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To: DouglasKC
Two are joined in marriage. Two become one...No, it's overwhelmingly, absolutely two, not three.

Perhaps try looking at it this way,sear friend

As the late Bishop Sheen Wrote about love being Triune

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2463497/posts

Excerpts... The love of husband and wife is perfected as it becomes triune; now there is the lover, the beloved, and love--the love being something distinct from both, and yet in both. If there is only the mine and thine, there is impenetrability and separateness. Not until there is a third acting element, as the soil in which the two vines intertwine, is there oneness. Then is the impotence of the I to completely possess the Thou overcome in the realization that there is a bond outside pulling them together, hovering over them as the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, turning the I and Thou into a We. It is this that lovers mean when, without knowing it, they speak of "our love" as something distinct from each.

Without a sense of Absolute Love, which is stronger than the independent love of each for the other, there is a false duality which ends in the absorption of the I into the Thou or the Thou into the I. In divorce cases, this is called "mental torture" or "domination." Really, it is egocentricity, in which one ego loves itself in the other ego. The I is projected into the Thou and is loved in the Thou. The Thou is not really loved as a person; it is only used as a means to the pleasure of the I. As soon as the other ceases to exhilarate, the so-called love ceases. There is nothing left to hold such a couple together, because there is no third term. There may be idolatry when there are only two, but after a while the "goddess" or the "god" turns out to be of tin. There is a world of difference between loving self in another self, and giving both self and the other self to the Third Who will keep both in undying love. Without the Love of God, there is danger of love dying of its own too-much; but when each loves the Flame of Love--over and above their two individual sparks which have come from the Flame--then there is not absorption but communion. Then the love of the other becomes a proof that he loves God, for the other is seen in God and cannot be loved apart from Him.

It takes three to make love. What binds lover and beloved together on earth is an ideal outside both. As it is impossible to have rain without the clouds, so it is impossible to understand love without God. In the Old Testament, God is defined as a Being Whose Nature it is to exist: "I am Who am." In the New Testament, God is defined as Love: "God is Love." That is why the basis of all Philosophy is Existence, and the basis of all Theology is Charity, or love.

If we would seek out the mystery of why love has a triune character and implies lover, beloved, and love, we must mount to God Himself. Love is Triune in God because in Him there are three Persons and in the one Divine Nature! Love has this triple character because it is a reflection of the Love of God, in Whom there are three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the answer to the questions of Plato. If there is only one God, what does He think about? He thinks an eternal thought: His Eternal Word, or Son. If there is only one God, whom does He love? He loves His Son, and that mutual love is the Holy Spirit. The great philosopher was fumbling about for the mystery of the Trinity, for his noble mind seemed in some small way to suspect that an infinite being must have relations of thought and love, and that God cannot be conceived without thought and love. But it was not until the Word became Incarnate that man knew the secret of those relations and the inner life of God, for it was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who revealed to us the inmost life of God.

It is that mystery of the Trinity which gives the answer to those who have pictured God as an egotist God sitting in solitary splendor before the world began, for the Trinity is a revelation that before creation God enjoyed the infinite communion with Truth and the embrace of infinite Love, and hence had no need ever to go outside of Himself in search for happiness. The greatest wonder of all is that, being perfect and enjoying perfect happiness, He ever should have made a world. And if He did make a world, He could only have had one motive for making it. It could not add to His perfection; it could not add to His Truth; it could not increase His Happiness. He made a world only because He loved, and love tends to diffuse itself to others.

95 posted on 04/17/2013 3:50:35 PM PDT by stfassisi ((The greatest gift God gives us is that of overcoming self"-St Francis Assisi)))
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To: stfassisi

Thank you...I love that analogy and I completely agree that what binds the father and the son perfectly together is perfect love. Love is the essence of God and we seem to be in agreement on that also. However supposing that this love is a separate “person” from the father and son (as most understand the trinity) harms and hampers this understanding by introducing another party in the “marriage” so to speak. I think marriage does represent the Godhead and the inclusion of a third party that doesn’t resemble the other two makes things needlessly difficult.


97 posted on 04/17/2013 4:11:46 PM PDT by DouglasKC
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