Catechism Paragraphs
232 – 278
Last week we looked at the opening of the Creed: “I believe
in God.” This week we look at the
catechism’s explanation of the subsequent words the substance of God: The Trinity.
“Christians are baptized ‘in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ (Mt 28:19) 232 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. 234 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.’ To be sure, God has left traces of his
Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the
Old Testament.” 237
“The Father revealed
by the Son 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. 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: no one is father as God is father. 239 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
the relation to the Father: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one
knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal
him. (Mt 11:27) 240 Following this
apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at
Nicaea (325) that the Son is ‘consubstantial’ with the Father, that is, one
only God with him. The Nicene Creed
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.” 242
“The Father and the
Son revealed by the Spirit Before
his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of ‘another Paraclete’ (Advocate),
the Holy Spirit. At work since creation,
having previously spoken ‘all the truth.’ (Jn 14:17, 26; 16:13) The Holy Spirit
is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father. 343 ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and
giver of life, who proceeds from the Father.’
By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as the source and
origin of the whole divinity. 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. The Creed of the Church confesses: ‘With the
Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified.’” 245
“The formation of the
Trinitarian dogma 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.
249 In order to articulate the dogma of the
Trinity, the Church had to develop its 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. 251 The Church uses (1) the term substance (rendered also at times by essence or nature) to designate the divine being in its unity, (2) the term person or hypostasis to designate the Father , Son, and Holy Spirit in the
real distinction among them, and (3) the term relation to designate the fact that their distinction lies in the
relationship of each to the others. 252
The Trinity is one. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in
three persons, the ‘consubstantial Trinity.’
The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but
each of them is God whole and entire. 253
The divine persons are really
distinct from one another. God is
one but not solitary. Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being,
for they are really distinct from one another.
254 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.” 255
“For as the Trinity has only one and the same nature, 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. However each divine person performs the
common work according to his unique personal property. Thus the Church confesses: ‘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.’ 258 The ultimate end of the
whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of
the Blessed 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.’ (Jn 14:23) 260 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.” 265
“The Father Almighty
Of all the divine attributes, only God’s
omnipotence is named in the Creed: to confess this power has great bearing on
our lives. God’s power is loving, for he is our Father, and mysterious for only faith can discern it
when it ‘is made perfect in weakness. (Jn 1:3) 268 God reveals his fatherly omnipotence by the
way he takes care of our needs; by the filial adoption that he gives us (I will
be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord
Almighty) (2Cor 6:18): finally by his infinite mercy, for he displays his power
at its height by freely forgiving sins. 271
Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God’s almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order
to draw to itself Christ’s power. The
Virgin Mary is the supreme model of this faith, for she believed that ‘nothing
will be impossible with God.’ 273 Anyone who calls on God in need believes that
he is all-powerful. God created the
world out of nothing. He is the Lord of
history. He guides all things and can do
everything. How he uses his omnipotence
is of course a mystery. Through the
prophet Isaiah he tells us, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways.’ (Is 55:8) YOUCAT Q40
Next week we move on to talk about God as Creator of heaven
and earth.
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