There is no Obedience in the Trinity

This past Sunday, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. We consider the incomprehensible Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity – three Persons in one God and one God in three Persons. Each wholly and entirely God, and yet not three Gods, but one God, one divine nature, one divine essence.

Reflecting upon the unity of the three divine Persons, we will quickly see that there is no obedience within the Trinity. The Son is not obedient to the Father, neither is the Holy Spirit obedient to the Father and the Son, but these three are bound in a perfect mutual enjoyment and love – “And the more love is one, the more it is love.” (St John of the Cross, Romances on “In the Beginning was the Word”)

St. Gregory of Nazianzus has proposed this dogma for our belief: “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. . .” (Oratio 40,41; CCC 256)

The Feast of the Most Holy Trinity and the "War-Song of Faith": The Athanasian Creed

"The Father is God, The Son is God, The Holy Spirit is God;
God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit;
The Father is not the Son, The Son is not the Father,
The Father is not the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit is not the Father,
The Son is not the Holy Spirit, The Holy Spirit is not the Son"

It is a psalm or hymn of praise, of confession, and of profound, self-prostrating homage, parallel to the canticles of the elect in the Apocalypse. It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the intellect. It is the war-song of faith […] For myself, I have ever felt it as the most simple and sublime, the most devotional formulary to which Christianity has given birth.

So did Blessed John Henry Newman describe the Athanasian Creed which, in the Roman Church, holds a special place on Trinity Sunday. This Creed of St. Athanasius, once recited by the priests of the Latin Church on each Sunday (or, more recently, at least on Trinity Sunday), while being one of the most forceful, succinct and beautiful expressions of our faith in the Trinity and in the Incarnation, has sadly fallen from the consciousness of nearly all the lay faithful and even of the vast majority of the clergy in the years since Vatican II. In these post-Conciliar times, do we not need a “war-song of faith” to call the faithful to the standard of Christ?

In honor of the Most Holy Trinity, we reproduce the Athanasian Creed below, together with a simply commentary on the text.

O Most Holy Trinity! Undivided Unity! Holy God, Mighty God, God Immortal be adored!

If the Holy Sacrifice is of infinite value, why doesn't one Mass empty purgatory?

November 2^nd, All Souls’ Day

There need be no defense of the obvious truth that the Holy Mass is of infinite value. Considering who is offered and who makes the offering, there can be no doubt that the Holy Sacrifice is enough not merely to redeem this world, but a thousand and ten thousand more worlds. Indeed, even then, the value of the Mass would not in the least be exhausted.

Thus, given that the Mass is enough to redeem ten thousand worlds and more, one may rightly ask why it is that a single Mass offered on All Souls’ Day for all the Faithful Departed does not suffice to empty out purgatory. Why is it that we must continually have Masses offered for the poor souls in purgatory?

What the man without a wedding garment was lacking, A reflection on the day of judgment

28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 22:1-14

My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?

The Savior invites all people to the wedding feast of the Lamb, the eternal banquet of heaven. Yet, though salvation is offered to each, yet only few accept the gift and come to the wedding. However, what is most striking about this Sunday’s parable isn’t only that many who are called refuse to be saved, but that even this one who had come was cast out into the darkness.

What is the symbolic meaning of the wedding garment which the man lacked? What is our Savior teaching us about the judgment?

Will I really go to hell for just one mortal sin?

The Serpent said, "No, you shall not die the death" (cf. Gen 3:4)

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ezekiel 18:25-28

When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die.

 “Do you really think that God is going to send me to hell just because I skipped Mass one Sunday?! I mean, I was on vacation!”

To this, we must respond, “If you die without true repentance, you will surely go to hell.”

Speaking to the prophet Ezekiel, Our Lord makes clear that one mortal sin causes not only the loss of the state of grace, but also the loss of all previous merit. For, by a single mortal sin, by which a just man turneth himself away from his justice and comitteth iniquity, all the good he has done will be set aside and forgotten, and he will not live but he shall die eternally.

Without sanctifying grace habitually present in the soul, no man can possibly be saved. The question of a man’s eternal destiny comes down to this: If he should die in the state of grace, with the divine life present in his soul, he will live eternally in heaven. If he should die in mortal sin, without the divine life present in his soul through grace, he will die eternally in hell.

Let us consider why all the good deeds of a lifetime are not enough to save a man who dies in the state of mortal sin.

If the just man turn himself away from his justice and do iniquity … all his justices which he hath done shall not be remembered. (Ezekiel 18:24)

The Cross as Perpetually United to Our Savior

September 14^th, Exaltation of the Holy Cross

We adore your Cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify your holy resurrection: Behold by the wood joy has come into the whole world. (Antiphon from Morning Prayer)

The Catholic Faithful pay a special honor and veneration to the Holy Cross of our Lord. Indeed, we even speak to the Cross as though to Christ Jesus himself as we sing, Ave Crux, Spes unica! “Hail O Cross, our only Hope!”

The True Cross of our Lord, whose feast we celebrate this Sunday, is given such honor, love, and adoration by the Church on account of the marvelous union it shared with our Savior. Let us consider how the Cross was united to the Lord by comparing this union to the Hypostatic Union of Humanity and Divinity in Christ.

MYTH: A ship could be build from the "relics" of the True Cross

What may be the largest relic of the True Cross
Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain

September 14^th, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

“There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poitiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it.” John Calvin, Traité Des Reliques

Protestants, rationalists, modernists, and other enemies of Christ and his Church attack the veneration of the True Cross (a practice as ancient as Christianity itself) with the mockery: “If all the supposed splinters of the True Cross were collected, there would be enough wood to build a boat!” Those who are not quite so pompous will add, “Or at least three crosses.”

But is it true? Just how much Sacred Wood is venerated in the Church of Christ?

Pope St. Gregory the Great on the human knowledge of Jesus Chrsit

September 3^rd, Feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great

But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. (Mark 13:32)

Many will be shocked to discover that Pope St. Gregory the Great, together with all the doctors of the Church after him, expressly condemns the opinion that Our Savior, in his humanity, did not know all created truths including the day and the hour of the final judgment.

This opinion, considered a heresy by the holy Pontiff (and by all the great theologians since him), is called Agnoeticism, meaning “not knowing”. Fr. Hardon summarizes the Agnoetes as follows, “A sect of Monophysites who held that Christ was subject to positive ignorance. The leading exponent of its error was Deacon Themistios of Alexandria. He was condemned by the Church, which declared that Christ’s humanity cannot be ignorant of anything of the past or of the future. To attribute ignorance to Christ’s human nature is to profess Nestorianism (Denzinger 474-76).” (Modern Catholic Dictionary, “Agnoetes”)

In other articles [here] and [here], we have discussed many particulars of this debate – at present, we intend only to explain something of why it will be important to adopt St. Gregory’s teaching.

The sufferings of the damned compared to the suffering of St. Bartholomew

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Luke 13:22-30

“I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

Saturday, August 24^th, the Church celebrated the feast of St. Bartholomew, the apostle who gave his life in service of the Gospel through the most gruesome torment of being flayed alive. In this Sunday’s Gospel, our Savior tells us that many will strive to attain salvation but will fall short and, not taking the narrow road which only a few find, will instead take the broad road to eternal damnation.

As we consider the horrible pains which St. Bartholomew endured, we recognize that these sufferings are nothing as compared to the torments which the damned will suffer in hell. The reason is threefold.

When did the Sacred Heart begin to exist?

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father. Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost. Have mercy on us.

While there can be no doubt that the person of Jesus, who is none other than the Son of the Eternal Father, the very Word of God who was in the beginning with God, did not begin to exist but rather has always been; nevertheless, we may well question whether the Sacred Heart of Jesus came into being at any time.

Even though the Eternal Word has been from before everlasting ages, can we say that the Sacred Heart has always been? Or, rather, shall we hold that the Heart of our Savior only came into existence at the moment of the Incarnation? Or, even further, ought we to think that the Sacred Heart only began to exist sometime after the conception of our Lord, but before his birth, at the time that the human heart organ was formed in the womb of Mary?

This question will allow us to enter into a rather speculative point of theological inquiry: Is devotion to the Sacred Heart a devotion to the humanity of Jesus only, or also to his divinity?

If Jesus doesn't die, how is the Mass a sacrifice?

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

In the sacramental theology of the Church, we must recognize a threefold distinction. In Latin: Res, Sacramentum, Res et Sacramentum. In English: Reality, Sacrament, Reality and Sacrament. The reality is that invisible grace given by the sacrament. The sacrament is that visible sign which is used in the rite. And the reality and sacrament is an invisible reality which is yet a sign of something further (like, for example, the way the sacred character of baptism is a reality in the soul of the baptized but is also a sacrament of the individual’s participation in Christ).

To properly understand the manner in which the Mass is a sacrifice, we must understand how each of these elements relates to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This will make clear how it is that, even though Jesus does not die upon the altar but remains living and glorified in the Holy Eucharist, the Mass is yet the very self-same sacrifice of the Cross.

Transubstantiation: Model for family life

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

“Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and the wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”

These words of the Council of Trent (DS 1642), which are taken up again in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1376), make clear the dogma of transubstantiation.

By this mystery, the substance of bread is converted into the substance of Christ’s Body. Further, the substance of wine is converted to the substance of Christ’s Blood. And, because (now, in heaven) Christ’s body and blood are united one with the other and both are further united to his soul and his divinity, the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ are present in each Eucharistic species and in all of their parts.

The dogma of transubstantiation rules out two other theories: Annihilation and consubstantiation. From this teaching, we may draw a helpful analogy for family life.

Why it is significant that the Eucharist could not have been given before the Incarnation

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

As we prepare to celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, we do well to consider (in a number of shorter posts, and perhaps one longer) various points relative to the Blessed Sacrament.

We direct our reader to a number of previous posts on the Most Holy Eucharist and the Mass:

Why the bread of life discourse cannot be a metaphor [here]

Christ’s body in heaven and in the Eucharist [here]

The whole Christ is present under both species, but one is called the Body and the other the Blood [here]

Is the Host the flesh of the Sacred Heart? [here]

Does the real presence remain after a Eucharistic miracle? [here]

What makes the Mass to be a sacrifice? [here]

And now we turn to our current question – Could the Eucharist have been given before the Incarnation? And why is this question significant?

Why was Matthias chosen by lots?

May 14^th, Feast of St. Matthias

And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:26)

After the fall of Judas from the apostolic college, it was necessary for a successor to be elected. However, it is most striking to note that the choice between either Joseph called Barsabas (surnamed Justus) and Matthias was not made by the people, nor by the eleven, nor even by Peter himself; rather, Matthias was chosen by lots.

If Matthias was selected in this manner, the critic might ask, “Why does the Church not employ this means in our own day for the selection of bishops?” The answer to this question reveals just how necessary Pentecost was.

Does Christ "look down" upon us from heaven?

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

It is an historical fact that our Savior, after remaining with his Apostles and disciples for precisely forty days after his Resurrection, in their sight ascended into heaven. Christ is no longer physically present among the faithful on earth, but his body has been taken up into heaven.

Now, our Lord did not abandon us, for he is present in the Church not only according to his divine nature (by which he is present everywhere and especially in the soul by grace), but even according to his human nature in his sacramental species in the Holy Eucharist. Still, Christ has ascended to heaven and thus we must assert that he is no longer present on earth as he had been before the ascension. While he did not abandon us, we must assert that his humanity is no longer present in his proper or natural species on earth.

Let us consider his glorified body, present in heaven. Does our Savior “look” upon us from heaven? How are we connected to this physical body which now receives all worship in heaven?

Is every act in mortal sin another sin? Or, Why I hate Les Miserables

4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1 Corinthians 12:31 – 13:13

If I do not have love, I am nothing.

The thirteenth chapter of the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians contains the often praised “hymn to charity”, in which the Apostle sets forth the supremacy and necessity of theological love.

Charity, which comes to perfection only in heaven, is the greatest of the virtues. Without this theological virtue, a man has no other true virtue. Without love of God (and of neighbor), no man can be saved.

Without charity, man can do nothing good – at least, he can do nothing meritorious unto eternal life. But, we ask, is every act of a man in mortal sin (i.e. a man lacking charity) itself a sin? Without charity, does every act of man become sinful?

Is it a sin for a non-believer to pray? To fast? To make a vow of virginity? Further, is it a sin for a man in mortal sin to plant a vineyard?

Man's role in writing Sacred Scripture

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus.

In the opening lines of his Gospel, St. Luke gives us a clear indication of the active human role in the writing of Sacred Scripture. Though the Bible is truly the word of God and not merely the words of men, yet it is also correct to say that it is really and truly the words of men and not solely the word of God.

The books of Scripture are occasional writings – i.e. they were written at the will of the human author who desired to address a particular situation in a particular moment of time and place. St. Luke states very clearly that he has decided to write account of the Gospel, and he does not fail to mention his own labors in compiling an orderly narrative by means of carefully investigating everything anew.

This book is most certainly the work of St. Luke, and yet St. Peter teaches us that Prophecy [of Scripture] came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21). How can the Bible be both the word and works of men, and also truly and indeed the very word of God?

Christ did not grow in grace or in holiness

And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men. (Luke 2:52, Douay-Rheims)

This passage from the Gospel according to St. Luke is often interpreted (in a manner smacking of heresy) to indicate that there was a substantial growth of holiness and grace in our Savior. However, upon reflection, it will become abundantly clear that such could not have been the case. Jesus could not and did not grow in holiness, but was from the first moment of his conception perfectly and totally holy.

This is especially relevant as we celebrated the feast of the Baptism of the Lord last Sunday not as a moment of increase in grace in our Lord, but as an Epiphany or Manifestation of the fundamental fullness of grace and holiness which he had enjoyed from the moment of his conception.

Why were the heavens opened to Jesus at his baptism?

Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord, Luke 3:15-16,21-22

After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.

By baptism, men are made to be true sons of God, washed from original (and any actual) sin, infused with the virtues and gifts, built into a true temple of the Holy Trinity, and joined to the mystical Body of Christ which is the Church.

Through baptism, heaven is opened to us. However, heaven was ever open to Christ. Even from the moment of his conception he was the Son of God (by nature), he had no sin, he was filled with the perfection of all the gifts and virtues (as well as of all knowledge), his human soul was indeed that place where the fullness of Godhead deigned to dwell.

Jesus obviously could not increase in grace, being perfect from the moment of his conception – what then is the meaning of the opening of the heavens?

What we say about Jesus, when we call Mary the "Mother of God"

January 1^st, Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God

The doctrines of Mary which the Church believes, teaches, and professes are, in truth, doctrines about Christ. When the Church says “Mary” she is directing us always to Jesus.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the central teaching about our Lady – that she is truly the Mother of God. By insisting that our Lady is not merely the Mother of the Christ, but truly the Mother of God, the Church condemns two heresies concerning the Savior.

The Angelic Thomas speaks

“The Blessed Virgin is truly called the Mother of God. For the only way in which it could be denied that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God would be either if the humanity were first subject to conception and birth, before this man were the Son of God, as Photinus said; or if the humanity were not assumed unto unity of the Person or hypostasis of the Word of God, as Nestorius maintained. But both of these are erroneous. Therefore it is heretical to deny that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God.”

 - Summa Theologica III, q.35, a.4