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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Your dad will be disappointed....
I listed several you poor thing, and the year your religion added them to dogma. You’re too pathetic to deal with. Take your medicine and go to bed.
so, for 2,016 years Christians have been wrong concerning the Eucharist but luckily, you sprang up to set us straight.......thanks!
I really don’t believe anything can rescue you from your ignorance. A man you age believing the catholic priest has the magic power to transubstantiate bread and wine into cannibalistic flesh and blood is beyond my pay grade to help. My God have mercy upon you ...
And if someone excommunicates themselves (latae sententiae)?
According to your reply to me, the decision was yours
Could not one decide for THEMselves also that Catholicism was NOT the true 'religion' and if so, THEIR thought processes are just as valid and mature as yours ?
Nonsense.
If they took marriage vows, be them Catholic, Protestant, whatever, they made a vow with their own mouths.
A vow is a vow.
No legal contract is ever considered void because one of the parties later declares that they had no intent on keeping it in the first place, that they went into it with the intent to deceive.
They are still legally bound by the contract they entered into.
The Catholic church is just using weasel words as an excuse to give Catholic couples a divorce, a breaking of the vows they made before their church and GOD, without calling it a sin and without excluding them from participating in church.
After all, if the church stuck to their guns about not breaking marriage vows, they'd be cutting off their noses to spite their face. They'd be alienating those very people they depend on for money.
Typical knee jerk deflection used as an excuse to disobey the clear, concise command of Jesus, who was talking about His followers taking religious titles for themselves.
It’s amazing how Catholics will justify disobeying Jesus in this area.
Happens. Every. Time.
Which totally flies in the face of claims made by your fellow Catholics that *once a Catholic, always a Catholic.*
And that being baptized as a Catholic leaves an indelible mark on your soul, as you yourself have claimed in the past yourself.
Can you all just get together some time and decide just what it is your church teaches and what you believe?
Considering that y'all claim to be unified in the Catholic faith, there sure are bigger disagreements and doctrinal positions and theological weirdness than I see exist between non-Catholics on this board.
And just what MESSAGE was being proclaimed by THESE Catholic churches???
Your 'first pope' didn't do a very good job.
Why should anyone believe that the OTC's popes have EVER done a good job?
You sure don't like the one you have now!
Well; you sure seem to NOW!
I'm just SURE there is a difference in here...
...somewhere.
Well; we still have terycarl with us.
You 'christians' couldn't even get 7 little Catholic churches in Asia on the right track; and yet; here you are today; lecturing others how to do church right.
Why; they wuzn't saved to begin with!
(The other side of the OSAS coin!)
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
I disagree bro. Fulfilled and contented is how I felt when I left the Catholic Church, as I self excommunicated. Since I got self excommunicated, there is no inedible mark on my soul, and I am no longer a Catholic.
there has to be a true complete and unchallengeable form of Christianity, and i have decided that it is Catholicism
I disagree bro. I, me, myself, and I, have decided exactly the opposite. It is NOT Catholicism.
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......
I disagree bro. The bread and wine are still bread and wine, even after the magic incantation of the priest. Nothing has changed.
I guess there really isn't much we agree on at all, but I am comfortable with that. In fact, I am infinitely comfortable with that.
Judgement day is fast approaching bro. Remember, only born again Chtistians go to Heaven. Everyone else goes to Hell. I don't know where you are going, but wherever it is, it's on you.
That’s right.
I keep that in mind every time some Catholic comes along and throws the *you’re so full of anger and hate* card at me.
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