Muhammad listening to the Archangel Gabriel

20.1   TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE MYSTERY OF THE HOLY TRINITY

We can easily appreciate that 'love' is that spirit which flows from one person to another, acting to draw them into a unity of shared being and experience, such as occurs in the unity of conjugal marriage. "And the two shall be one." (Matthew 19:4-6) This helps us to understand, that, if it be true that the One God is indeed 'Love', (See Article 6 - God is Love) then the great mystery of the One Divine Life Which is God, must indeed be the shared being of more than one 'person', just as God said in the Scriptures, "Let Us make man in Our image." (Genesis 1:26)
(He made man in His own image to enable man to enter into, and to share in, the Life of His own Divine Eternity.)

Jesus taught the Divinity to be an intimate shared Unity of Three Divine Persons in a relationship defined by their roles as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:18,19)

The Eternal 'Source' of the Divine Essence (John 5:26) is defined as Father because it is the Father's 'eternal act of knowing Himself' which involves an eternal issuing within His Eternal Essence of a total Living Image of Himself which matches Him in every way, except being the Father-Source (John 14:7,9; 16:15; 17:10) but which, instead, is 'Son', because He is the 'eternally generated' Living Image of the Father. (John 5:18)

And just as the Father-Source beholds and knows Himself in His Son-Image, so the Son knows Himself to be the living image of His Father, (John 10:15) such that "everything the Father does, He does too," (John 5:19,30) his life being integral with that of His Father. The two are one. They constitute the One Being, just as Christ said, "The Father and I are One. Who sees Me, sees the Father, and henceforth you have seen Him." "No-one knows the Son, but the Father; neither does anyone know the Father but the Son." (John 10:30; 14:9 & Matthew 11:27) The two are absolutely separate in their Personages, but integral in the essence and operation of their Being. (John 8:19; 10:30) One simply does not exist without the other. And as St Paul said, "There is but one God, the Father, OF Whom are all things,... and one Lord, Jesus Christ, BY Whom are all things." (John 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6 & Article 12 - "The Word of God")

Mirrored in each other, (John 14:11; 17:21; 10:38) the union of their Divine Hearts excites a great mystery of rapturous love which issues, the same, from both hearts, as one. This is the Uni-Spirit of the Divine Essence of both Father and Son. The Son issues from the Father, but the Spirit issues the same from both the Father and the Son. (John 15:26; 20:19-22 & Catechism of the Catholic Church: 246, 253) This is the great mystery of the Holy Spirit; Third Person of the Tri-une God Who is One God, One Spirit, Three Persons. "And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word (Christ) and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one." (1 John 5:7)

It was by the power of the Holy Spirit (the Uni-Spirit of both the Father and the Son) that the Son was incarnated in the womb of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:35) and it is by God's out-pouring of His Holy Spirit upon mankind (Joel 2:28,29; Acts 2:1-41) that men are enabled to become one Spirit with Him (as sons) and to enter into the eternal Life and Being of the Tri-une Divinity. (1 Corinthians 6:17)

Imperfect as this attempt is, to describe something of the Great Mystery of the Holy Tri-unity, I can but hope that it nevertheless gives some 'sense' of Its reality, and the indescribable nature of the awesome wonder of Its Being.

Awesome God. Awesome wonder. Awesome reality!

(See also: Article 19)


20.2 THE INCARNATED SON OF THE FATHER IS THE MESSIAH

...Who could say of Himself, "Before ever Abraham came to be, I Am." (John 8:58) "Who sees Me, sees the Father, and henceforth you have seen Him." (John 14:7 and see Article 27.2) And, "Father, give Me again the glory I had with You before ever the world was." (John 17:5)

"His state was divine,
yet He did not cling
to His equality with God, (the Father)
but emptied Himself
to assume the condition of a slave,
and became as men are;
and being as all men are,
He was humbler yet,
even to accepting death,
death on a cross.

But God (the Father) raised Him high
and gave Him the Name
which is above all other names (...no more than an Apostle...!!!???)
so that all beings
in the heavens, on the earth and in the underworld,
should bend the knee at the Name of Jesus (Isaiah 45:24)
and that every tongue should acclaim
Jesus Christ as Lord,
to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:6-11 by St Paul)


20.3 THE MESSIAH SPEAKS TO THE SAMARITAN WOMAN

"Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know, but we worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour will come – which is now here, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeks such to adore Him. God is a Spirit; and those that adore Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

The woman said to Him: "I know that the Messiah is to come, the Christ, and when He comes He will tell us everything." And Jesus said to her: "I am He, who is speaking to you." (John 4:21 - 26)

Later, many more of her own people said to her, "We now believe; not because of anything you have said. We have heard Him ourselves and know He is indeed the Saviour of the world." (John 4:42)


20.4 CHRIST IS THE IMAGE OF THE FATHER

(by St Paul in his letters to the Colossians & to Timothy)

"Christ is the image of the invisible God and the first-born of all creation,
for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created;
everything visible and everything invisible,
whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers:
all things were created by him and for him.
Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity."

(Colossians 1:15-17. See also John 8:58)

"Now, he is the head of his body, the church.
He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead.
He holds the primacy in all things, because it has pleased the Father
that in him all the fullness of the Godhead
(Colossians 2:9) should dwell;
that through him all things might be reconciled unto himself by his
making of peace through the shedding of his blood on the cross,
both as to the things that are on earth, and to the things that are in heaven."

(Colossians 1:18-20)

"In him dwells the fullness of the Godhead, bodily."
(Colossians 2:9)

" Christ, who in due time will be revealed by God,
the blessed and only ruler of all,
the King of kings, and the Lord of lords,
Who alone is immortal,
Whose home is in inaccessible light,
Whom no man has seen, and no man is able to see:
to Him be honour and everlasting power. Amen."
(1 Timothy 6:15-16 & see Article 11 and Article 12)