Pastor’s Pen
A Word from Fr. Chris
“Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, to God who is, who was and who will come”
It is our common and religious practice as Catholics to make the sign of the cross when we want to pray and at the end of our prayer invoking the name of the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God is One, Indivisible, Eternal and Holy in nature but are three Persons. This is not a contradiction in this revelation. Sacred Theology calls it “The Triune God”, that is to say, God is One and three. They are ascribed with seemingly different functions: God the Father as the Creator, the Son as the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier yet remain One and equal in all respects. The Trinity is the greatest of the mysteries of our revealed truth, the pillar of our faith which we have to profess before we are baptized. We affirm our faith in them when we pray the Creed, when we receive blessings or when the blessing is imparted on us by an ordained minister in the Church. It is this feast of the Trinity that the Church celebrates today.
As said, the Trinitarian God is a mystery. The understanding of Him is beyond our human and intellectual comprehension. However, the little knowledge He gave us of Himself was to know Him, love Him and serve Him here in this world and to be happy with Him in the next life. This knowledge He gave us is from the revealed truths through the person of Jesus Christ. For example, “I and the Father are one” or “I am the Resurrection and life whoever believes in me even if he dies will live”.
Going further from the revealed truths, the great philosopher and theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica established that we can know God also through the natural light of reason from God’s creative work and the order in the world. This is great. However, this is just a scratch in knowing the greatness and immensity of God. Analogically it is like a little bug asserting that it has the knowledge of the components of the human person which we know is impossible. So we will know God as He is when we see Him face to face in heaven. That is why we are aspiring to go to heaven where God lives. A teacher of a religion class, preparing a class for the Sacrament of Confirmation, said to the them, “Who will like to go to heaven?” Nearly all raised their hands except one. She asked, “Mary don’t you want to go to heaven?” She said, “No. Mom said, after the class she will come and pick me up and we go home together”. All in the class laughed. Isn’t that funny? So Heaven is the place where we see God no longer as if it were in a mirror as St. Paul puts it but see Him face to face as He is and where He rewards all who lived and served Him with eternal life. There we will see Jesus, his mother Mary, the angels and saints living in joy and happiness with Him for ever and ever, Amen.
Fr. Chris
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