Chapter 2: THE HOLY TRINITY, THE BASIS OF THE FAITH

The Lord essentially referred to, and invoked the reality of the Three Persons of the Trinity during the occasion of what is called The Great Commission.  Then, Jesus gave them these words: “Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.  Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you…” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. Mt. 28:16-20) 

PREMISE: And so what is or who is the Trinity?  The Trinity is God himself in three Divine Persons, where each of the three persons addresses to man God’s love for man, and God’s goal to unite man into the fullness of the love of the Triune God.  The Catechism synthesizes this manner of relationship between the three Divine Persons and the believers.  “Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him.”  (CCC Par. 259, p.69)  The Catechism writes that following the New Testament there is: “...one God and Father from whom all things are, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are.”  (CCC Par. 258, p.68)  And the ultimate purpose of this Divine Reality is so that God's creatures enter, “...into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.”  (CCC Par. 260, p. 69)

ESSENTIALS, Re: the First Person -- The Father

Initially, the catechumen is to understand how in the Trinity the catechumen, or “everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him.” (CCC Par. 259, p. 69)  God, the Father draws souls, draws men to himself.  Many are called; few are chosen; yet he is the one that keeps calling, and choosing according to his wisdom, justice, and love.  The business or the economy of saving mankind, from all eternity, before the Incarnation moment & era, has been the desire, plan, and will of the Father.  The Lord Jesus, the Son of the Father, stated this reality and truth repeatedly during his missionary work.  Clearly Jesus proclaimed: “... The truth is I have not come of myself.  I was sent by one who has the right to send, he sent me.”  (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 7:28-29)   Obeying the Father is alone what counts in his mission when he said, “...  I say only what the Father has taught me.  The One who sent me is with me.  He has not deserted me since I always do what pleases him.” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 8:28-29)    Christ’s undergoing of his Paschal event was actually his act of obedience to the Father, his fulfilling of his Person as the Son of God,

Re: the Second Person -- The Son

            Moving on, this is what the catechumen is to fully appreciate about his/her discipleship in our Lord Jesus Christ.  “Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit...”  (CCC Par. 259, p. 69)  Man gets to love God only by way of the Second Person of the Trinity, only through our following of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the one great act of love of the Father for man that it took his own Son to become man, and to become the price for the sins of mankind.  This is the greatest revelation: God’s love for man, who has sinned against him.  With the Second Person’s embrace of his Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection in order to bring back to God man who has been cut off from God by sin, man has been saved into union back with God.  This is what is meant when Scripture says, “... The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory: the glory of an only Son coming from the Father filled with enduring love…. Of his fullness we have all had a share --- love following upon love...” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 1:14-16)   This Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, identified and defined himself with his proclaiming his Good News by saying: “... I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE; no one comes to the Father but through me.” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 14:5)  Man’s following of Jesus this way consists the totality of the security and fullness of a life that is lived for, thus, so following the Lord.   He is all man needs to receive the life of salvation right here and eternally hereafter as declared by Jesus himself when he said: “... it was not Moses who gave you bread from the heavens; it is my Father who gives you the real heavenly bread.  God’s bread comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…I myself am the bread of life.  No one who comes to me shall ever be hungry; no one who believes in me shall ever thirst.” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John6:32-35)   Those men are to recognize in him this new & eternal life that cannot be taken away from them who believe he said assuredly, “... My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.  No one shall snatch them out of my hand.  My Father is greater than all, in what he has given me, and there is no snatching out of his hand.  The Father and I are one.” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 10:27-30)   Men’s following of this Son of God makes them become children of God; hence, it was written: “…Any who did accept him he empowered to become children of God...” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 1:12)   On the contrary, the opposite fate will have befallen them who shall not be rewarded the above divinely heavenly status and identity with the following tragic consequence: “...Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words already has his judge, namely, the word I have spoken – it is that which will condemn him on the last day.  For I have not spoken on my own;” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 12:48-49)

Re: the Third Person – the Holy Spirit

            Finally, with respect to the Trinity, this is what the catechumen is to recognize and realize how he/she is to make himself/herself totally relating with the Triune God, and thus how he/she is to be subjected to the teaching, guidance, and embrace of the Holy Spirit.  “Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit...”  “Everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him.”  (CCC Par. 259, p. 69)  Thus, Scripture says, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord!’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  The Catechism says, “... it is impossible to see God’s Son without the Spirit  ...”  (CCC Par. 683, 1 Cor. 12:3, p. 179,)   These over-riding words of Scriptures define the absolute authority of and the help only  the Holy Spirit can provide over the people’s ability to believe or not to believe in Jesus, thus, in God.  John 16:7-14 describes how the Spirit affirms vindication for Christ and all injustice victims with Christ confounds worldly people into persistent errors for their lifestyle of sin, and convicts most hardened sinners – (i.e. those who commit the sin against the Holy Spirit) to condemnation and eternal enslavement by & with the Prince of this world.  (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed.)  This was why Jesus gave the apostles his promise: "... But I tell you that I am going to do what is best for you.... I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you."  (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 16:7)  The Lord Jesus revealed himself raised to his disciples, the Apostles, including to Mary Magdalene.  Yet to those who maligned and spited him, and even challenged him during his crucifixion and death, as well as all others, including a great many among them that want to follow him, Jesus did not demonstrate his resurrection from death.  People still needed faith that he did rise from death.  What matters is that through the power of the Holy Spirit, via the sacraments, specially the sacrament of baptism followers express belief in, or abide by what Christ told his Apostles.  The blessedness of faith consists in the believers’ believing in Him even if they have not seen him.  His words to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen; but have believed!” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 20:29)  Yet, moreover, Jesus said addressing the Father, “…What you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the lowliest children.”  (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. Mt. 11:25)   Thus, on one occasion when teaching the crowd with parables, and when asked by his disciples why he speaks to the crowd with parables, the Lord told the disciples: “To you have been given knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but it has not been given to the others.  To the man, who has, more will be given until he grows rich; the man, who has not, will lose what little he has.” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. Mt. 13:10-12)  And so therefore he told them of the blessedness in his disciples, “... Blessed are your eyes because they see, and blessed are your ears because they hear.  I assure you many a prophet and many of God’s people longed to see what you see but did not see it, to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” (Bilingual Bible, Mt. 13:16)  This is precisely why the Holy Spirit came down upon Christ’s departing from the Church on his ascension to his Seat of glory at the right hand of the Father.  In lieu of Christ, precisely as the Spirit of Christ and of the Father, the Holy Spirit ‘prompts’ who alone “can authentically say/profess of the Lordship of Christ among men, and, who alone through the Church dispenses graces from Christ’s deposit reservoir of graces only upon them ‘drawn by the Father’.  Obviously as many will be favored with these graces; likewise, many too will be denied these graces.  Many will have the open eyes of faith to receive of the Spirit’s graces; and many will remain closed in heart & mind about the reality of graces, or more appropriately blind to the presence of the Holy Spirit, and therefore to things supernatural or of God, albeit to the Gospel for which Christ has come.   And so to them drawn by the Father, to them called & chosen by the Father, and to those not drawn by the Father, to those not called & chosen by the Father, the Holy Spirit executes the will of Jesus, who is both Savior and Judge, to continue to make it happen what Jesus said he came for, namely: “I came into this world to divide it, to make sightless see and the seeing blind”.  (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 9:39)  Why this is so, the Holy Spirit, as witness to the Son, speaks to each one correspondingly for Jesus the fearsome truth how, “Whoever is of God hears every word God speaks.  The reason you do not hear is that you are not of God.” (New Am. Bible, St. Joseph Ed. John 6:47)

Errors we are to be wary about:  We should not be estranged from our fraternity with our Jewish neighbors with their abhorrence of any concept beyond their simplistic understanding of the oneness of God.  And in our fellowship amidst the humanistic & secular world we are neither to condescendingly even pay lip service to their pantheistic (CCC Par. 285, p. 74) ‘divination’ of all things of the universe.  But with our catechumens let us in conclusion invoke the Blessed Trinity as we say in the spirit of Eucharistic Celebration: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are with us all.”  (New St. Joseph Sunday Missal, Greeting Prayers at beginning of the Mass, p.11)

List of bibliography: 

1.  Institution: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,      Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, English Translation of Laetamur Magnopere from L’ Osservatore Romano, Publication No. 5-110 USCCB Publishing, Washington, D.C. ISBN 1-57455-110-8

2.  Institution: Members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America     The New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition, Copyright  1980-1970 by Catholic Book Publishing Company, New York, NIHIL OBSTAT, Stephen J. Hartdegen, O.F.M., S.S.L, Christian P. Ceroke, O. Carm, S.T.D.

                                                                        IMPRIMATUR, Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle, D.D., Archbishop of Washington,

                                                                        July 27, 1970  

3. Institution: United Bible Societies             Bilingual Bible, Tercera Edicion, Sociedades

Good News Translation American Bible Society, 1992, Imprimatur for GMT, Most Reverend William H. Keeler, D.D. President of NCCB, March 10, 1993                                  

4. Institution, Catholic Book Publishing Corporation            New St. Joseph Missal, Prayerbook & Hymnal for 2011, No. 2011/04 ISBN 978-0-89942-647-1

EDU 602 Paper Submitted to: Deacon Helgeson     by: Renato Valdellon, 02/24/11