Many things distracted me which includes participating in some interfaith forums. It can be good for evangelising but it is not that good when one start to forget home. So I am trying to take a break for them. My friends knows that I take this kinds of break often, well, this is an other one:)
Few days ago, Christians from other denominations were discussing the Holy Trinity. As you are aware of this, many have different views which include a view that Jesus is the Holy Spirit :(.... All this started in a topic which was about trying to prove that our Holy Mother Mary is not the Mother of God.
I think I have to ask prayers for our Faith, for us, and for the separate brothers.
Below is a copy of my contribution. For me as I indicated at the beginning this blog, my basis of understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity is the basic idea that God is love.
Few hours ago it was the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Hope every one got relevant blessings
[8] He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
A deep meditation on this fundamental christian belief lead us to see that God is not lonely. And for a Christian Jesus has revealed that God is not lonely but a unity of three divine persons.
And men have been themselves called into this unity in Christ by following his commandment of love.
Love is incompatible with loneliness. A non-Christian may say, that well, that's why God created...so he does not be lonely. But this is a false notion of God. Because God is completely satisfied with himself. So he did not create out of necessity, but out of love.
Jesus revealed to us the deeper mystery when he invited us in the household of God.
Paul put it beautifully:
Eph.2
[19] So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
1Tim.3
[15] if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
We enter the Church through baptism and the formula of valid baptism as indicated by the Lord Jesus is:
"in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".
To me this look like a person inviting you into his house, and introducing you to his family. And telling us (as we are adopted children) how from now on, as long as we live in this household we have to live according to their lifestyle.
John 14:
15] "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. [18] "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" [23] Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
(Columbia.edu)
The only distinction between the persons of the Trinity is their mutual relations. None of the persons exists in respect to himself alone, but each exists relatively to the other two:
...the ``three persons'' who exist in God are the reality of word and love in their attachment to each other. They are not substances, personalities in the modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure actuality... does not impair unity of the highest being but fills it out. St Augustine once enshrined this idea in the following formula: ``He is not called Father with reference to himself but only in relation to the Son; seen by himself he is simply God.'' Here the decisive point comes beautifully to light. ``Father'' is purely a concept of relationship. Only in being-for the other is he Father; in his own being-in-himself he is simply God. Person is the pure relation of being related, nothing else. Relationship is not something extra added to the person, as it is with us; it only exists at all as relatedness.
....the First Person [the Father] does not beget the Son in the sense of the act of begetting coming on top of the finished Person; it is the act of begetting, of giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of giving. (Joseph Ratzinger Introduction to Christianity, pp. 131-132; cf. Augustine, Enarationes in Psalmos 68; De Trinitate VII, 1, 2.)
Each of the persons of the Trinity lives completely for the others; each is a complete gift of self to the others. The complete self-giving not only constitutes the individual persons of the Trinity, but also their inseparable oneness.
Thus, for Christians the very basis of all reality is the loving communion of persons that is the Holy Trinity.
This is the how I understand the oneness in the Trinity, and also the oneness that Jesus prayed for. By living as Jesus commanded us, we achieve, we also, the oneness the Lord prayed for. If we live the way of of the Trinity, the way Jesus commanded us to live:
A deep meditation on this fundamental christian belief lead us to see that God is not lonely. And for a Christian Jesus has revealed that God is not lonely but a unity of three divine persons.
And men have been themselves called into this unity in Christ by following his commandment of love.
Love is incompatible with loneliness. A non-Christian may say, that well, that's why God created...so he does not be lonely. But this is a false notion of God. Because God is completely satisfied with himself. So he did not create out of necessity, but out of love.
Jesus revealed to us the deeper mystery when he invited us in the household of God.
Paul put it beautifully:
Eph.2
[19] So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
1Tim.3
[15] if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
We enter the Church through baptism and the formula of valid baptism as indicated by the Lord Jesus is:
"in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".
To me this look like a person inviting you into his house, and introducing you to his family. And telling us (as we are adopted children) how from now on, as long as we live in this household we have to live according to their lifestyle.
John 14:
15] "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. [18] "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" [23] Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
(Columbia.edu)
The only distinction between the persons of the Trinity is their mutual relations. None of the persons exists in respect to himself alone, but each exists relatively to the other two:
...the ``three persons'' who exist in God are the reality of word and love in their attachment to each other. They are not substances, personalities in the modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure actuality... does not impair unity of the highest being but fills it out. St Augustine once enshrined this idea in the following formula: ``He is not called Father with reference to himself but only in relation to the Son; seen by himself he is simply God.'' Here the decisive point comes beautifully to light. ``Father'' is purely a concept of relationship. Only in being-for the other is he Father; in his own being-in-himself he is simply God. Person is the pure relation of being related, nothing else. Relationship is not something extra added to the person, as it is with us; it only exists at all as relatedness.
....the First Person [the Father] does not beget the Son in the sense of the act of begetting coming on top of the finished Person; it is the act of begetting, of giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of giving. (Joseph Ratzinger Introduction to Christianity, pp. 131-132; cf. Augustine, Enarationes in Psalmos 68; De Trinitate VII, 1, 2.)
Each of the persons of the Trinity lives completely for the others; each is a complete gift of self to the others. The complete self-giving not only constitutes the individual persons of the Trinity, but also their inseparable oneness.
Thus, for Christians the very basis of all reality is the loving communion of persons that is the Holy Trinity.
This is the how I understand the oneness in the Trinity, and also the oneness that Jesus prayed for. By living as Jesus commanded us, we achieve, we also, the oneness the Lord prayed for. If we live the way of of the Trinity, the way Jesus commanded us to live:
John.15:
[12]"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
1John.3
[16] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
2 comments:
What do you mean by the term "Civilization of Love"
I am aware of the constant teaching on the Social Kingship of Christ.All individuals,and nations are obliged to submit to Christ and conform to his teaching.
Hi credo,
this article give a more or less better explaination:
http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/02/20/97691/
God bless
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