NOTE ON JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES BIBLE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION TEACHING THAT THE KINGDOM IS ONLY “AMONG” OR “IN THE MIDST” OF THE DISCIPLES BECAUSE JESUS THE KING WAS PHYSICALLY PRESENT WHICH IS ONLY THE CHRISTOLOGY DIMENSION PERSPECTIVE OF THE KINGDOM : THEY OMITTHE MEANING THAT THE KINGDOM IS ALSO “IN/WITHIN” OR “INSIDE” OUR HEARTS
CATHOLIC BIBLE TRANSLATION AND NOTE
MUST READ THE 3 DIMENSIONS OF GOD’S KINGDOM: What is the Kingdom of God?
Here we see that “the Kingdom is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms. It is a person; it is he. On this interpretation, the term ‘Kingdom of God’ is itself a veiled Christology. By the way in which he speaks of the Kingdom of God, Jesus leads men to realize the overwhelming fact that in him God himself is present among them, that he is God’s presence.” (Pope Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth, Part 1)
The Idealistic/Mystical Dimension
Here we see that The Kingdom of God resides in the heart of man. Church Father, Origen wrote, “those who pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God pray without any doubt for the Kingdom of God that they contain in themselves, and they pray that this kingdom might bear fruit and attain its fullness.”
The Ecclesiastical Dimension
Here we see that the kingdom of God is in the here and now, present in and through the Church. Yet it is a mixed reality that will only be perfectly realized at the end of history. This current “mixed” state can be seen as the Church on earth which now grows in the field of the world with both weeds and wheat until the harvest when Christ says he will “tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned. But gather the wheat into my barn” (Matt 13:30).
Kingdom of God
Signifies not so much the actual kingdom as the sway of the king
In the second petition of the “Our Father”—”Thy kingdom come”—we are taught to pray as well for grace as for glory. As men grew to understand the Divinity of Christ they grew to see that the kingdom of God was also that of Christ—it was here that the faith of the good thief excelled: “Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom.” So, too, as men realized that this kingdom stood for a certain tone of mind, and saw that this peculiar spirit was enshrined in the Church, they began to speak of the Church as “the kingdom of God“; cf. Col., i, 13; I Thess., ii, 12; Apoc., i, 6, 9; v, 10, etc. The kingdom was regarded as Christ’s, and He presents it to the Father; cf. I Cor., xv, 23-28; II Tim., iv, 1. The kingdom of God means, then, the ruling of God in our hearts; it means those principles which separate us off from the kingdom of the world and the devil; it means the benign sway of grace; it means the Church as that Divine institution whereby we may make sure of attaining the spirit of Christ and so win that ultimate kingdom of God where He reigns without end in “the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Apoc., xxi, 2).
GOD’S KINGDOM WITH JESUS REIGNING INSIDE OUR HEARTS IS THE ONLY WAY TO BRING PEACE
SAINT LOUIS MARIA GRIGNON DE MONTFORT
Tratado de la Verdadera Devoción…, núms. 12-38 Si queréis comprender a la Madre, dice un santo, comprended al Hijo, pues es una Madre digna de Dios: Que aquí toda lengua enmudezca. Para demostrar que la divina María ha estado desco nocida hasta ahora, y que es una de las razones por las cuales Jesucristo no es conocido como debe serlo. Si, pues, como es cierto, el reino de Jesucristo ha de venir al mundo, no será sino con secuencia necesaria del conocimiento del reino de la Santísima Virgen María, que le trajo al mundo la vez primera y le hará resplandecer en la segunda venida. Confieso con toda la Iglesia que no siendo María sino una pura criatura salida de las manos del Altísimo, comparada con la Majestad infinita es menos que un átomo, o más bien nada, puesto que sólo Dios es quien es, y por consiguien te, confieso que este gran Señor, Ser soberano y absoluto, ni ha tenido ni ahora tiene necesidad alguna de la Santísima Virgen para hacer su voluntad santísima y para manifestar su gloria. Basta que Dios quiera, para que todo se haga. Digo, sin embargo, que así y todo, habiendo querido Dios empezar y concluir sus más grandes obras por la Santísima Virgen desde que la formó, es de creer que no cambiará de conducta en el transcurso de los siglos, pues es Dios y no varía en sus sentimientos ni en su proceder. María es la Reina del cielo y de la tierra por la gracia, como Jesús es Rey por naturaleza y por conquista; pues el reino de Jesucristo consiste principalmente en el corazón y en el interior del hombre, según estas palabras: “EI reino de Dios está dentro de vosotros”, del mismo modo el reino de la Santísima Virgen está principalmente en el interior del hombre, es decir, en las almas, y en las almas es en donde principalmente está más glorificada con su Hijo que en todas las criaturas visibles, y podemos llamarla con los santos, Reina de los corazones.
“IF YOU DO NOT BELONG TO THE KINGDOM THAT GOD JESUS INSTITUTED WHEN HE CAME ON EARTH, YOU BELONG TO THE KINGDOM OF THE DEVIL” – EXORCIST FATHER MARTIN – Minute 10’10
The Christological Dimension when speaking BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION OF EUCHARIST and addressing NON-BELIEVERS: “The Kingdom of Heaven Is Within You”
What did Christ mean when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you?”
Answer:
The words of Jesus you cite, “The kingdom of God is within you,” is from Luke 17:21 and was delivered to the Pharisees. A better translation is provided in the RSV Catholic Second Edition:
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
Given that the question came from the Pharisees who largely opposed him, it’s difficult to think that Jesus meant the Pharisees had embraced the kingdom of heaven. Even his closest disciples, including the apostles, had not yet been baptized, by which they and all Christians become “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:9), i.e., in which God and the power of his kingdom dwells with us.
Given the time frame in which Jesus spoke his words, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” refers to his being the King and that he was in their midst advancing his kingdom through his teaching, including the Sermon on the Mount, and the signs and wonders that also illustrated what his kingdom would be like. So Jesus was teaching the Pharisees and others that the kingdom was available to them, within their reach, if only they became his disciples. It’s an implicit reference to their made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27), and that they thereby had the God-given ability to cooperate with God’s grace to make the kingdom of God a reality.
1846 The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners.113 The angel announced to Joseph: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”114 The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”115
1847 “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us.”116 To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”117
1848 As St. Paul affirms, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”118 But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us “righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ ourLord.”119 Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin:
Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. the Spirit of truth is the Consoler.120
1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122 Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self-exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal – so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 The sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.
1852 There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. the Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.”127
1853 Sins can be distinguished according to their objects, as can every human act; or according to the virtues they oppose, by excess or defect; or according to the commandments they violate. They can also be classed according to whether they concern God, neighbor, or oneself; they can be divided into spiritual and carnal sins, or again as sins in thought, word, deed, or omission. the root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the teaching of the Lord: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man.”128 But in the heart also resides charity, the source of the good and pure works, which sin wounds.
1854 Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. the distinction between mortal and venial sin, already evident in Scripture,129 became part of the tradition of the Church. It is corroborated by human experience.
1855 Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.
1856 Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us – that is, charity – necessitates a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation:
When the will sets itself upon something that is of its nature incompatible with the charity that orients man toward his ultimate end, then the sin is mortal by its very object . . . whether it contradicts the love of God, such as blasphemy or perjury, or the love of neighbor, such as homicide or adultery…. But when the sinner’s will is set upon something that of its nature involves a disorder, but is not opposed to the love of God and neighbor, such as thoughtless chatter or immoderate laughter and the like, such sins are venial.130
1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”131
1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.”132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.
1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. the promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.
1861 Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.
1862 One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.
1863 Venial sin weakens charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not set us in direct opposition to the will and friendship of God; it does not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace it is humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness.”134
While he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins. But do not despise these sins which we call “light”: if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession.135
1864 “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”136 There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit.137 Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.
Original Sin (Aquinas 101)
What is sin? Feeling Broken? How to Find True Happiness | Fr. Mike Schmitz | SEEK25
What’s the Difference Between Mortal and Venial Sins? (Aquinas 101)
Mortal vs Venial Sin | What’s the Difference?
Do We Really Inherit Original Sin from Adam and Eve? (Aquinas 101)
Bishop Barron on Original Sin
Why Confess Your Sins to a Priest? (Aquinas 101)
Cardinal Arinze clearly explains Mortal Sin
Mortal vs. Venial Sin
WHAT REALLY HAPPENS WHEN WE SIN – MINUTE 9’44
DIFFERENT PARTS OF SIN
LOS 3 PECADOS – EJERCICIOS ESPIRITUALES DE SAN IGNACIO DE LOYOLA
The Differences between a Catholic Bible and a Protestant Bible
Why are Catholic Bibles ‘bigger’ than Protestant Bibles? (Aquinas 101)
Defending The Deuterocanonicals | EWTN
In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformers removed a large section of the Old Testament that was not compatible with their theology. They charged that these writings were not inspired Scripture and branded them with the pejorative title “Apocrypha.”
THE BOOK OF WISEDOM FORTELLING THE JEWS’ TREASON AGAINST THE MESSIAH REMOVED FROM THE MASORETIC TEXT BY THE JEWS, WHICH IS NOW THE BASE OF THE PROTESTANT CANON
Tannaitic sources mention several passages of Scripture in which the conclusion is inevitable that the ancient reading must have differed from that of the present text. The explanation of this phenomenon is given in the expression (“Scripture has used euphemistic language,” i.e., to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropopathism). R. Simon b. Pazzi, an amora of the third century, calls these readings “emendations of the Scribes” (“tiḳḳune Soferim”; Gen. R. xlix. 7), assuming that the Scribes actually made the changes. This view was adopted by the later Midrash and by the majority of Masorites.
1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify.48 They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. the Father always hears the prayer of his Son’s Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.
1128 This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation49 that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that “the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.”50 From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.
1129 The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation.51 “Sacramental grace” is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. the Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. the fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature52 by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.
Exorcist Explains How Catholics/Non-Catholics Are Saved
Who Can Be Saved?
No salvation outside the Church
EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS
ONLY CHRIST SAVES BY MEANS OF THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST
ALL GRACE COMES THROUGH CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH
Does Salvation By Faith and Works Mean You Can Lose Your Salvation at Any Moment?
Can You Lose Your Salvation?
Many Protestants say once saved, always saved. The Bible doesn’t agree.
From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop (Sermo Caillau-Saint Yves 2, 92: PLS 2, 441-552) He who perseveres to the end will be saved Whenever we suffer some affliction, we should regard it both as a punishment and as a correction. Our holy Scriptures themselves do not promise us peace, security and rest. On the contrary, the Gospel makes no secret of the troubles and temptations that await us, but it also says that he who perseveres to the end will be saved. What good has there ever been in this life since the time when the first man received the just sentence of death and the curse from which Christ our Lord has delivered us? So we must not grumble, my brothers, for as the Apostle says: Some of them murmured and were destroyed by serpents. Is there any affliction now endured by mankind that was not endured by our fathers before us? What sufferings of ours even bear comparison with what we know of their sufferings? And yet you hear people complaining about this present day and age because things were so much better in former times. I wonder what would happen if they could be taken back to the days of their ancestors—would we not still hear them complaining? You may think past ages were good, but it is only because you are not living in them. It amazes me that you who have now been freed from the curse, who have believed in the son of God, who have been instructed in the holy Scriptures—that you can think the days of Adam were good. And your ancestors bore the curse of Adam, of that Adam to whom the words were addressed: With sweat on your brow you shall eat your bread; you shall till the earth from which you were taken, and it will yield you thorns and thistles. This is what he deserved and what he had to suffer; this is the punishment meted out to him by the just judgment of God. How then can you think that past ages were better than your own? From the time of that first Adam to the time of his descendants today, man’s lot has been labor and sweat, thorns and thistles. Have we forgotten the flood and the calamitous times of famine and war whose history has been recorded precisely in order to keep us from complaining to God on account of our own times? Just think what those past ages were like! Is there one of us who does not shudder to hear or read of them? Far from justifying complaints about our own time, they teach us how much we have to be thankful for.
A sacrament, as we learned from our catechism, is a visible sign of grace that does what it signifies. Its efficacy is bound up with its signification. Subvert the sign and you subvert its power (for efficacious natural signs, too, like the marital embrace).
The Passion of Our Lord is similar. The holy doctors teach that it would have been sufficient for Jesus to have shed a single drop of blood, for all of the sins of all of humankind to be forgiven – if he had so chosen. Yet, rather, he freely chose to endure his Passion. And why? Because of what was thereby expressed.
“To satisfy the divine justice,” St. Alphonsus Liguori writes, “it would be enough for him to have suffered any pain; but no, he wished to submit to the most galling insults and to the sharpest pains, in order to make us comprehend the malice of our sins, and the love with which his heart was inflamed for us.”
Like a sacrament, then, the Passion has an essential aspect of a sign. Our Lord freely chose that our redemption would be accomplished by this specific means, which was at the same time an expression of both the gravity of sin, and the depth of God’s love.
But to be intelligible, signs need a language and context. So, here arises an interesting question: What conditions were necessary for God to have been able to fashion a sign like this? It’s not so easy.
Follow me here. Suppose that God had wanted to apply a remedy for sin immediately after Adam and Eve had fallen. How could he have repaired things at the start, while expressing the correct truths?
Surely Adam and Eve needed to understand the gravity of sin. They looked upon eating the fruit as something slight, maybe even good (“to become like God.”). As for God’s love, they suspected, as the Devil suggested, that maybe God didn’t have their best interests at heart. What could God have done, right then, to save them, precisely through helping them understand?
He couldn’t have sent Jesus Christ just then. How would Jesus have come into existence? If through being born to Eve, this would have expressed, rather, the levity of sin. Suppose that Jesus was created de novo, a mature man, perhaps fashioned like Adam out of mud. But then why should Adam and Eve ever have believed that this third being, although like them, was God?
And how would this new being manage to die for them? If he killed himself, this would express the wrong things. But Adam and Eve didn’t seem particularly inclined to torture or kill anyone themselves. So, presumably, if Jesus were to die for their sins,
God would need to create another being de novo (this one not God), somehow representing themselves, tasked with torturing and killing him. The material, rational creation at this point – Adam and Eve, and then another pair of rational creatures, one tasked with torturing and killing the other, the other tasked with accepting it – if it expressed anything all, would teach that torture and murder are now part of Creation, and that God can be malicious.
Do you see my point? We take for granted that the Lord’s Passion, as depicted by a crucifix, signifies as it does. It’s only through something like a miracle, however, or many miracles, that it can do so. This marvel – that it signifies and that its signification is itself God’s work – has been sensed intuitively by millions of converts, who have recognized divine power already in “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
If what happens to Jesus is to express anything about us, he needs to be one of us: he needs to be born of a woman, and yet in such a way as to make a new start. If it is to express something about the gravity of sin, what happens to him has to be a clear expression of our sin.
But since to sin is to go astray, he needs to be tortured and put to death exactly because everything good and strong about us has gone astray – our best expression of administration (Rome), our best expression of the priesthood (Judaism), our best expression of popular acclaim (the festival crowd), our best expression of friendship (his disciples).
For it to express something about God’s love, he needs to be identifiable as God. He needs to be placed in a tradition that has established incommunicable signs for God, such as a name, “I am,” and incommunicable acts of God, such as forgiveness and rescue (the pascal lamb). If it is to express the ultimate form of love, it has to be a genuine giving up of his life for us. That is, he must be fully open to being put to death, while doing nothing to precipitate or recklessly cause it.
And then the whole thing needs to be presented “in the manner of a sign.” Not everything is like that. If I separate my pointer and middle finger by accident, or in the dark, I cannot signify “victory” or “peace.” If I do so as if inadvertently, although in plain sight, it is not yet a sign – someone needs to see that I am intending to convey something.
And just try getting executed as a madman by public authorities and see if you succeed in “saying anything” at all. Another miracle, then: the crucifixion occurred within the short time when the great secular power of Rome and the great spiritual power that was Israel coincided in one place. And another miracle: it was for Rome to provide the final condition and seal.
Jesus was not simply crucified but crucified publicly, “under Pontius Pilate.” In “the fullness of time,” Pilate, through his use of those three great instruments of meaning, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, as a public act made it clear to all that this death of the King of the Jews was intended as a sign.
232 Christians are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”53 Before receiving the sacrament, they respond to a three-part question when asked to confess the Father, the Son and the Spirit: “I do.” “The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity.”54
233 Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their names,55 for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy Trinity.
234 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith”.56 The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin”.57
235 This paragraph expounds briefly (I) how the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was revealed, (II) how the Church has articulated the doctrine of the faith regarding this mystery, and (III) how, by the divine missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, God the Father fulfils the “plan of his loving goodness” of creation, redemption and sanctification.
236 The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). “Theology” refers to the mystery of God’s inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and “economy” to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God’s works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.
237 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”.58 To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
II. THE REVELATION OF GOD AS TRINITY
The Father revealed by the Son
238 Many religions invoke God as “Father”. the deity is often considered the “father of gods and of men”. In Israel, God is called “Father” inasmuch as he is Creator of the world.59 Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, “his first-born son”.60 God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is “the Father of the poor”, of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection.61
239 By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood,62 which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. the language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard:63 no one is father as God is Father.
240 Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”64
241 For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; as “the image of the invisible God”; as the “radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature”.65
242 Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is &uot;consubstantial” with the Father, that is, one only God with him.66 The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed “the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father”.67
The Father and the son revealed by the spirit
243 Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of “another Paraclete” (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously “spoken through the prophets”, the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them “into all the truth”.68 The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father.
244 The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his mission in time. the Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father.69 The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus’ glorification70 reveals in its fullness the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
245 The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was confessed by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381): “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father.”71 By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as “the source and origin of the whole divinity”.72 But the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Son’s origin: “The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature. . . Yet he is not called the Spirit of the Father alone,. . . but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son.”73 The Creed of the Church from the Council of Constantinople confesses: “With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified.”74
246 The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)”. the Council of Florence in 1438 explains: “The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration… And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.”75
247 The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447,76 even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. the use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). the introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.
248 At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father’s character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he “who proceeds from the Father”, it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son.77 The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, “legitimately and with good reason”,78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as “the principle without principle”,79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.
III. THE HOLY TRINITY IN THE TEACHING OF THE FAITH
The formation of the Trinitarian dogma
249 From the beginning, the revealed truth of the Holy Trinity has been at the very root of the Church’s living faith, principally by means of Baptism. It finds its expression in the rule of baptismal faith, formulated in the preaching, catechesis and prayer of the Church. Such formulations are already found in the apostolic writings, such as this salutation taken up in the Eucharistic liturgy: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”81
250 During the first centuries the Church sought to clarify her Trinitarian faith, both to deepen her own understanding of the faith and to defend it against the errors that were deforming it. This clarification was the work of the early councils, aided by the theological work of the Church Fathers and sustained by the Christian people’s sense of the faith.
251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.82
252 The Church uses (I) the term “substance” (rendered also at times by “essence” or “nature”) to designate the divine being in its unity, (II) the term “person” or “hypostasis” to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them, and (III) the term “relation” to designate the fact that their distinction lies in the relationship of each to the others.
The dogma of the Holy Trinity
253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”.83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: “The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God.”84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.”85
254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. “God is one but not solitary.”86 “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: “He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.”87 They are 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.”88 The divine Unity is Triune.
255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: “In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance.”89 Indeed “everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship.”90 “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.”91
256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called “the Theologian”, entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople: Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendour. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me. .92
IV. THE DIVINE WORKS AND THE TRINITARIAN MISSIONS
257 “O blessed light, O Trinity and first Unity!”93 God is eternal blessedness, undying life, unfading light. God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the “plan of his loving kindness”, conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: “He destined us in love to be his sons” and “to be conformed to the image of his Son”, through “the spirit of sonship”.94 This plan is a “grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began”, stemming immediately from Trinitarian love.95 It unfolds in the work of creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church.96
258 The whole divine economy is the common work of the three divine persons. For as the Trinity has only one and the same natures so too does it have only one and the same operation: “The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of creation but one principle.”97 However, each divine person performs the common work according to his unique personal property. Thus the Church confesses, following the New Testament, “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”.98 It is above all the divine missions of the Son’s Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit that show forth the properties of the divine persons.
259 Being a work at once common and personal, the whole divine economy makes known both what is proper to the divine persons, and their one divine nature. Hence the whole Christian life is a communion with each of the divine persons, without in any way separating them. 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.99
260 The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.100 But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: “If a man loves me”, says the Lord, “he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him”:101
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.102
IN BRIEF
261 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
262 The Incarnation of God’s Son reveals that God is the eternal Father and that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father the Son is one and the same God.
263 The mission of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in the name of the Son (⇒ Jn 14:26) and by the Son “from the Father” (⇒ Jn 15:26), reveals that, with them, the Spirit is one and the same God. “With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified” (Nicene Creed).
264 “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son” (St. Augustine, De Trin. 15, 26, 47: PL 42, 1095).
265 By the grace of Baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity, here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and after death in eternal light (cf. Paul VI, CPG # 9).
266 “Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son’s is another, the Holy Spirit’s another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal” (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16).
267 Inseparable in what they are, the divine persons are also inseparable in what they do. But within the single divine operation each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, especially in the divine missions of the Son’s Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Understanding the Holy Spirit – BISHOP BARRON
In Defense of the Trinity: A dialogue on the errors of Jehovah’s Witnesses regarding this historic Christian teaching
El Misterio de la TRINIDAD ¿TRES DIOSES? | Lo que muchos no se atreven a decir. TEOLOGÍA PARA LAICOS
A Divine Act of the Trinity at play with each other, recreating with each other.
IN MARY THE HOLY TRINITY WERE OPERATING FULLY AND MARY WAS COOPERATING
MINUTE 1H03′
PROPER TRANSLATION OF PHILIPPIANS 2
EXPLANATION OF PHILIPPIANS 2
TRIPARTITION UNION
FATHER IN THE WILL
SON IN THE INTELLECT
SPIRIT IN THE MEMORY
DEFINITION OF A “PERSON”
In Catholic theology, a person is fundamentally an individual substance of a rational nature, defined by intelligence, will, distinctiveness, and self-subsistence (incommunicability), meaning they are complete in themselves but called to communion with others. This definition applies analogously to God (the Trinity), angels, and humans, but for humans, personhood also involves being a body-soul composite, uniquely reflecting God’s image through intellect and love in relationship, and possessing inherent dignity from conception.
Core Characteristics
Individual Substance: A complete, self-existing entity, not a part of something else.
Rational Nature: Possesses intellect and will, enabling knowledge and love, distinguishing persons from animals or inanimate objects.
Incommunicability: Each person is unique and distinct, unable to be completely merged into another.
Openness to Others: While distinct, persons are made for communion, not isolation, finding fulfillment in relationships, especially with God.
Types of Persons in Theology
God: The Holy Trinity is three distinct Persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) in one divine nature.
Angels: Purely spiritual, intellectual beings, existing as individual persons.
Humans: A unique composite of a rational soul and a body, made in God’s image, with inherent dignity from the first moment of existence.
Key Distinctions for Humans
Body-Soul Union: Humans are not just spirits but are embodied, allowing for unique forms of thought, love, and procreation.
Capacity for Change: Unlike angels, human persons have the capacity for growth, development, and change through their embodied lives.
Dignity: Every living human individual, regardless of developmental stage or capability, is a person with intrinsic worth and rights, reflecting God’s image.
Person
According to the generally accepted definition of Boethius, a person is an individual substance of a rational or intellectual nature. The notion of person is subject to analogical differences depending on whether the term is referring to human, angelic, or divine persons.
PERSON
“An individual substance of a rational nature” (Boethius). Therefore every individual intellectual substance which is complete in itself, uncommunicated and existing for itself, is a person. Essential to person in theological terms are intelligence and substantiality, wholeness in oneself and especially individuality. From individuality flow such features of personhood as distinctiveness, incommunicability, and uniqueness. Among human persons there are also the elements of responsibility and possession of distinctive rights. (Etym. Latin persona, actor’s mask; character; supposition of a rational nature.)
The Latin word persona was originally used to denote the mask worn by an actor. From this it was applied to the role he assumed, and, finally, to any character on the stage of life, to any individual. This article discusses (1) the definition of “person”, especially with reference to the doctrine of the Incarnation; and (2) the use of the word persona and its Greek equivalents in connection with the Trinitarian disputes. For the psychological treatment see PERSONALITY.
Definition
The classic definition is that given by Boethius in “De persona et duabus naturis”, c. ii: Naturæ rationalis individua substantia (an individual substance of a rational nature).
Substantia — “Substance” is used to exclude accidents: “We see that accidents cannot constitute person” (Boethius, op. cit.). Substantia is used in two senses: of the concrete substance as existing in the individual, called substantia prima, corresponding to Aristotle’s ousia prote; and of abstractions, substance as existing in genus and species, called substantia secunda, Aristotle’s ousia deutera. It is disputed which of the two the word taken by itself here signifies. It seems probable that of itself it prescinds from substantia prima and substantia secunda, and is restricted to the former signification only by the word individua.
Individua — Individua, i.e., indivisum in se, is that which, unlike the higher branches in the tree of Porphyry, genus and species, cannot be further subdivided. Boethius in giving his definition does not seem to attach any further signification to the word. It is merely synonymous with singularis.
Rationalis naturae — Person is predicated only of intellectual beings. The generic word which includes all individual existing substances is suppositum. Thus person is a subdivision of suppositum which is applied equally to rational and irrational, living and non-living individuals. A person is therefore sometimes defined as suppositum naturae rationalis.
The definition of Boethius as it stands can hardly be considered a satisfactory one. The words taken literally can be applied to the rational soul of man, and also the human nature of Christ. That St. Thomas accepts it is presumably due to the fact that he found it in possession, and recognized as the traditional definition. He explains it in terms that practically constitute a new definition. Individua substantia signifies, he says, substantia, completa, per se subsistens, separata ab aliia, i.e., a substance, complete, subsisting per se, existing apart from others (III, Q. xvi, a. 12, ad 2um).
If to this be added rationalis naturae, we have a definition comprising the five notes that go to make up a person: (a) substantia– this excludes accident; (b) completa– it must form a complete nature; that which is a part, either actually or “aptitudinally” does not satisfy the definition; (c) per se subsistens–the person exists in himself and for himself; he is sui juris, the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts, the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes; that which exists in another is not a person; (d) separata ab aliis–this excludes the universal, substantia secunda, which has no existence apart from the individual; (e) rationalis naturae–excludes all non-intellectual supposita.
To a person therefore belongs a threefold incommunicability, expressed in notes (b), (c), and (d). The human soul belongs to the nature as a part of it, and is therefore not a person, even when existing separately. The human nature of Christ does not exist per se seorsum, but in alio, in the Divine Personality of the Word. It is therefore communicated by assumption and so is not a person. Lastly the Divine Essence, though subsisting per se, is so communicated to the Three Persons that it does not exist apart from them; it is therefore not a person.
Theologians agree that in the Hypostatic Union the immediate reason why the Sacred Humanity, though complete and individual, is not a person is that it is not a subsistence, not per se seorsum subsistens. They have, however, disputed for centuries as to what may be the ultimate determination of the nature which if present would make it a subsistence and so a person, what in other words is the ultimate foundation of personality. According to Scotus, as he is usually understood, the ultimate foundation is a mere negation. That individual intellectual nature is a person which is neither of its nature destined to be communicated–as is the human soul–nor is actually communicated–as is the Sacred Humanity. If the Hypostatic Union ceased, the latter would ipso facto, without any further determination, become a person. To this it is objected that the person possesses the nature and all its attributes. It is difficult to believe that this possessor, as distinct from the objects possessed, is constituted only by a negative. Consequently, the traditional Thomists, following Cajetan, hold that there is a positive determination which they call the “mode” of subsistence. It is the function of this mode to make the nature incommunicable, terminated in itself, and capable of receiving its own esse, or existence. Without this mode the human nature of Christ exists only by the uncreated esse of the Word.
The Trinity and Baptism: Why it Matters What You Say (Aquinas 101)
Understanding The Trinity? – Explaining the Faith
God the Father: The Old Testament – Explaining the Faith
Understanding Jesus In a New Way – Explaining the Faith
MUST SEE: Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi: How the Holy Trinity Operated in Adam and Eve before Original Sin?
God is Love so He is a Triune God, One God in Three Persons, and We have a whole Divine Family waiting for us in Heaven in which we can be grafted in and united to already, even right here on Earth!!!
Rediscovering the nature, the essence, the very definition of what and who God is, is absolutely amazing!!! Understanding that God is a Holy Trinity, Three Persons in one God, one and only God, one only Divinity, one Essence in Three Persons: God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit.
To define God, we have to go back to 1st John chapter 4 verse 8: “God is love”.
But how do you define love when God is infinte and we humans as so limited to grasp the deep things of God?
Well, how would you define a table to an extraterrestrial being from another system? A text with a definition might do. A picture even better… How about cooking? We would need to show a person with some food doing some action of cutting, mixing, pouring, heating, stiring… We do agree that showing a picture of a person with a tomato in the hand would not do. We would also need to show the action of actually cutting or peeling or manipulating the tomato to convey the concept of cooking. It therefore must have 3 components: a person, some food, and the action of cooking…
Well love is also an action, love is a action verb. Not just a feeling as movies would have us believe. It is a verb. To define love, we first need a lover, a person who loves, who generates love, who gives love, and that person is God the Father.
We also need a recipient, a beloved, another person who receives love, that person is God The Son.
And because love is an action, it is an action verb, we need something to be done between them two, an action, a verb, love is embracing, giving, forgiving, gifting, protecting, caring, kissing, taking care of, feeding, providing, sacrificing, listening to, watching over, looking after, waiting, stroking, hugging, cuddling, covering, sheltering… it’s a verb and this verb is so powerful that it takes on its own identity with a will and an intellect, and as a rational individuality this person is God the Holy Spirit who is Charity, who is Love in action Itself. SEE SECTION ON “THE HOLY TRINITY”.
In the account of the Creation in Genesis 1:27 The Holy Trinity appears for the first time as God speaks in the first personal subject pronoun of the plural form, “Let us make man in Our Image”. Who was God speaking to in such a plural form? The Three Persons cooperated as One Concert of Love in This Divine Work of Creation.
This Triad, this Trio, those Three Persons, from the very same and unique Divine nature and essence, live as One God. They are co-eternal, they always existed, not one came before another as God lives outside of time, He created time for humans but He Himself is not subjected to time. They are co-equal and consubstantial of the same substance, the same Essence, the same God, one Divinity in three persons. They share the same Divine Nature or Essence. They are distinct persons, yet possess one inseparable, undivided Divine Substance.
To exemplify what God is in our little human minds and brains that are too limited to understand what the Holy Trinity is, God has tried to explain to us who He is using concepts that the human mind can grasp yet The Most Holy Trinity still remains a Mystery as God is infinite and cannot be contained nor understood by a limited mind.
The Holy Spirit has given us to understand that in the Holy Baptism we received the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. Each one gifted by a Person of the Holy Trinity. Faith from The Father. Hope from the Son. Charity from the Holy Spirit.
In the Confiteor prayer, when we confess our sins we pray the following: “I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do”, the thoughts being related to The Father, the words because God The Son is the Verb, The Word, The Logos, and in works relating to God The Holy Spirit in action in our lives that we offend by our wrongdoings or by our omissions of good actions or lack of action when we fail to act upon His promptings.
Also, The Holy Trinity acts in our lives through the three sacraments of Christian Initiation. The first Sacrament of Baptism makes us Sons of God of God the Father by adoption within the Son. Through the Sacrament of the Holy Communion we receive God The Son in the Holy Eucharist. In the Sacrament of the Confirmation we receive a personal downpour of God’s Holy Spirit.
The Triune God is LOVE; God The Father is the Source of Love, God The Son is the Incarnate Love and God The Holy Spirit is the Love being Poured out upon us.
God the Father is connected directly to our will and therefore we need to conform our will to the Will of God. As the Holy Mother of God The Son, the Will of God must become our own will, “Fiat Mihi Segundun Verbum Tuum” said the Virgin Mary to the Arcangel Gabriel relating to Her the Message of God. “Fiat Voluntas Tua” said Jesus Himself to His Father when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Our will must come to be what God The Father wills, our intellect relates to God The Son and all memory to God The Holy Spirit. These are the 3 highest faculties of our Human Soul, perfectly compatible and formatted to be configured according to God in His Three Persons.
NOTE: Father Iannuzzi explains that “God the Father was operating in Adam and Eve’s wills and He was also sustaining their heart beats, the center of the human being’s body. God The Son was operating in the intellect of Adam and Eve continuously through infused knowledge and He was also sustaining and maintaining their life blood, the same life blood that He would shed in atonement for their sin. The Holy Spirit was operating in the memory of Adam and Eve as well as in their breath, their exhalation and inhalation. The “Ruach”, the wind, the “breath of God”, “Ruach Yahve”, entered the nostril of Adam to give him divine life. The Spirit was breathing in and out of Adam’s lung with divine breath and divine life force and in the memory too. WATCH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw28h1CQwkA&t=
The Holy Trinity therefore consists of a Divine Family to which we are all called and predestined to belong to. God called all of us, every single human being, to become part of his Divine Family. Not all humans will respond to the call as every human has free will but all of us were called to be Sons and Daughters of God to enter into the Divine Family and to be adopted as Sons and Daughters of God.
ILLUSTRATION: The same as the human hand has five fingers, when we are created we are called to be part of a family with persons who take care of us whatever the circumstances that we may have on Earth.
– As the middle finger God The Father is the Central Person,
– God Our Father, as the middle finger of our hand has God the Son “at his right hand”, the index represents God The Son who points out to The Father: he came to the Earth to teach us about The Father. to show us The Father, to take us back to The Father and to bring us back to The Father. Jesus Christ is the index,
– God the Holy Spirit could be symbolized by what we interestingly call in English “the ring finger”; it is the finger where we put the ring of a married person. It is appropriate as God the Holy Spirit is the very person who literally married or espoused the Holy Virgin Mary to put the seed of God into her womb so that God the Son would be born as God Incarnate, as a human being and we, humans, are also called to receive God the Holy Spirit into our souls as it cleanses our entire being at our Baptism. We also receive Him contained in the Holy Communion and we receive Him personally too in the Holy Sacrament of the Confirmation.
– Therefore right next to the ring finger is the little finger: it is shorter than the others but it is still the closest to the Holy Trinity and that is Our Mother the Holy Virgin Mary, who is the closest being next to the Holy Trinity, above all angels, being Herself Queen of Angels. The little finger is actually right next to the ring finger because God the Holy Spirit is Her Spouse: The Holy Virgin Mary was literally impregnated by the Holy Spirit who put the seed of God into Mary’s womb to beget the Son of God Incarnate, God The Son in flesh, The Incarnate Word of God Jesus Christ and so Mother, The Holy Mother of God the Virgin Mary, is that fourth finger that is shorter than the other three, but the closest to them.
– And finally we have a fifth finger which is the thumb. The thumb seems to be separate from the others, it doesn’t even reach the height of the others, it is very mobile and that finger represents our Guardian Angel: it is of the Heavenly Realm. It is not human, it’s part of the hand because it does work and acts in presence of God the Holy Trinity but it is very mobile because it actually accompanies us here below on Earth since our conception all the way throughout our lives until our personal judgment. He is with us every single day of our lives. The thumb shows us the way. murmurs into our ears what we should or should not do, constantly reminds us of the right path and guides us. And therefore we pray: “Angel of God, my guardian dear, To whom God’s love commits me here, Ever this day (or night) be at my side, To light, to guard, to rule, and guide. From sinful stain O keep me free, And at death’s hour, my helper be. Amen”. He will try to put us on the right path to bring us back to the Holy Trinity, to show us the way to go home: that is our Guardian Angel.
Therefore every single one of us, every single human being, we actually live right in the palm of God’s hand, in the palm of a Divine Family watching over us, in the middle of a Heavenly cradle. This is when God closes His Hand and we are safe under the protection of God the Father, God The Son, God the Holy Spirit, with also The Holy Virgin Mary, Our Lady Terror of Demons, Virgen Potens, Most Powerful Virgin and with the constant care of our Guardian Angel, whoever we are, whatever our circumstances here on Earth, social background, with a human family or without a human family. We are never alone, we have a family!!!!
We have God The Father God The Son God The Holy Spirit and Mother Mary and our Guardian Angel. every single one of us!!! We have a family and we are all taken care of!!!!
The Athanasian Creed (Quicunque vult) is a statement of Christian doctrine traditionally ascribed to Saint Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, who lived in the 4th century. It was designed to overcome Arianism.
“Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all, keep the Catholic faith. For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever. And the Catholic faith is this: we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divinity, equal glory, and coeternal majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Spirit is. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is boundless, the Son is boundless, and the Holy Spirit is boundless. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Holy Spirit is eternal. Nevertheless, there are not three eternal beings, but one eternal being. So there are not three uncreated beings, nor three boundless beings, but one uncreated being and one boundless being. Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. Yet there are not three omnipotent beings, but one omnipotent being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. However, there are not three gods, but one God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. However, there are not three lords, but one Lord. For as we are obliged by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person singly to be God and Lord, so too are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords. The Father was not made, nor created, nor generated by anyone. The Son is not made, nor created, but begotten by the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is not made, nor created, nor generated, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. There is, then, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits. In this Trinity, there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less. The entire three Persons are coeternal and coequal with one another. So that in all things, as is has been said above, the Unity is to be worshiped in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity. He, therefore, who wishes to be saved, must believe thus about the Trinity. It is also necessary for eternal salvation that he believes steadfastly in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. As God, He was begotten of the substance of the Father before time; as man, He was born in time of the substance of His Mother. He is perfect God; and He is perfect man, with a rational soul and human flesh. He is equal to the Father in His divinity, but inferior to the Father in His humanity. Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ. And He is one, not because His divinity was changed into flesh, but because His humanity was assumed unto God. He is one, not by a mingling of substances, but by unity of person. As a rational soul and flesh are one man: so God and man are one Christ. He died for our salvation, descended into Hell, and rose from the dead on the third day. He ascended into Heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. At His coming, all men are to arise with their own bodies; and they are to give an account of their own deeds. Those who have done good deeds will go into eternal life; those who have done evil will go into the everlasting fire. This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved. Amen. “
THE DEVIL PUNISHED WITH A SPLIT PERSONALITY OPPOSING THE HOLY TRINITY:
Satan, Beelzebub and Lucifer: same demon with a split personality – Watch Minute 3h02mn
Satan the Father of lie – The inversion of the Father
1023 Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they “see him as he is,” face to face:596
By virtue of our apostolic authority, we define the following: According to the general disposition of God, the souls of all the saints . . . and other faithful who died after receiving Christ’s holy Baptism (provided they were not in need of purification when they died, . . . or, if they then did need or will need some purification, when they have been purified after death, . . .) already before they take up their bodies again and before the general judgment – and this since the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into heaven – have been, are and will be in heaven, in the heavenly Kingdom and celestial paradise with Christ, joined to the company of the holy angels. Since the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, these souls have seen and do see the divine essence with an intuitive vision, and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature.597
1024 This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity – this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed – is called “heaven.” Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.
1025 To live in heaven is “to be with Christ.” the elect live “in Christ,”598 but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name.599
For life is to be with Christ; where Christ is, there is life, there is the kingdom.600
1026 By his death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ has “opened” heaven to us. the life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ.
1027 This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the kingdom, the Father’s house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”601
1028 Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man’s immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. the Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory “the beatific vision”:
How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God, . . . to delight in the joy of immortality in the Kingdom of heaven with the righteous and God’s friends.602
1029 In the glory of heaven the blessed continue joyfully to fulfill God’s will in relation to other men and to all creation. Already they reign with Christ; with him “they shall reign for ever and ever.”603
Levels of Heaven & Hell: What are They? – Explaining the Faith with Fr. Chris Alar
1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.590 The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. the parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul -a destiny which can be different for some and for others.591
1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification592 or immediately,593-or immediate and everlasting damnation.594
At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.595
Consciousness after Death Established | Catholic Answers Podcasts
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,”613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”614
1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”616
Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.”617
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;618 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:619
Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.620
Levels of Heaven & Hell: What are They?
– Explaining the Faith with Fr. Chris Alar
Father Steven Scheier’s Judgment Experience
Father Steven Scheier judgment experience SECOND interview with Mother Angelica
Hell: Man Shot & Saw Hell – Shocking Must-See Video
EL INFIERNO: LXIV. El Infierno de los condenados y Cristo
631 Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens.”475 The Apostles’ Creed confesses in the same article Christ’s descent into hell and his Resurrection from the dead on the third day, because in his Passover it was precisely out of the depths of death that he made life spring forth: Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.476
Paragraph 2. ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD
632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.477 This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.478
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.479 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:480 “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”481 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.482
634 “The gospel was preached even to the dead.”483 The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”484 Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.”485 Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”486
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. the earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”487
IN BRIEF
636 By the expression “He descended into hell”, the Apostles’ Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil “who has the power of death” (Heb 2:14).
637 In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.
WHY IS HELL ETERNAL?
This scary glimpse of Hell should make you think long and hard about joining Satan
The absolute loneliness and lack of God in hell
Upon the Four Principal Gates of Hell
– St. Alphonsus Liguori
Most people in hell believed Hell did not exist
VISIONS OF HELL BY JOSEPHA MENENDEZ
Catholic priest explains why hell is a grace (for the fallen angels)
HELL IS THE LONELIEST PLACE
THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP IN HELL
Is Hell Empty? | Msgr. Stephen Rossetti
The Existence of Hell: Revealed by Our Good Lord
Knowing Up From Down Heaven & Hell
A Letter from Hell
Lo que dice la Iglesia con comentarios de San Josemaría
El cielo, la muerte, el purgatorio. ¿Qué son los Novísimos?
Hell: Faustina Kowalska: “I have seen hell, I will tell you what happens, I beg you, please listen to me!”
“If you lived an evil life, there is often a manifestation of evil (at the moment of your death).”
Catholic priest explains: Fun people seem to go to Hell & Preservation of youth among celebrities
Is Judas in Hell?
Demons obey Christ in exorcism sessions
ABSOLUTE MUST SEE VIDEO TESTIMONY OF PRIEST
When Jesus sentenced this priest to hell for eternity
St Gemma meditating on Hell and her sins
SANTA ESCRITURA DE LA BIBLIA SOBRE La ira del Señor
Lecturas
Primera Lectura Eclo 5, 1-8.
No tardes en convertirte al Señor.
Lectura del libro del Eclesiástico. NO confíes en tus riquezas, ni digas: «Con esto me basta». No sigas tu instinto y tu fuerza, secundando las pasiones de tu corazón. Y no digas: «Quién puede dominarme?», o bien: «Quién logrará someterme por lo que he hecho?», porque el Señor ciertamente te castigará. No digas: «He pecado, y ¿qué me ha pasado?», porque el Señor sabe esperar. Del perdón no te sientas tan seguro, mientras acumulas pecado tras pecado. Y no digas: «Es grande su compasión, me perdonará mis muchos pecados», porque él tiene compasión y cólera, y su ira recae sobre los malvados. No tardes en convertirte al Señor, ni lo dejes de un día para otro, porque de repente la ira del Señor se enciende, y el día del castigo perecerás. No confíes en riquezas injustas, porque de nada te servirán el día de la desgracia.
Palabra de Dios.
Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi: Saving souls from Hell
HE DIED AND MET GOD, AND HE WASN’T READY.
The incredible near-death experience of Fr. Rick Wendell.
¿Cómo librarse del infierno??
-Libro de Tobías – Te Explico la Biblia Episodio – 6
No priest goes to hell or to heaven alone…
He always takes others with him – Don Bosco
Hell is torture and solitary confinement deprived of God
Catholic priest explains: Majority in Hell now are there because they didn’t believe there’s Hell.
Psaumes 63: 10,11: Mais eux cherchent à m’ôter la vie: ils iront dans les profondeurs de la terre. On les livrera au glaive, ils seront la proie des chacals.
SALMS 63:10,11: But those who seek my life will come to ruin;
they shall go down to the depths of the netherworld!
Those who would hand over my life to the sword shall
“The Solemnity of All Saints is celebrated on November 1. It is a solemnity, a holyday of obligation and the day that the Church honors all of God’s saints, even those who have not been canonized by the Church. It is a family day of celebration—we celebrate the memory of those family members (sharing with us in the Mystical Body, the doctrine of the Communion of Saints) now sharing eternal happiness in the presence of God. We rejoice that they have reached their eternal goal and ask their prayers on our behalf so that we, too, may join them in heaven and praise God through all eternity. The honoring of all Christian martyrs of the Faith was originally celebrated on May 13, the date established by the fourth century. Pope Boniface IV in 615 established it as the “Feast of All Martyrs” commemorating the dedication of the Pantheon, an ancient Roman temple, into a Christian church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. By 741, the feast included not only martyrs, but all the saints in heaven as well, with the title changing to “Feast of All Saints” by 840. In 844, Pope Gregory IV transferred the feast to November 1st, timing it around the harvests to be able to provide food for the pilgrims. Some scholars believe this was to substitute a feast for the pagan celebrations during that time of year. Pope Sixtus IV in 1484 established November 1 as a holyday of obligation and gave it both a vigil (known today as “All Hallows’ Eve” or “Hallowe’en”) and an eight-day period or octave to celebrate the feast. This feast is marked with liturgical observances that have changed over the centuries. By 1955, the octave and vigil of All Saints were abrogated. Instead of a separate vigil on the calendar, the celebration begins the evening before, as mentioned in The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar“”
ABSOLUTE MUST SEE: JESUS BILOCATED TO BECOME INCARNATE IN MARY’S WOMB – Minute 5’44
MUST SEE: HUMAN, DIVINE AND ETERNAL STATES
En la Iglesia ha vuelto el espíritu de Arrio
El Concilio de Nicea de 325 condenó el arrianismo, que consideraba que Jesús era una criatura y, por tanto, no tenía la misma naturaleza que el Padre. La Iglesia, en cambio, enseña que la única Persona divina asumió una naturaleza humana además de la divina. En la década de 1990, el cardenal Joseph Ratzinger identificó una especie de retorno al arrianismo, hasta el punto de describirlo como un verdadero desafío para el cristianismo actual.
Jesus always had knowledge of His Divinity even before His baptism
JESUS WAS NOT AN ANGEL / JESUS NO ERA UN ANGEL
Heb 1, 1-6. EN muchas ocasiones y de muchas maneras habló Dios antiguamente a los padres por los profetas. En esta etapa final, nos ha hablado por el Hijo, al que ha nombrado heredero de todo, y por medio del cual ha realizado los siglos. Él es reflejo de su gloria, impronta de su ser. Él sostiene el universo con su palabra poderosa. Y, habiendo realizado la purificación de los pecados, está sentado a la derecha de la Majestad en las alturas; tanto más encumbrado sobre los ángeles cuanto más sublime es el nombre que ha heredado. Pues ¿a qué ángel dijo jamás: «Hijo mío eres tú, yo te he engendrado hoy»; y en otro lugar: «Yo seré para él un padre, y él será para mí un hijo?». Asimismo, cuando introduce en el mundo al primogénito, dice: «Adórenlo todos los ángeles de Dios».
