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Equality of the Trinity While Jesus states God is ‘greater,’ it is only in the sense that the Father is the principal source of being Msgr. Charles Pope 5/11/2016 Question: We read in a recent Sunday Gospel (May 1), that Jesus says the Father is greater than him (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 statement?— Dick Smith, Carrollton, Texas Answer: Theologically, Jesus means that the Father is the eternal source in the Trinity.All...

“Who do men say I am?” Jesus posed the question to his disciples as they went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi. John the Baptist, Elijah or other of the prophets, they answered. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked them. And while 11 of the 12 disciples were uncertain, Peter responded, “You are the Christ.” This account, taken from the Gospel According to Mark, appears in slightly different form in Matthew and Luke, the other two synoptic gospels. What is noteworthy is that in none of the accounts does Jesus say He is other than...

The Trinity

1 and 1 and 1 is One – A Homily for Trinity Sunday By: Msgr. Charles PopeThere is an old spiritual that says, “My God is so high, you can’t get over him, he’s so low you can’t get under him, he’s so wide you can’t get ’round him, you must come in, by and through the Lamb.”That’s not a bad way of saying that God is other; He is beyond what human words can tell or describe; He is beyond what human thoughts can conjure. And on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity we do well to...

Featured Term selected at random:THREE WITNESS The text in St. John which in the Vulgate reads: "There are three witnesses in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one; there are three witnesses on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood" (1 John 5:7-8). These words are not found in the early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, nor in the best manuscripts of the Vulgate. They are probably a mystical interpretation that found its way as a gloss on the original text. Called the Johannine Comma, the text has more than once been...

Defending the Trinity The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 261, declares:The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life.Belief in the Trinity is essential for salvation and should be at the top of the list when it comes to priorities in defending the faith. Yet, many Christians—many Catholics—find themselves in over their heads when the topic of the Trinity is broached by members of various quasi-Christian sects who deny it, e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Iglesia Ni Cristo, The Way International, etc.Beginning with Sacred Scripture as a common...

In some parishes Trinity Sunday was the time to give a financial report, anything rather than preach on the Most Holy Trinity. The problem is of course that too many Catholics think of the Trinity in terms of algebra or geometry rather than in terms of relationships. Muslims love to debate with Christians God in terms of the 1+1+1=1 approach, they are less comfortable with the idea of the God who loves to point of emptying himself of His Divinity to embrace His creation, indeed to dwell within it and suffer with it. The high point of our prayer is...

There is an old Spiritual that says, My God is so high, you can’t get over him, he’s so low, you can’t get under him, he’s so wide you can’t get around him, you must come in, by and through the Lamb.

June 15, 2014The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity  Reading 1 Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9 Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinaias the LORD had commanded him,taking along the two stone tablets. Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses thereand proclaimed his name, "LORD."Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,"The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord,do come along in our company.This is indeed...

One of the most interesting cases of resuscitation that ever came to my knowledge was that of George Lennox, a notorious horse thief of Jefferson County. He was serving his second term. Sedgwick County sent him to the prison the first time for a similar offense - stealing horses. During the winter of 1887 and 1888 he worked in the coal mines. The place where he was laboring seemed dangerous to him. He reported the fact to the officer in charge, who made an examination, and deciding that the room was safe, ordered Lennox back to his work. The...

Bart Ehrman, prolific author, New Testament scholar and former evangelical Christian, says it took him eight years to research and complete his new book, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. Yet, a group of fellow scholars responded in their book, How God Became Jesus, by claiming that the Christian-turned-agnostic's "sloppy" scholarship on Jesus' divinity leaves much to be desired. Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, says his research reveals that Jesus, a first century Galilean, never claimed to be God, and that it...

PART I - FAITH. THE APOSTLES' CREED. FIRST ARTICLE OF THE CREED: "I BELIEVE IN GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY." 4. THE BLESSED TRINITY. At the baptism of Jesus Christ all the three persons of the Blessed Trinity manifested themselves; the Father by a voice from heaven, the Son through His baptism, and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove (Matt. iii. 16). 1. The Blessed Trinity is one God in three persons. The three persons are called Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The number three is often found both in nature and in religion. There are three...

The Holy Trinity: Sound Doctrine or a Man-Made Tradition? Author: Steve-0 The Apostle Paul admonished young Timothy, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;" (1 Timothy 4:1) The Greek word that was translated into English as "depart from" is aphistemi (Strong's G868) pronounced ä-fe'-sta-me meaning ... 1) to make stand off, cause to withdraw, to remove a) to excite to revolt 2) to stand off, to stand aloof a) to go away, to depart from anyone b) to desert, withdraw from...

Questions and Answers on the Trinity25. How many Persons are there in God? In God there are three divine Persons--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.(a) Unaided by divine revelation, the human mind could not know the existence of the Blessed Trinity because it is a supernatural mystery.3 Even after God has revealed the existence of the Blessed Trinity, we cannot understand it fully. When we believe, on the word of God, that there are three Persons in one God, we do not believe that three Persons are one Person, or that three gods are one God; this...

“The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has rather been found difficult and left untried.” —Chesterton I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending.The story of Jesus is either the greatest event in history or the cruelest hoax. If it is a hoax, then the whole of the Christian message crumbles together with the hopes of those multitudes of lives built on his name. The apostle Paul said: “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of...

The state Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the rape and sexual assault convictions against Ernest Willis who is serving a 15-to-30 year prison sentence for forcibly raping his teenage babysitter twice, whom he knew through Trinity Baptist Church in Concord, in 1997. The court issued its ruling this morning. The girl, who became pregnant, was later made to stand before their congregation to apologize by then-pastor Chuck Phelps. A Merrimack County jury convicted Ellis of three counts of rape and one count of felonious sexual assault in 2011. Willis’s attorneys appealed the conviction on several grounds, including the admission of...

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, May 26, 2013, The Solemnity of the Most Holy TrinityReadings:• Prov 8:22-31• Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9• Rom 5:1-5• Jn 16:12-15The apologist and novelist Dorothy Sayers dryly noted, in an essay titled “The Dogma is the Drama,” that for many people, even some Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity is, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.” There are likely a few Catholics who would candidly admit, “Well, the Church teaches that the Trinity is a mystery—and it’s certainly a mystery to me!” In fact, the Catechism of the...

Greek Philosophy's Influence on the Trinity Doctrine Many historians and religious scholars, some quoted in this publication, attest to the influence of Greek or Platonic philosophy in the development and acceptance of the Trinity doctrine in the fourth century. But what did such philosophy entail, and how did it come to affect the doctrine of the Trinity? To briefly summarize what was pertinent, we start with mention of the famous Greek philosopher Plato (ca. 429-347 B.C.). He believed in a divine triad of "God, the ideas, [and] the World-Spirit," though he "nowhere explained or harmonized this triad" (Charles Bigg, Christian...

The Surprising Origins of the Trinity Doctrine Few understand how the Trinity doctrine came to be accepted - several centuries after the Bible was completed! Yet its roots go back much farther in history. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Most people assume that everything that bears the label "Christian" must have originated with Jesus Christ and His early followers. But this is definitely not the case. All we have to do is look at the words of Jesus Christ and His apostles to see that this is clearly not true....

Clever work from the folks over at Lutheran Satire. Despite its title, it's not anti-Saint Patrick. Watch till the end.