. When we put our hands on our chest, we are actually saying, I love God. Should we stop loving one another? No. We should love one another, we should love our life here on earth because our life here on earth is a blessing from God. But do not love anyone or anything equal to God or even above God. And then our hand moves to the left shoulder and to the right shoulder. Why the shoulder? Because the shoulder helps us to act. The shoulder connects our limbs, our arms to our body. So what we are saying now is, my actions belong to God. It is very easy to be a good Catholic in the church. It is very easy to be a good Catholic when you pray. But the test of real Catholicism is when we act our faith. Because Christianity is not a matter of talking, it is a matter of walking. We must walk our faith. We must prove our faith by the action of our lives. So we are saying, my mind belongs to God, my love belongs to God, my actions belong to God. And then finally, our hands are put together and we say, Amen. Amen means I adore, Amen means I accept, Amen means I announce, Amen means I proclaim, Amen means I will die for this. So when we make a sign of the cross, it is actually a sign of love. We are accepting the love that God showed us when He allowed this only be cut on the sun to die in the cross. And to say, we are loved, this is how much I love you. When we make a sign of the cross, we are actually saying to ourselves, I accept the love of God for me. I am about to do something great. I am about to do something with love and I will do it for my love, for my love for God. May dear brothers and sisters in Christ, please make a sign of the cross as often as you wish during the day. When you wake up, when you sit down for a meal, before you leave the house, when you pass by the church, before praying, before meals after meals, before your work, before going to bed, make a sign of the cross. Because a sign of the cross is a sign, God loves me and I love God. Thank you for listening to The Light of Faith. I invite you to send in your questions, your inquiries, your face hearing, and we would be glad to broadcast them here and answer your questions here. Thank you very much. God loves you very much. Thank you for listening to The Light of Faith.