Trinitarian Mystery

Discussion about the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Tomorrow, June 6, 2004, is Trinity Sunday.

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V. Blessed be the holy Trinity and undivided Unity;
R. We will give glory to Him, because He hath shown His mercy to us.

V. O Lord our Lord, how wonderful is Thy Name in all the earth!
R. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!

Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy
Blessed Trinity, hear us. Adorable Unity, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, Have mercy on us.
Father from Whom are all things, Have mercy on us.
Son through Whom are all things, Have mercy on us.
Holy Ghost in Whom are all things, Have mercy on us.
Holy and undivided Trinity, Have mercy on us.
Father everlasting, Have mercy on us.
Only-begotten Son of the Father,
Spirit Who preceedeth from the Father and the Son, Have mercy on us.
Co-eternal Majesty of Three Divine Persons, Have mercy on us.
Father, the Creator, Have mercy on us.
Son, the Redeemer, Have mercy on us.
Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Have mercy on us.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, Have mercy on us.
Who art, Who was, and Who art to come, Have mercy on us.
God Most High, Who inhabits eternity, Have mercy on us.
To Whom alone are due all honor and glory, Have mercy on us.
Who alone doest great wonders, Have mercy on us.
Power infinite, Have mercy on us.
Wisdom, incomprehensible, Have mercy on us.
Love unspeakable, Have mercy on us.

Be merciful, Spare us, O Holy Trinity.
Be merciful, Graciously hear us, O Holy Trinity.

From all evil, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all sin, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all pride, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all love of riches, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all uncleanness, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all sloth, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all inordinate affection, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all envy and malice, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From all anger and impatience, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From every thought, word, and deed contrary to Thy holy law, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
From Thine everlasting malediciton, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
Through Thy plenteous loving kindness, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
Through the exceeding treasure of Thy goodness and love, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
Through the depths of Thy wisdom and knowledge, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.
Through all Thy unspeakable perfections, Deliver us, O Holy Trinity.

We sinners,
Beseech Thee, hear us.

That we may ever serve Thee alone, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may worship Thee in spirit and in truth, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may love Thee with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That, for Thy sake, we may love our neighbor as ourselves, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may faithfully keep Thy holy commandments, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may never defile our bodies and souls with sin, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may go from grace to grace, and from virtue to virtue, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That we may finally enjoy the sight of Thee in glory, We beseech Thee, hear us.
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to hear us, We beseech Thee, hear us.

O Blessed Trinity, We beseech Thee, deliver us.
O Blessed Trinity, We beseech Thee, save us.
O Blessed Trinity, Have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy,
Lord, have mercy.

Our Father (silently);
Hail Mary (silently).

V. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, in the firmament of Heaven,
R. And worthy to be praised, and glorious, and highly exalted forever.

Let Us Pray:
Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast granted Thy servants in the confession of the True Faith, to acknowledge the glory of an Eternal Trinity, and in the power of Thy majesty to adore a Unity: we beseech Thee that by the strength of this faith we may be defended from all adversity. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Thanks, Salvation!

You are so welcome!

That icon is blasphemy. I have seen a similar one in a Greek Orthodox Church in St. Augustine, Florida (which had some other eyebrow-raising novelties!).

The "man" on the right is the "Father" I suppose. Images of God are not allowed in Christianity. No one has seen the Father, not on this earth at least. Icons can only represent real people of which Jesus is one in His duality.

This icon is Greek (Greek-Catholic?), but no different than Michaelangelo's paiting of "God" touching a man's hand.

No wonder Jews and Muslims accuse Christians of being polytheistic!

Good morning, hope your day improves and you can see the positive side of things.

Good morning to you too. I hope you gain some important insights fof a change.

by Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D.

The Trinity Matters

06/07/04

There is nothing new under the sun, says the book of Ecclesiastes. The DaVinci Code proves it. Jesus of Nazareth the Incarnation of the Eternal God? Second person of the Holy Trinity? This was all invented by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 AD, alleges the author.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and others have been singing this song for years. Of course it has no historical basis whatsoever. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote seven brief letters around 110 AD in which he called Jesus “God” 16 times. True, the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. But everywhere the New Testament refers to three distinct persons who seem to be equally divine. Yet these are not regarded as three gods but are rather identified with the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So over 100 years before Constantine, a Christian writer named Tertullian coined the term “Trinity” as a handy way to refer to this reality of three distinct, equal persons in one God. It stuck.

But if the doctrine of the Trinity is authentically biblical, is it relevant? Does it really matter?

If Christianity were a simply religion of keeping the law, the inner life of the lawgiver would not be our concern. But if Christianity is about personal relationship with God, then who God really is matters totally. Common sense tells us that some supreme being made the universe and that we owe this Creator a debt of gratitude and respect. But we never could have guessed that this creator is one God in three persons and invites us to intimate friendship with Himself. This is something we can know only because God has revealed it.

God is love, says 1 John 4:8. If God were a single person, how could He have been love before the creation of the world? Who would there have been to love? Jesus reveals a God who is essentially and eternally love, a community of love, three persons pouring Themselves out in love to one another before the dawn of creation. The Father does not create the Son and then, with the Son, create the Spirit. No, the Father eternally generates the Son and with and through the Son eternally “breathes” the Spirit as a sort of personalized sigh of love. “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.” That’s what the conclusion of the "Glory Be" really means, that the self-giving of the Three Divine Persons did not begin at a moment in time, but was, is, and is to come. It is the fundamental ground of all reality.

If we are truly to “know” our God, we must know this. But if we are ever to understand ourselves, we must also know this. For we were made in the image and likeness of God, and God is a community of self-donating love. That means that we can never be happy isolated from others, protecting ourselves from others, holding ourselves back selfishly from others. Unless we give ourselves in love, we can never be fully human. And unless we participate in the life of God’s people, we can never be truly Christian either. Because Christianity is about gathering with Christ rather than scattering; it is about building up the community of divine love which is called the Church. If God is Trinity, then there really is no place for free-lance, lone-ranger Christians.

There are Trinitarian traces everywhere in creation. The atom is proton, neutron, and electron. There are three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. Our experience of time is triune — past, present, and future. The basic unit of society, the domestic Church, is a reflection of trinitarian love — the love of husband and wife, distinct and very different persons, generates the child who is from them and loves them, but is nonetheless distinct from them both, absolutely unique.

And that is the final point. One of the greatest treasures of Western culture is the concept of the uniqueness and dignity of the individual person. You really don’t find this idea in the ancient classical societies of Greek and Rome, where human flesh was cheap. And you really don’t find it either in cultures formed by other great world religions, such as Islam.

The concept of the irreplaceable uniqueness of each person came into our culture straight from the doctrine of the Trinity, Three Who possess the exact same divine nature, but Who are yet irreplaceably unique in Their personhood.

The irony? As it progressively abandons the triune God and His commandments in the name of “choice,” the Western world is undermining the very foundation of personhood, dignity, individuality, and freedom.

So yes, the Trinity does matter.

**There are Trinitarian traces everywhere in creation. The atom is proton, neutron, and electron. There are three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. Our experience of time is triune — past, present, and future. The basic unit of society, the domestic Church, is a reflection of trinitarian love — the love of husband and wife, distinct and very different persons, generates the child who is from them and loves them, but is nonetheless distinct from them both, absolutely unique.**

BTTT!

			Each year, the Church commemorates the mysteries of our salvation, from Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, to His death and resurrection, to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This week, the liturgy invites us to contemplate the central mystery of our faith: the Blessed Trinity, the mystery of God’s own inner life and the source of all graces and gifts.



In His providence, God gradually revealed to human beings His own nature as a communion of three Divine Persons, sharing one and the same Divine Nature. In the Old Testament He makes known above all His oneness and His complete transcendence from the world as its Creator and Lord. At the same time, the Old Testament proclaims the love and mercy of God, who cares for and forgives His people, who guides and protects them. Furthermore, even in the Old Testament, we get glimpses of the paternity of God the Father, of the Incarnation of God the Son (whose coming is foretold by the prophets), and of the action of God the Holy Spirit, who gives life to all things. It is Jesus Christ, however, who reveals to us the Trinitarian mystery in all its fullness and calls us to participate in it by grace. Christ speaks intimately of Himself, His Father and the Holy Spirit as equal in power, majesty and divinity. He tells us that He has come to give us life, to give us access to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Christ invites us to seek above all things communion with the Holy Trinity, in whose presence we hope to live forever. The mystery of the Trinity — which we could never know by ourselves — is the starting point of all revealed truth, the fountain from which all supernatural life flows, and the goal to which every human person is ordered. The contemplation of God’s inner life sheds light on our own dignity: we are children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and co-heirs with the Son, and we are continually sanctified by the Holy Spirit to make us resemble Christ more and more. The Blessed Trinity, therefore, is not just an abstract theological truth. Instead, it lies at the very center of our faith, and it is a mystery that we invoke constantly. Whenever we make the sign of the cross, we profess our belief in the Trinity. We were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and in Their name also our sins are forgiven. The prayers of the Mass are directed to the Holy Trinity, and our personal prayers, though we may address only one of the Divine Persons, are heard and answered by all three. Pope John Paul has reminded us that the whole of the Christian life is like a great pilgrimage to the house of the Father. On this pilgrimage, we are accompanied each day by the Holy Spirit, who makes Christ present to us and keeps us mindful of His saving words and deeds. The Trinity is the beginning and the end of our entire existence, for God imparts to us a share in His own life and love, and calls us to communion with Himself. With grateful hearts, especially on this Trinity Sunday, let us acknowledge and reverence the God whom we adore: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, world without end. Amen." Fr. De Ladurantaye is director of the Office of Sacred Liturgy, secretary for diocesan religious education, a professor of theology at Notre Dame Graduate School and in residence at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington. (This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)