Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 8

Lesson 8 - The Blessed Trinity

Earlier on in this course we saw that we can learn something about God by the use of our own unaided reason. But when God became man He told us much more about the nature of God. All this we could not possibly have known if He had not told us.

And the first and greatest thing He told us is that in the One God there are Three Persons — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This we call the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. It is a mystery, that is a truth which is above reason but revealed to us by God.

As we said before we shall not be surprised to find that there are things about the nature of God which we cannot understand. Our minds are limited. God is infinite. You can't put the sea into a thimble.

Does It Matter?

What is more puzzling is that this knowledge that there are Three Persons in One God does not at first sight seem to have any practical importance for us. A man is inclined to say: "No doubt it is true that there are Three Persons in the One God. But does it matter?"

Since God thinks it is worthwhile revealing this truth to us obviously it must matter to us considerably. And in fact when we understand something about this mystery we can see that it affects every aspect of our life.

Before we go on to explain the meaning of this doctrine and the importance of it here is an actual incident which shows just how the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity can come home to us.

This incident and this conversation was written down by a priest only a few months ago.

A Man Who Understood

He wore a yellow plastic breastplate. His head was cupped in the top part of the breastplate, otherwise it would have fallen — his spine was decayed. In addition he suffered from epilepsy.

"I find that it's the part in the Blessed Trinity about the Holy Ghost that is so real."

He drew on his cigarette, his face wreathed in smiles.

"I got my own plate up — that's the ambition of every accountant, Father. But I did too much. Couldn't get staff during the war. When you're carrying other people's accounts you have to do your best for them. I overdid it and here I am."

Is there much pain?" I asked.

"Yes, Father. But there's always a sort of balm for it, I try to keep close to God all day — mind you I never do as well as I ought. Sometimes you come a cropper. Then you look back and see you haven't been praying enough. You haven't been remembering God properly.

"At first I wanted to figure everything out for myself. I used to get down to it — puzzling in my own way at a kind of layman's theology. That's all gone now, Father. I don't need to have to worry. I know now. I don't need to prove things about God. When you live with Him all day you lose that anxiety to see how things about Him hang together.

"It's like my illness, Father. Something the same thing. I used to be resentful about the disgrace of my weakness, the epilepsy, I mean. But what does it matter, really? God can take me in ten years time or five or today. At night I always lay myself down as for my death (lots of specialists have told me I'll die any time). In the morning I wake up and take the day as a new lease of life. Everything is new and there's no end of joy if you take it that way.

"When I was being instructed the priest told me that when we are baptised we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He said that among those gifts are wisdom, understanding and knowledge. I never realised what it meant until I went down with this illness. But I realise now. I reckon it's the Holy Spirit Who helps me to understand that the only thing that matters is the love of God.

"I wanted to make money and I was making it once. Now I'm on public assistance. That would have killed me one time with shame. But now it doesn't seem to signify very much. I've no needs beyond the bit of money I get. I can just walk as far as the Post Office to get my money and the Co-op, where they have my tobacco is only two steps from there. I can just walk back with my money and tobacco and I'm done.

"But the great thing is, Father, that I'm as happy as can be. The priest said that after the gifts of the Holy Spirit we get the fruits of the Holy Spirit, too. I can't remember the whole list from the Catechism. But I do remember that there were joy, peace and patience amongst them. The Holy Spirit has certainly given me those.

"You know that prayer, Father: 'Blessed be the holy and undivided Trinity now and forever. Amen.' I can say that prayer all day and it seems new every time I say it."

* * * * * *

That conversation shows how the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity comes home to us in very practical form indeed. It was not for nothing that Almighty God revealed to us this wonderful fact about His nature.

God Three In One

1. The Facts

Christ Our Lord continually spoke about His Father in heaven. He also spoke about the Holy Spirit Whom the Father will send in My name. (John 14: 26.)

His final command to His Apostles was to go and teach all nations baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. (Matt. 28: 19)

It would take too much space to print here all the times that Our Lord spoke of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is enough to say that you cannot pick up the Gospels without finding everywhere Our Lord constantly referring to these Three Persons Who are yet in the One God. There are not three Gods. There is only One God. But whereas the nature, for example, of John Smith can only express itself in the personality of John Smith, God's nature, being infinite, comprises a triple personality — Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

2. The Meaning

We cannot hope to understand this fully. And yet we can get some little distance towards an understanding of it. We can take our start from the Gospel of St. John. (This is the Gospel which is read out at the end of Mass in the Catholic Church.) It opens like this:

In the beginning was the Word and the
Word was with God and the Word was God.

By the Word he means the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. And so he says a little further on: the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.

Why does he call the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity the Word? Let us take an example. A man James knows himself. He has an image of himself in his own mind. That image he sums up in the word "James". The image grows more perfect, that is, more like the man himself, the better he knows himself. But it still remains an image and nothing more. It still remains just a word in his mind.

Now God knows Himself perfectly. And God sums Himself up in a Word. But because God is infinite and perfect so the image in the mind of God is perfect too. It is not just an image. It is another person, God the Son, the perfect image of the Father, so perfect that He is even a distinct person and yet remains within the One God.

Between two person's love exists. What is it? It is an emotion. But it is more. It is in some way or other a giving of each person to the other. So, God the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. But this love is not just an emotion. It is a perfect giving of each to the other. In God it is a third person, the Holy Spirit. Father and Son breathe out their love each for the other. The Holy Spirit is the infinite sigh of the infinite love of God.

3. The Significance for Us

And so here is the basis of the Christian hope and Christian joy; that behind all the changing shadows of the world there lies infinite power, infinite knowledge and infinite love.

Of the Father we say that He is Almighty, that He holds all things in existence by His power. And yet He loves each one of us individually as a father loves his child. Read the parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15: 11– 32.) All things are in His hand.

Not one sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father…..
The very hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matt. 10.)

The Son exists from all eternity with the Father because the Father knows Himself from all eternity. It is through the Son that the Father reveals Himself. All things were created by the Father through the Son.

All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing that was made. (John 1: 3.)

The Son became man for us. He took a human nature and is Jesus Christ our Lord. And so we know God now much more personally than we could ever have done before because we know Him in the Son.

I came forth from the Father and am come into the world; (John 16: 28.)

He that seeth Me seeth the Father also. I am in the Father and the Father in Me. (John 14: 9 –10.)

The Holy Spirit exists from all eternity with the Father and the Son. He is the sanctifier, that is He makes us holy, He makes us sons of God. He enlightens our mind to know God better, He warms our heart to love God. He raises us above our natural level and makes us Sons of God. He guides the Church.

The Holy Ghost Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things. (John 14: 26.)

So we divide up the work of God between the Three Persons. But in fact every action is a joint action of the Three Persons. It is One God Who works in us and in the world.

The Blessed Trinity Dwells In The Christian

This is brought home to us most strikingly by the words of Our Lord at the Last Supper to His Apostles.

If anyone love Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him,
and We will come to him and will make Our abode with him. (John 14: 23.)

Our Lord promises here that the Blessed Trinity will dwell in our souls. Just as every act of God is a joint action of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, so once we are baptised and sons of God every act of ours is a joint act of the Blessed Trinity and ourselves.

This is why St. Paul calls our bodies temples of the Holy Ghost. This is why the good actions that we do as Christians are of immensely greater importance and worth. And the evil actions that we do are very much worse than if we had not been Christians at all, because by sin we cut out the Blessed Trinity from our act and try to stand on our own without God.

God's Plan For Us

Now let us just step back and see God's plan for us. God made man to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next. In some way man was to share in the nature of God. St. Peter uses the phrase:

You are to share the divine nature. (2 Peter 1: 4.)

We do not become gods but we become very much more than mere man. Since the Blessed Trinity dwells in our souls we are able to know God, trust God and love God in a more than human way. This sharing in the life of the Blessed Trinity we call sanctifying grace.¹

By the sin of our first parents the human race lost this divine life. This intimate link between God and man was broken. It was no longer possible for man to know, love and serve God as he ought and to be happy with God forever in the next life.

The link was restored when God the Son became man. He joined us once more to God and made it possible for us once again to become the adopted sons of God.

As many as received Him He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name. (John 1: 12.)

How do we become sons of God? By being joined to Christ Our Lord. We are born again by baptism. We are joined to Christ like branches in a vine (John 15), like limbs in a body (St. Paul).

That is why we call the Church the Mystical Body of Christ. It is by our membership of the Church that we are joined to Christ Our Lord.

¹ Grace means a free gift like the word "gratis". 'Sanctifying" – which makes us holy.

The Gift Of The Holy Spirit

Once we are members of Christ's body we live in a higher than human way by the more than human life (the supernatural life) given to us by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us Faith — a new and supernatural way of knowing God; Hope — a new and supernatural way of trusting God; Charity — a new and supernatural way of loving God and our neighbour.

The Holy Spirit gives us the gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and the Fear of the Lord. These gifts give us a profound under standing of life, of the relations between God and man. They give us a relish for divine things, they give us strength and courage to live our life, whatever it may be, with our heart set on God.

From these gifts of the Holy Spirit and from the practice of the virtues of faith, hope and charity there springs the fruits of the Holy Spirit. See, for example the Joy, the Peace and the Patience of the man whose story we told above.

All these things are gifts of God. But they do not come by magic. We have to do our share. We must co-operate with God. We must clear away, always with His help, any obstacles to the work of God in our souls. But if we do that then we achieve an understanding of life, a tranquillity of soul springing from a love of God which only a Christian can possess.

The Wisdom Of The Unlearned. A Jewish Convert's Story

It does not depend on great learning or brainpower in ourselves. Often these virtues and gifts are seen at their finest in the lives of very simple, unlettered people. Karl Stern, a Jewish intellectual, a refugee from the persecution of Hitler, wrote a book called "The Pillar of Fire". In it he tells how he became a Catholic. He describes his life first as a devout orthodox Jew in his childhood, and then in the houses of Jewish intellectual families in Germany. These latter were good, decent people. But they were free-thinkers, agnostics for whom religion was a thing of the past. However, they were still human beings and so from time to time tragedy struck their homes, illness, death and the rest of the misfortunes that human beings are liable to.

On those occasions, says Karl Stern, the only centre of peace and confidence in the house would be the simple peasant Bavarian Catholic housekeeper or maid-servant. She had an inner strength and tranquillity, an understanding which came surely from the Holy Spirit and to her the household would turn for comfort and fortitude in their trials. Here was the work of the Blessed Trinity visible in action. It was the first step which led Karl Stern to the threshold of the Catholic Church.

Blessed be the holy and undivided Trinity now and forever. Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

How To Pray (iii)

Asking For Things In Prayer

Experience of distractions teaches us some very important things about prayer. It must be humble, patient, persistent and confident.

Humble: We are not coming to tell God what to do but to ask Him what He wants us to do. We come to adore and love Him and put ourselves in His hands. Distractions are a great lesson in humility because they show us how easily our attention is turned away from God and what small things can distract us from Him.

Patient and persistent: In spite of distractions we have to keep on, even though we don't seem to be getting any response at all.

Confident: We know for certain that God will answer our prayer in the way in which He sees best for us.

What about when we ask God for favours? Doesn't this seem to deny the humility of prayer? If we ask God for a fine day for our holiday, for help to bring up a family, for recovery from illness aren't we, in fact, telling God what, to do? No, provided that when we ask these things we clearly understand, at least in the back of our mind, that we ask them only if it be God's will.

Our Lord Himself urged us to ask for what we need. He explained it to His Apostles in two stories. A guest suddenly arrives late at night. You have nothing to give him for a meal and so you go off to the shop and knock on the door. The shopkeeper puts his head out of the window above and refuses to come down. He is in bed and the children are all in bed too. Keep on knocking, said Our Lord. If he won't serve you as a favour he will come and serve you to get rid of you. (Luke 11.) The other story was the poor widow who couldn't get the court to try the case that she was bringing for compensation. But she pestered the authorities so much that at the finish they out the case on to get rid of her. (Luke 18.)

I am pretty sure Our Lord told these two stories with a smile. He didn't mean to say that God would grant our request to get rid of us, but He did want the Apostles to understand that we have to keep asking persistently in prayer as the people in the stories did. He doesn't at all mind us asking for what we need. He encourages us to do so. Our relations with God should be those of a child with a father. God isn't a slave master. He encourages us to talk to Him freely about our life, our ambitions, our desires, our plans, etc.

Every Prayer Is Answered

God guarantees that no prayer will go unanswered. If you will only believe, every gift you ask for in your prayer will be granted. (Matt. 21.) Ask, and the gift will come; seek, and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened to you. Everyone that asks, will receive; that seeks, will find; that knocks, will have the door opened to him. If any one of yourselves is asked by his son for bread, will he give him a stone? Why, then, if you, evil as you are, know well enough how to give your children what is good for them, is not your Father in heaven much more ready to give wholesome gifts to those who ask him? (Matt. 5.)

On the other hand we must bear in mind that God does not mean by this that we can decide what is best for ourselves. He will not necessarily give us just what we are asking for. He will give us what is good for us. We are to understand that well before we begin to pray at all. Here again we are like children. A child sometimes cries because the father won't give him the shining thing he has in his hand. But the father knows it's a razor and the child doesn't. At times we ask for something that seems most desirable but God knows better. So Our Lord tells us again: Your heavenly Father knows well what your needs are before you ask Him. (Matt 6.)

The more perfect way to pray is simply to leave everything in the hands of God, to say "Thy will be done". In fact that must always be the background of every prayer. There is a perfect example of it in Our Lord's prayer in the garden – He was in an agony of apprehension about what He was to suffer on the next day. And He prayed:

"Father if Thou wilt remove this chalice from me". Then he added: "But yet not my will but Thine be done". (Luke 22)

At the end of lesson 7 we spoke about the problem of distractions — when we can't keep our mind on the prayers we are saying. There is a harder problem: what about when we feel utterly dry and discouraged? We shall say something about this at the end of the next lesson.

End of Lesson 8

Supplement A

Supplement B "The Gift of the Holy Spirit"

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