Posted on 05/24/2016 6:49:46 AM PDT by Salvation
Many of you know that I write the Question and Answer column for Our Sunday Visitor. Given the celebration of Trinity Sunday this past Sunday, I thought I might reproduce here on the blog a question/answer regarding the Trinity. It is a fairly common question; perhaps you have it, too. Remember that my answers in the column are required to be brief.
We read in a recent Sunday Gospel (May 1, 2016) that Jesus says that the Father is greater than He (Jn 14:28). Since we are all taught that each Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity fully possesses the nature of God, equally to be adored and glorified, what did Jesus mean by such a statement?” – Dick Smith, Carrolton, TX.
Theologically, Jesus means that the Father is the eternal source in the Trinity. All three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, co-equal, and equally divine. But the Father is the Principium Deitatis (the Source in the Deity).
Hence, Jesus proceeds from the Father from all eternity. He is eternally begotten of the Father. In effect, Jesus is saying, “I delight that the Father is the eternal principle or source of my being, even though I have no origin in time.”
Devotionally, Jesus is saying that He always does what pleases His Father. Jesus loves His Father; He’s crazy about Him. He is always talking about Him and pointing to Him. By calling the Father greater, He says (in effect), “I look to my Father for everything. I do what I see Him doing (Jn 5:19) and what I know pleases Him (Jn 5:30). His will and mine are one. What I will to do proceeds from Him. I do what I know accords with His will.”
So although the members of the Trinity are all equal in dignity, there are processions in the Trinity, such that the Father is the source, the Son eternally proceeds from Him (Jn 8:42), and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principal (Jn 15:26).
St Thomas speaks poetically of the Trinity as follows:
Genitori, Genitoque … Procedenti ab utroque … compar sit laudautio
(To the One Who Begets, and to the Begotton One, and to the One who proceeds from them both, be equal praise.)
The Athanasian Creed says the following regarding these processions:
The Father is made by none, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but he proceeds from them.
So although equal, processions do have an order. The Father is “greater” (as source), but is equal in dignity to Son and Holy Spirit.
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Me picking on Elsie? Hahaha that’s laughable. And no, no one is ‘holding a gun” to my head to read the “so called” Religious Forum.
Goodbye.
I’m in awe of your utter disrespect for the Word of God. I fear for you with your brazen disregard and joking about what Christ himself said about his Body and Blood.
I will not speak about this subject with you anymore. DO NOT comment to me about communion again.
Surely SOMETHING that's said; sooner or later; will get a rise out of him!!
HMMMmmm...
"Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven"
Matthew 23:9
DO NOT comment to me about communion again.
IF Catholicism could show how cannibalism was suddenly made innocent, catholiciism might be able to make a case for Jesus eating His flesh with them that night, by taking a passage out of contextual meaning of the entire Bible as one or two catholic apologists do often at FR. But you will not show how the disciples could do that and remain innocent before the laws and Jesus stated that He had come to fulfill the Laws not erase them.
Jesus declared not one yot or tittle of the Law would disappear, yet catholiciism makes a mockery of Him by declaring they, the priesthood, serve to you the flesh and real blood of Jesus in a wafer, contradicting all that Jesus taught on that last Passover night, defying in a ritual of pagan origins the law against cannibalism.
Jesus introduced The New Covenant of Grace by Faith not Works, using symbols any man or woman could find any where at any time, without need of a priesthood or an organization. Jesus did not suddenly erase the law against cannibalizing human flesh!
Judaism had devolved into a rituals needing the temple and more than 600 restrictions on life as a means to work one's way to favor with God. Contrasting that works based Judaism, the emphasis in the ritual of breaking the bread and sipping the wine in REMEMBRANCE of His atoning work is not upon the falsely empowered org, it is upon Jesus and faith in His atonement activating God's Grace for us. The Catholic Church has --successfully with more than a billion Catholics-- replaced works based Judaism with works based Catholicism.
Having the paganism of Catholic Mass exposed upsets you. Understandable, since Catholics have been indoctrinated to place their faith in the org run ritual rather than the simplicity of faith in Him. Catholics go to this ritual placing faith in the ritual to cleanse them, rather than exercising faith in His atonement by activating their faith in Him, not a ritual. You cannot eat God's Life into your belly and rejuvenate your spirit and soul.
As usual, when I get a ping well into a thread, I have to go back and learn what started it all in the first place
lil flower's bloom has fallen off without propagating a single seed .... just an annual that had no beauty anyway
I know there are devout Hindus. There are devout Moslems. There are devout Zoroastrians even, but even great fidelity does not make false doctrine into saving Grace. As Jesus said, no man cometh unto the Father but by Jesus. On the Day of Pentecost more than 3000 came into the body of believers as newborns, born from above by faithing in Jesus as Messiah and Lord. That same birthing process continues even unto today. But it will not continue indefinitely. Changes are coming, and closer than folks would want to believe ...
Let me suggest that you consider that this bread was not unleavened (adzumos in Gk.) but rather leavened (artos in Gk.), inasmuch as the Galileans ate their passover on the eve of the day the Jews of Judea killed their lambs; hence the bread, being one day shy of that of the Jews, would still be regular leavened bread.
In the observation of the New Covenant the bread representing the Body of Christ (which would be the local ekklesia gathered unto His Name) is not pure: it has been and still is leavened, likewise, at this time.
Also, remember that the day of the feast of Pentecost, on which the Holy Ghost came upon the disciples, was also a day under the Law upon which the first of the new leavened bread might be eaten.
Please take these facts into account when you formluate your own preferred doctrinal belief in the symbology of what the nature of the elements of the Supper consists.
Some specific sects insist that the bread of the Remembrance Supper be leavened bread (perhaps even in form like our commercial pita bread), with good reason.
So what happened to Elmer, the old King of Glue? /TIC
Also, seems like wherever Elsie was, there was usually a little bull around. (/more TIC)
Yeah. The hypocrisy is strong with that one.
Jesus Himself called the cup, *the fruit of the vine*.
Don't eat the blood, the life is in the blood
Genesis 9:4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life , that is, its blood.
Leviticus 3:17 It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.”
Leviticus 7:26-27 Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.”
Leviticus 17:10-14 “If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.
“Any one also of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
Leviticus 19:26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.
Deuteronomy 12:16 Only you shall not eat the blood ; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Deuteronomy 12:23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life , and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.
Deuteronomy 15:23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
Acts 15:12-29 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
“‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter:
“The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Matthew 26:29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Mark 14:25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 22:18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Possibly, but not probably....there has to be a true complete and unchallengeable form of Christianity, and i have decided that it is Catholicism.....It has existed from the time of Christ and has defended itself against interlopers over the years. Protestantism is the latest and will one day....probably soon, run out of gas and fade into history like the rest did.
Nope, if a marriage is annulled, it never took place from the beginning. If the church excommunicates someone, they are no longer Catholic, it doesn't matter whether or not other Catholics believe it or not.
you are absolutely correct....when you leave a protestant denomination, which is an erroneous or incomplete form of Christianity, you feel fulfilled and complete. However, if you leave Catholicism and seek completeness elsewhere, it will never happen because ONLY within Catholicism is the complete and true church that Jesus Christ personally founded. The "Johnny come lately" versions just don't make the grade.....add a little, take away a little......nope, doesn't work....never has, never will.
name them.
You are describing a Protestant service.
In a Catholic Mass, the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ while retaining their appearance of bread and wine......get it???
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