God the Most Holy Trinity is present throughout the entire Mass. We begin Mass by invoking God's name: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The priest greets the Faithful with a Trinitarian formula: The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.
The Gloria is a time to join the angels in heaven praising the Holy Trinity.
The readings recall God's work in creating, redeeming and sanctifying the world.
We profess our faith in the One True God who is three Divine Persons during the proclamation of faith (creed).
At the Eucharistic consecration, we ask the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine to the Corpus Christi and present the perfect sacrifice to God the Father.
At the end of Mass, the priest closes with a Trinitarian Blessing: May almighty God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
When we pray the entire Mass, God the Holy Trinity is invoked, praised and glorified. Trinity Sunday is not just today but every Sunday and every time we gather for Mass.
Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed was a formulation dated back to the fourth century (325AD). The Nicene Creed was very significant for the early church because if you did believe what the creed says, you couldn't be baptized.
The Nicene Creed was also a way to clarify church doctrine especially the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It was necessary for the Church to have a creed. There were many heresies or opponents at that time. Some opponents were Gnosticism (dualistic worldview) and Arianism (Christ had a beginning), and many others. But the creed laid out some important things that we need to focus on. The underlying point is that we can't worship a God if we don't know about God.
I believe in One God...
We don't believe in Three Gods, but One God who is Three Divine Persons. This is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. Although we can't fully understand God because of our limit intelligence and knowledge, it doesn't mean that we can't know anything about God.
I believe in God, but here's an interesting question: Does Satan believe in God? Yes. Does fallen angels believe in God? Yes. But believing also demands a right response. The fallen angels believe in God, but their response is not correct because they don't trust in God's will and God's plan for redemption. Let me give an example: I may believe that exercise is good for me, but if I don't exercise, then the response doesn't align with the belief. Believing and right response must go hand in hand.
We begin to recite the Nicene Creed by calling God as "Father". This may seem normal for us today, but in the ancient times, it was rare to have that close of an intimate relationship with God. Even the Jewish people would not dare to say God's name (YHWH), so they replace it with another word like Adonai which means Lord. Christ taught the disciples to address God as ABBA, or Father. He taught the "Our Father" prayer. Christ shows us how to relate to God as Father. The word "Father" doesn't denote his masculinity or gender, but to the personhood of God.
God is Father because God is creator of all things, visible and invisible. God is Father because God created humanity. God is Father because of His care and providence. God is Father because he gives an eternal inheritance through the Sacrament of Baptism.
I believe that God is almighty or all powerful because God can do everything. God can do things that are impossible such as creating something from nothing.
Here are some tricky questions: If God is all powerful, can God lie or sin? No, God wouldn't do that because it would go against God's nature as truth and goodness.
If God is almighty or all powerful, can God turn a square into a circle or a triangle into a square? No, because these things are contradictions and God is not a God of contradictions. Can God make a number one equal a number two? These would also be contradictions. But then one equals three and three equals one. That's the mystery of the Trinity. Three divine persons but shares in the same divine nature.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ. The word "Lord" in Hebrew is Mashiac and in the Greek is Christ. By calling someone "Lord" means that they are the Master. They have full control of your life. It also denotes exclusivity. Technically, we can't have two Lords or two Masters.
Normally, the word "Lord" was used only by his disciples. Other people would call him 'teacher' or 'Rabbi'. Interestingly, when Judas betrayed Christ as reported in the Gospel of Mark chapter 14, this is what it says: "Judas came and immediately went over to Jesus and said "Rabbi". And he kissed him." Notice that Judas doesn't call him Lord anymore at the time of betrayal.
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. This phrase is a response to the Arian Heresy at the time who taught that Christ had a beginning.
The word consubstantial is new word in our revised creed but it is from the Greek word homoousion which means consubstantial. The Arians preferred the word homoiousion with an extra "I" which means of similar substance, not of the same substance. The controversy was over one iota. The creed reaffirms that Christ had no beginning and no end. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He was always present with the Father at the beginning.
By the power of the Holy Spirit he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. The greatest work of the Holy Spirit is not just the Baptism or the resurrection but the Incarnation, uniting divinity and humanity in Christ, where sin has once divided that union.
He shall come to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom shall have no end. Sometimes we may worry about when Christ will come again. But we should not be so worried about the parousia, the second coming of Jesus. Rather, we should always focus more on the current status and condition of our soul. If he returns today, is our soul ready?
The Holy Spirit is Lord meaning that he is fully God. The Holy Spirit is not an "it". Christ uses the pronoun "he" to refer to the Holy Spirit. "He is the Spirit of Truth and he will guide you in all truth." The pronoun "he" doesn't refer to his gender since he Holy Spirit doesn't have a body like the second person. The Greek word for Spirit is Pneuma, which is neutral, neither masculine or feminine. The pronoun "he" doesn't refer to the gender but to his personhood.
The Holy Spirit is the giver of life. He is the giver of life through the creation of humanity (Genesis 2) and new life through Baptism and forgiveness of sins. "One must be born again by water and the Holy Spirit."
Happy Feast of the Most Holy Trinity!
No comments:
Post a Comment