SPEAKER_00 0:04

So we're all used to the idea of in the human person that there is a nature and an intellect and a will, right? There's a so a nature and a person tend to be a unitary thing. That's our experience. So I think when we when we look at the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we can start from the idea from Genesis chapter 1 that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Now, in the human person in and of himself or herself, that we have uh you know, we're in in souled flesh, right? We're a human body, soul composite. So we reflect God's nature through our intellect, right, and will. So God, of course, as we've gone through, God is one, and so there's a divine intellect and a divine will. Each human person has an intellect and a free will, so that's how we image God. One of the insights from Pope John Paul II is that the family is a reflection of God as well. We have husband and wife, right? That we have man and woman who are compatible, and in this in the sacrament of holy matrimony, we see we have two persons, right, that come together in a covenant bond for the purposes of bringing forth new life and to get each other to heaven. And that is uh a sort of an image of the Trinity, because we have we have two persons who love each other, a man and a woman, and they share a bond of love. So I think that could be it's an analogy, it's not a perfect analogy, but it's a starting point, I think, for our conversation as as we go through the mystery of the Holy Trinity. And as I like to define a mystery as a truth that we cannot completely comprehend with our human intellect. So Nether, you know, we think of mystery, we often think of like a murder mystery, like Agatha Christie, who done it, like we're trying to figure out who did this crime. But the mystery, in a sense, of there is a truth that we contemplate but never can exhaust. So, for example, um, if you go to uh you know Rocky Mountain National Park, and you go to Colorado and you see the beautiful mountaintops, snow-covered mountaintops, and you behold a beautiful vista in front of you. That's something you behold creation, you're beholding beauty. You can't quite comprehend that what you're seeing, because it's so beautiful that it's beyond our understanding of how that even came to be. Or maybe the place you go on vacation, maybe you go to a you know a lake, or you go to the ocean, you go to a beach, and you know, if you go to, for example, uh maybe a beach doesn't have a lot of people on it, you know, you you sort of contemplate, you see the ocean coming. Maybe it's sun, you see a beautiful sunset or sunrise. That's one of the great things about going to Cape Maine, New Jersey. You can actually see a sunset on the East Coast, which is kind of cool, right? Um these are things that we look at, we look at nature and we see that these are these are mysteries. Those of you who are you know married or dating or whatever, that um there's a mystery to marriage. Because there's a mystery of why do I there's love this person? Now you could tell me, oh, we have all these compatibilities and we like the same hobbies, and uh, you know, we like the same restaurants, like Chick-fil-A, for example. Um so not a paid advertisement. Um not officially endorsing Chick-fil-A, you know. So not paid by you know the Kathy family, the True Catholic family. Um that the um but there's but there's a mystery to it as well. Right? There's there's a mystery to that, and a beautiful one. Not that that that how is it that this person came to that you came together in the sacrament of holy matrimony to want to give yourselves to each other for the rest of your earthly existence? There's a is a mystery to that in a in a in a positive sense. Now, some of you might say this is a whole mystery to me in a negative sense, but that's a whole other story of not going there. Okay. Hey, how is it I fell in love with you? I don't know, it's that's the thing. I'm just kidding. Okay. So scripturally, let's we'll talk, let's talk about where you know we where we see the where we see the Trinity. Because it's not something sort of stated in an explicit doctrine and sacred scripture. This is something that was brought to be defined at the Council of Nicaea. So we go right to the book of Genesis, and very very start, the very start of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was out without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. So we see in this very in the first few verses of the Bible, we have God, we have his spirit hovering over the waters, and we have a word. And we see this, and God said, Let there be firmament in the midst of the waters, and God said, Let the waters of the heavens be gathered, and God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, and God said, Let the waters bring forth worms of living creatures, and we see this, and God said. So we see, God, we have spirit and a word. So that's sort of a hint of the mystery of the Trinity. And also we can see that the use of the royal we is used later on. So, for example, when when we get to verse 26, then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. So we see in the scripture God is referring to himself in a plural way, a sort of a royal we, for example. You might see, like, for example, if you read papal documents from before the Second Vatican Council, like the Pope will be talking about, you know, sort of the the royal, the sort of a royal plural, like, okay, you know, in our you know, holy predecessor, things like this. This happens in sort of in um sort of the idea that there is you know God representing a corporate thing, or the royalty representing a corporate thing. So this is sort of a hint here, and God said, Let us make man and our image after our likeness. So what I just talked about, how that we talk about the image of likeness of God in the human person and in the family. So then we move over to you know, Exodus, we go to the burning bush. Right? So we go to the we go to the burning bush, right? And what we see is that Moses experiences this phenomenon where he's in, of course, he's been exiled from Pharaoh because he he killed an Egyptian, because uh he was he was afflicting a fellow Hebrew. And so we see that he goes in in front of the, so he sees we have the burning bush. And it says in chapter 3, and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame, a fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked, and though the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And of course we see so the fire, okay, and then we see that God speaks. Sort of a hint there. It does a word, there's the flame, right? Where and of course, where where does that come from? So those those are like sort of two kind of hints, I think, of the Trinity. But then we go forward to the New Testament and we see more, we see more explicit type of references. Like, for example, so even if we go directly to Luke chapter 1, we see the Annunciation, and we see what happens in the Annunciation, and we see there's a revelation of the Trinity right there. So, for example, we have, of course, the angel Gabriel reveal reveal is, you know, presents himself to Mary, and we see, for example, that behold, you will conceive and bear a son, you shall call him Jesus. He will be great, will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How can this be since I have no husband? And the angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God. So I'm not going to comment on the enunciation because I could go all day about that. But we have here we have we have God, we have Jesus, the Son of the Most High, and then we see that the Holy Spirit is going to overshadow her. Now that overshadowing is a very important concept because it's saying that Mary is going to be the new Ark of the Covenant. So we'll see that in the desert, that when the people of Israel were going through the desert, there was a column of smoke that led the Israelites out of the desert by day, and it was a column of fire by night. So this over, and of course, when the temple was dedicated, right, when Solomon dedicates a temple, right, the this the temple was filled with smoke. So the idea that the the the Shechinah, the divine presence, has come into the temple. And so by so the temple was overshadowed, and see Mary is overshadowed, and what will come from her, of course, is the incarnation, that the Son of God. But we will see also then when we move forward to the baptism of Jesus, we see this again, we see this, we see this pattern. So we see that when Jesus is baptized, right, he goes to the river Jordan, and he's baptized, and then we hear the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove, and we see the voice of the Father. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So here we have Father, Spirit, Son. And then we can also we look to the transfiguration, which we just read last week. I love the transfiguration because I love Peter always having to say something. You know, he's always having to say something, but that's all the thing. So we have the transfiguration. So we have that this is the ultimate revelation, of course, for you know, Peter, James, and John. And we see that after the, as the as after Peter has tried to preserve this moment by saying he wants three tents built for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Of course, Jesus is radiant with the his divine glory is now fully revealed to them. That the cloud descends upon them. Again, that cloud, the Shechem, is a divine presence. This is another sign of the Spirit. And then we hear the voice of the Father. This is my beloved Son. Listen to him. So very similar in a sense to what we have in the baptism of the Lord. And we also can go to John's gospel. We go to chapters 13 through 16, and then we have that Jesus is going is promising the apostles that the Holy Spirit is going to come to them. So that's a and that's a very important promise because we know that will be fulfilled. So, for example, in 14 and 20 25 and following, these things I have spoken to you, I am still with you, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. And we see that promise is fulfilled at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. So again, we see that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in his name. So again, we have we have Father, and we have Son, and we have Spirit. And then if we go to the end of Matthew's gospel, that of course, what does Jesus tell the apostles? He tells them, right, to go forth and teach all nations. So in the very end of Matthew's gospel, so the ascending of the apostles, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always to the close of the age. So what Jesus is doing is the revelation of God in his fullness. For the people of Israel had to be trained in the concept that God is one. So that was to get them to purify them from the worship of idols. And of course, that was a you know a many generational journey to purify the faith of the covenant people of God to eschew all idols, something that is not God, something you're worshiping, some kind of created object, so that they are worshiping the true God. Because remember, the the Ark of the Covenant, right, there is like a supposed to be like a throne or a seat. So if you if it was a an if the there were other types of covenant, you know, like arcs, you could say, that had angels, but then there would be like an idol sitting on top. Notice that the carabim that stood on top of the ark, what is on the seat that's in that's in between them? Nothing. Because you can't represent God by a created thing. So they had to be disavowed of any kind of idea that you can represent God Himself in this manner. Now, of course, the reason why we have pictures of Jesus or we can depict him, of course, is becomes incarnate. So, of course, we just had the Shroud of Turin presentation, so potentially, you know, likely that God gave us an image of himself on the shroud. So, to the incarnate, by the by the fact of the incarnation, then we can depict Jesus, right, as uh as a son of God. Right? So now what is so what had to happen after, of course, 300 years of of persecution within the church is eventually this doctrine had to be defined because in the early, because in the fourth century you had this heresy called Arianism, which is defined right in in the book. So Arius had had come tried because if you try to solve the mystery of the Trinity, you end up making a mistake. You try to solve it by human reason alone, you're gonna end up off the track. So his idea that the Son of God was sort of divine in a sense, but sort of a created, but somehow created by the Father. Okay. And so the response to that, of course, as we see in the Nicene Creed, that he is eternally begotten of the Father. So the Son is eternally generated by the Father. And their bond of love is the Holy Spirit. I mean, that's the defining the nature of the Trinity. There's one divine nature, right? A nature that is uh above all, you know, all any, because God exists outside of time and space, so God is not contained in the universe, he is outside of it, you know, that in eternity. And that there is three persons in this divine nature the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in a communion of life and love. So when John in his first letter says God is love, he doesn't mean that to be a nice bumper sticker that goes in the back of your cars with a little smiley face. Because what does he mean by that? And so I know that's as you probably see that a lot. I mean, have you ever seen the bumper sticker, God is love or something, little smiley face, right? And it's like, oh, isn't that wonderful, isn't that? But that's not what John was going for. Because the mystery of the Trinity is that there is this communion of life and love. So the spirit, so the Father is, you know, is gifting himself to the Son, right? Making an eternal gift of himself to the Son. The Son returns that gift back of himself back to the Father. That bond of love is the Holy Spirit. That is a mystery. So by saying God is love, that that this eternal dynamism that happens within the Trinity, right, is eternal. So when we're baptized, we're you know inserting our, being inserted into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, because we're, the Holy Spirit then comes into our the love that God shares, right? The love that's shared between the Father and the Son is given to us. Of course, you know, as we get when we get to the sacraments, we'll talk more detail about baptism. So when we talk about that that the that God is love, this make now this makes more sense. What is happening in the dynamism of the Holy Trinity? The other thing to remember that in God there is no lack, there is no uh potential. St. Thomas Aquinas will talk about this. So God didn't create out of a need, right? He wasn't lonely. I was like, I'm in eternity and I'm kind of lonely here, so I'm gonna create people, right, in a world, and then they're gonna sin, and then I gotta do all this stuff, right? No, it's not God, God in himself, but this communion of life and love is total and eternal. So God doesn't need us, doesn't need creation, right? This is this is this is not a sort of a uh this sort of it's a manifest of a mystery, the manifestation of his goodness. So there is no, there's there's no God wasn't compelled to create, there's nothing lacking in God. He is completely and total, total you know, communion in and of himself, which is the whole the whole mystery of the thing. So this is how so Jesus by becoming incarnate then right reveals this to the apostles, or is preaching this, right, because he's talking about his father constantly. He sees he promises the gift of the Spirit, right, which will lead us into all truth, the counselor, the advocate. Of course, that's the Holy Spirit given to the apostles of Pentecost. So this is indeed quite a mystery. This is the the doctrine we proclaim every time we we go you know uh when we profess the Nicene Creed. And of course, there's been all kinds of attempts to try to explain this. So, of course, Arius was one of the Arian heresy, of course, that somehow the Son of God is a sort of a created divinity of a sort, sort of less than God the Father. You know, that they used to say that there was a time when when the Son was not, or something like this, if I remember correctly. Uh, there's other heresies that get thrown out there. Sometimes there's the heresy of modalism that God just has a different face, right? To say one God, but just shows you a different face. No, that's not what it means. The Trinity is not that. It doesn't show you a different face. Like one face is the Father, the other face is the Son. No, no. It's one God with this dynamism of the three persons. So then we see, of course, how marriage is supposed to be kind of an image of that. Image of that. Okay. So and as we see, right, as we have various attributes of God, as we see here listed. God is pure spirit. All right, we see this on page 67 and 68. He is immutable, right? So there's no change in God. God is eternal, he's all good. There is no no all and he is omniscient and knows all things, he's all powerful, he's omnipresent, and sustains all creation and existence. So you can find these attributes between pages 67 and 69 in the book. Okay. So these are you know very simple things. And it's sort of like the whole so the concept again of the mystery of the Trinity is again, it's a mystery that we cannot completely explain or or come to you know you know, c come to really complete terms with because it's Just it simply is. And so what when we think about the incarnation and the paschal mystery, which we'll be commemorating at the Hester Trinum, is that we are drawn into the life of the Trinity, that Jesus is drawing us into that life. That when we attend Mass, we're drawn into the life of the Trinity because we are present for the sacrifice of Christ as he offers himself to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, right, we are drawn up into the Trinity. So the Paschal mystery, in and of itself, of course, it's a Trinitarian act. Anything that any person of the Holy Trinity does, any part does all the persons of the Trinity are involved. Okay. And so of course that leads us to, of course, why, of course, we have the sign of the cross. And you know, of course, in the Eastern Church, if you go to Divine Liturgy, St. John Chrysostom, anytime the Trinity is invoked, of course, they do this their own version of the sign of the cross. So if you ever go to the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, which is kind of an interesting, if you ever want to see a different form of the sacrifice of mass, that's a very interesting thing. But they sign themselves using in their fingers, the three here represent the Trinity and the two represent the incarnation. Of course, they sign themselves in an opposite direction because they're following imprint of the priest's blessing. So there's a very much in the in the Eastern Byzantine tradition, there's very much sort of a mystical appreciation for the life of the Trinity. So you'll hear constantly in divine liturgy, for we give glory to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever and ever. Amen. Okay. So why don't I stop here for now? I know this is not a very long talk, but uh let me get your if so let's let's go ahead and start questions because I know this makes you this uh makes everybody's brain hurt, so yeah. Go ahead.

unknown 24:02

Good point.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Okay, you're having a hard time? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

It's very complex. This this notion of love.

unknown 24:08

Our language is highly limited. Love is used everywhere. Like I love pizza, I love this, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah, so love a pizza means you destroy it. Because you consume the pizza, right?

unknown 24:23

You know.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Alright, so let's think of, uh yeah, so let's think of, that's good, we'll break down. So Greek, Greek language has actually four words for love. Okay, because English, of course, yeah, the English language we use. Now, the proper term, I guess you would say, would be charity, would be a better word. So there's love of children and parents. What's that storage, I believe it is. There's the love of attraction. So when two young people fall in love and they're very attracted and they're infatuated, that's called eros, right? They're obsessed with one another, right? They talk three hours on the phone, they talk to all their friends. Will you stop talking about your girlfriend? Um, that's eros, okay? There's Philias, which is friendship, right? Philadelphia is, you know, supposed to be the city of brotherly love, right? I'm from there, that's why I mentioned it. Um and and and then there's agape, which is love of the will. So that's the love that in which you make a gift of yourself without anything returning. So actually, Pope Benedict uh, and he had a um his encyclical Deus Caritas that's talking about the Eros is God, Eros of God is agape, right? And he makes a complete and total gift of himself. So the dynamism within the Holy Trinity is complete and total self-gift between the three divine persons. So that's that's the mystery of the Trinity. That that it's agape love. It's not three three persons of the Trinity, right? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in a com in this communion of life and love and the unity of the one God, right, have this dynamism of gift, complete and total self-gift. Right, because we I guess we can say you you you those of you who understand, you know, when in marriage or in or with with children, you understand that love at a level, right, at a deeper, at a level, right? When you're when you have a child who's you know sick or hurt, you know, that you will do anything for that child, right? You will do anything for that child. Right? That that desire for the good of that child comes out in almost a almost automatic fashion, right? As sort of a shade or almost like a hint, right? Right. And also, you know, when you think about, you know, think about when when married people sacrifice for each other, you know, in times of difficulty, right? That's when you're making that gift of yourself at a time when you you would probably rather hide under a rock for some reason, or you just you wish you didn't have to do whatever. But you're loving your spouse in a time of difficulty because you're willing that you're willing that good for the other person. Sometimes that's about marriage goes. We all you know, that's a that's part of the dynamism. Though, of course, there are some good times too. You know, there should be, you know. Um so so this dynamism to in within the dynamism of God Himself, that's what makes it difficult to understand because of sin, we live in a world in which we become very cynical. Right? We experience suffering, we experience evil, and we can sort of say, well, how is it that God in himself can be this? And then because it for us, we can be so kind of jaded from our own struggle with overcoming evil and overcoming sin, right? And we see the the the suffering that's going on in the world, you know, we're in a lot, we're in conflict right now. Um these sorts of things like we we we can't conceive that just love exists, right? Um so but this is what you know is that, and that this is the the the the good news that Jesus is telling us is that at the foundation of everything is this God who is in himself, right? This this dynamism of self-giving love, right? That's hard to imagine. It's like we're wow. You know, I was a whole omelie I gave for for the baccalaureate mass of Bishop O'Connell one year, because we just came on the feast of the Holy Trinity. And um it was a now it was just that was just sort of kind of a it kind of just makes your mind hurt a little bit. You know, mind right now, you know, but that's that's because it's the we're we just lost an hour because that's another problem. Okay. We had daylight savings time. I'm not feeling safe from daylight right now, okay? Daylight savings time. All right, what other questions are floating around out there? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

I have a better thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Well, ultimately, we're talking about the mystery. So, um let's see. Let's see why I can explain this. So um so the love that Christ has for you is the Holy Spirit. Okay? Okay. Well, this is this is this is like this is hard to put it. It's this is because we why we call it a mystery, okay? So so this the Holy Spirit, again, is the bond of love between the father and the son. Okay. So um, you know, we we all like for example, uh so think of the experience of childhood, right? When you have two parents and you love mommy and daddy, right? And mommy and daddy love you, right? Does that make sense? Right? So there's a love that they share with each other. That love is outpoured to you, right? There's a love that they have, right? They're they're bond of they ever married, they're coveted to each other. So they have cooperative with one another to recover with God, to bring new life into the world, right? Good child, you know. So there's there's a love that parents have for their child, right? There's a love for each other that they have, right? That love that parents have, right, that's an analogy for the spirit, okay? Okay. So that the love that they have for each other is now outpoured also into the love of their child. So now they love each other, but they also love the child. And other children too, right? So when parents have multiple children, not like that they love that each child is loved unequally, right? Right? That the love that parents have for their children is, yes, they might have that each children, a child may have different foibles or different challenges, but each of those children they have in a, you would say, an equal love, the infinite equal love for that child, right?

unknown 31:38

Yes and no.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

So that's the whole oh yeah, I know it's the yes and no because each child is different.

unknown 31:44

Because Christ came to this world and then he died on the cross for us.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Right.

unknown 31:50

But God the Father sent Christ to the world.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Right. Christ's love is the Holy Spirit. Right. The Father's love and Christ's love are the same.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

They only love us, don't want to roll the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

I just, you so the Holy Spirit, right, is the love that the Father and Son share. That's the love that the Father has for you, it's the love that Jesus has for you. I gave the anal I gave again the analogy of the parents. Right? Their love for each other is outpoured to the child. Right? All right, you're gonna you're gonna help? You're gonna give an assist on the goal? I mean, it's hard, it's it's a it's a difficult doctrine to get your mind around, right? Yeah, go ahead. So then it's true. Okay, if it's on the if I saw on the internet it's true, is that right? You know, it's not ever never analogy works, you know, so. Right, when we think of yeah, if we think of the apostles and Jesus, right, and Jesus sort of in the in the apostolic, you know, band they're traveling around, right? So if you know, we think of Jesus and his human nature alone, right? Like giving, like, let's say, you know, if you know, Jesus healing people, right? Well, what if remember that one action of the of one person in the Trinity, all the all the all the three persons are all involved, right? So the the so the the father is involved. Any so anything Jesus does, all three uh, you know, all three members of all three persons of the Trinity are involved in. So the love of Christ is the is the is the Holy Spirit, right? Because that's the it's again, it's it's the love that's shared between the Father and the Son. That's why I kind of that's why I'm kind of leaning a little hard on the the family as my best sort of analogy. Because I think that we can understand when you know the parents and the love of their children, their love of each other and their love of their child are sort of a it's one thing. It's not it's not like almost you can't really divide that, you know what I'm saying? You know, yeah.

unknown 36:02

On page 77, there is an analogy that my degree.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah, that's that's another four course. See, that's another, but yeah, but having there's one nature involved, and that's wherever we were, it's it, you know. I always like to think of I always like to think of that's why I like to think of marriage in my own sort of way of thinking. It helps me with that. Especially because I do a lot of marriage prep, and when I'm sitting, I'm trying to explain, you know, I'm doing theology of the body, I always go back to the Trinity and the Incarnation to help them understand that that um to try to understand some of the doctrines we're trying to teach and about marriage. So, okay, any other questions? All right, all right, so if anyone else wants to come up, I'll just wrap up here, okay? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Give you thanks, mighty God, for the affections, resolutions, inspirations you've given us those time of contemplation. We ask your help to put them into effect. Remind Mother Saint Joseph, our garden angel, intercede for us. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit.

unknown 37:14

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

All right, all right, thanks everybody.