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Prayer

Prayer I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8

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Prayer

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  1. Prayer I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8 Lord, there are days when darkness hovers over our family and friends: the darkness of addiction, rivalry, selfishness, silence and sadness. Help us lift the darkness with your light this Lent. Amen.

  2. Journal: Lent Day 28 (on the class website)

  3. Chapter 5: Jesus Helps Us to Understand the Trinity, Mary, and the Holy Spirit The mysteries of God far surpass the ability of the human mind to comprehend them.

  4. Even for the great theologian, St. Augustine, God surpassed his understanding. According to one story, St. Augustine saw a boy trying to empty the ocean into a hole with a shell. After the saint pointed out the futility of this endeavor, the boy told him, that his mind was, likewise, too small to hold the immense truths about God, and then disappeared from his sight.

  5. And yet, God so wants us to have a relationship with him that he reveals himself to us in ways that we could never discover for ourselves. As we saw previously, it is only by God’s revelation that we could come to understand anything about his nature.

  6. The Inner Life of God God reveals to us certain things about his divine nature that are essential to our faith in him, foremost being the reality of the Blessed Trinity.

  7. When we pray the Sign of the Cross, it reminds us how central belief in the Trinity is to our Christian faith. The gestures we use to make the Sign of the Cross—touching our forehead, our chest, and then both shoulders—convey that we are making this profession with our minds, hearts, and entire being. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

  8. The study of the existence and attributes of God is called theology. The great theologians of our Church have explained for us that the One God is three divine Persons by his very nature—without regard to how God relates to human beings. This reality is called the Immanent Trinity, and refers to the inner life of God, or how “God exists in God.”

  9. When we reflect on the Salvific Trinity, we are considering how God interacts with us, his creation—how God has gone outside himself to communicate with us, and to save us. The Immanent Trinity and the Salvific Trinity are intimately related. When we reflect on God’s actions in Salvation History, we understand better who God is.

  10. Church theologians have developed vocabulary to assist us in understanding the mystery of the Trinity. When the word substance is used theologically, it refers to “nature” or “essence.” Substance makes something what it is. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all of the same substance—meaning that they all have the same divine nature—they are consubstantial.

  11. Church theologians have developed vocabulary to assist us in understanding the mystery of the Trinity. Person refers to the distinctions between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

  12. Church theologians have developed vocabulary to assist us in understanding the mystery of the Trinity. Relation indicates that the three Persons of the Trinity are distinct because of how they relate to one another .

  13. Using this vocabulary, the Church teaches several truths about the mystery of the Holy Trinity. While there are three distinct Persons, there is only ONE God—one divine being.

  14. Using this vocabulary, the Church teaches several truths about the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We should not think of the Persons in the Trinity as being the same as human persons, or “people.” They are not three separate beings, or three separate wills or intellects. There is only one divine being. When one Person of the Trinity acts, the other Persons act in communion. God is one, a “community- in-unity.”

  15. How do the Persons of the Trinity relate to one another?

  16. As the first person of the Blessed Trinity, the Father is absolutely without origin. From all eternity, the Father “begets” the Son, the second Person of the Trinity. This means that the Father did not create the Son, but rather, the Son is the Father’s perfect, divine expression of himself.

  17. The Son, too, is a divine Person, and there was never a time when the Son did not proceed from the Father. “In the beginning, the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

  18. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the perfect expression of their divine love for each other.

  19. The Son and the Holy Spirit are consubstantial with the Father. This means that the Son and the Holy Spirit have the exact divine nature as the Father.

  20. St. Athanasius described the different ways the Persons of the Trinity relate to one another. The Father is not made, not created, not begotten by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone. Neither created nor made, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son. Not created, not made, not begotten, but proceeding.

  21. The Church has employed many symbols to try to express the mystery of the Triune God.

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