When I look back at my
own childhood, perhaps it is inevitable that it looks normal to me. Yet at
least compared to the average person in the Midwest, I had some unusual
experiences. I literally grew up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. I was
backpacking for weeklong trips in the wilderness in grade school, and in middle
school, treks through the mountain wilderness were part of my school
curriculum.
One time after climbing to the very top of a mountain, we began to make lunch
using tiny naphtha powered stoves. We put water on to boil, but to my
amazement, the water boiled in only a few short minutes.
One of the adults told us that we would be unlikely to get the water all the
way to normal boiling temperature. Water boils at 212 ºF at sea level, but the
entire National Park was about 4500 feet above sea level, and we had just
climbed a mountain. I am guessing we were likely more than 7000 feet above sea
level. At this altitude, water boils at 198.5 ºF. An experienced mountain
climber would know this, but to me this was extremely amazing.
I tell this story because one of the common beliefs in our culture is that
everything should be simple and something we can easily figure out for
ourselves. Knowledge should be intuitive, and something we easily get. It
should not be complicated. I want to ask you though, is this true?
Is life not sometimes complicated and full of surprises?
Of course, we recognize that some things are hard to understand. I doubt anyone would think spatial anomalies called black holes, were simple. Yet, for most of us, unless we are especially curious, if something is complicated we do not try too hard to figure it out. If I cannot understand something with a quick google search, I will put it in the "too hard pile," and ignore it. At one level, perhaps this behavior is understandable!
The problem is that many people also apply this thinking to their faith. They want to keep their faith very simple. They might say, “As long as I am basically a good person, and that I act in a loving manner toward other people, this is all that really matters” They might think that there is no need to understand a bunch of complicated doctrines about the faith. Someone might say, “I don’t need theology or doctrine, I just need Jesus.” We might sing the 1960’s Beatles hit song, “All you need is love,” and think we have it figured out.
What could go wrong with this thinking?
In a recent survey
of Christians including Catholics, who apparently attend Mass
weekly, revealed an astounding 57 % of Catholics agreed with the statement
“Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”
Some things we believe are so essential that we cannot have faith without them.
What would be the consequences of believing that Jesus is not God, or believing
that he did not die to make satisfaction for our sins, or believing that he did
not rise from the dead to bring us new life? If this were the case, St. Paul
tells us, both our preaching and our faith would be “in vain” and “futile” and
God would not have forgiven our sins. (1 Corinthians 15: 7-14).
A mere human being, no matter how good or admirable they might seem to be,
cannot make the necessary satisfaction for our sins. Only God can do this. If
Jesus is not God, then we are still in our sins, and we are still alienated
from God.
I think the reason that some people do not understand this truth is because
they think they will earn their own salvation by being good.
The Bible (Ephesians 2:8-9) and 2000 years of Tradition (Trent, Justification,
Can. 1; First Decree, V), teach us that this is a false and presumptuous hope
(CCC 2092).
This is Trinity Sunday. We believe that God is one. “We
do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the ‘consubstantial
Trinity’” (CCC 253). We also believe that there are three distinct divine
persons in the Godhead. They are not simply different forms or modalities of
one God but are really “distinct from one another in their relations of origin:
‘It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit
who proceeds’” (CCC 254). Yet these origins do not begin in time. The Son is
“eternally begotten” and the Spirit “eternally proceeds.”
If we follow the intuition to keep it simple, we might understand
the Trinity to be something too complicated to understand, and too detached
from our daily life to be concerned with it. After all, 1+1 +1 does not
normally equal 1. This is not intuitive.
For many people, a favorite way to describe the Trinity is to say that it
is a mystery. By 'mystery' they mean it is too hard for the average
person to understand. The Trinity might be true, but it beyond my
comprehension. This is not, however, what we mean by a 'mystery' in
our faith. We can distinguish ordinary mysteries (those things we do not
understand) from the “mysteries of faith.” The Catechism notes,
“The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one
of the “mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they
are revealed by God” [Dei Filius 4: DS 3015] (CCC 237).
Once God has revealed the truth of a particular mystery,
this truth can be known by each of us, at least to the extent that God has
revealed it. In Romans, St. Paul describes, "the revelation of the mystery
kept secret for long ages but now manifested" (Romans 16:25–26). In
Ephesians we learn that God “has made known to us the mystery of his
will in accord with his favor” (Ephesians 1:9) or “the plan of the
mystery hidden from ages past in God who created all things, so that the
manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church” (Ephesians
3:3–6).
Someone might still say, “Fair enough, the Trinity is a revealed truth
which we must believe, but it is still hard to understand. Surely this belief
is not too important in my daily life.” I fully understand that
intuitively this seems to be the case. Yet why do we begin every prayer “In the
name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?” And why is it
crucial to be baptized, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit?”
In fact, Catechism describes “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity” as “the
central mystery of Christian faith and life.”(CCC 234). Notice that the
Catechism says, “faith and life.”
How
can the Trinity be important to our daily life?
Ultimately, this relates to the love of God, which the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit eternally exchange between themselves. It was God’s eternal desire
that his divine mercy and love would be revealed to us, so that we could enter
a relationship with him. Nothing can be more practical than to experience the
love of God in the midst of every aspect of our life.
One of the distinctions between the different persons of the godhead are the
missions which each of the divine person undertakes. The Father sends the Son.
The Son makes known the mercy and love of the Father. As Jesus tells us in our
Gospel reading, the Father shares everything with the Son and then the Son
declares it to us (John 16:15).
The Son also makes the mercy and love of the Father present to us through his
earthly preaching and healing miracles. Finally, Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross becomes for us the most complete revelation of the mercy and of love of
the Father. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet
sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Returning to the Father at his Ascension, the Father and Son send the Holy
Spirit to transform us from within by the Spirit of truth. It is the mission of
the Holy Spirit to apply the fruit of Christ’s divine sacrifice, so that
through faith and repentance our hearts may be made right with him. This
happens first through the sacraments but also continues in our life of prayer.
The mission of the Spirit continues and completes this work of love, by
releasing God’s desire within us. St. Paul tells us, “God’s love has
been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5).
Applying the love of God from within our souls, the Holy Spirit enables us to
behold “the glory of the Lord” and to be “changed into
his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians
3:18). We literally become new creatures in Christ Jesus through the action of
the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17).
God continuously grounds his every action in the eternal love of the Most Holy
Trinity. Because of God’s eternal unity, St. Paul refers to the Spirit within
us as the Spirit of Christ (CCC 743). He admonishes us, “let the peace
of Christ rule in your hearts” (Col 3:15) and “let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16). So that, “… whatever
you do, in word or deed” we might “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:17).
Sent by the Father, we have recently journeyed with Christ through his passion
and Resurrection. We have remembered his Ascension into heaven, and the sending
of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son, at Pentecost. Let us therefore
pray, “Lord transform our daily lives now, as you accompany us into the world
in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
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