This is something new for me. I am not used to doing something like this for all, since normally I am denying myself something. It has been a very interesting process. All the free Catechisms (except the on the Vatican’s website) is mild snippets of the large book. So when looking for what the United States Archbishops say about one of the cannons you are unimpressed by what they put out. I am fine with that, but I find it interesting that they do not just give a link to the Vatican’s site. (Don't worry, I getting my 950 pages in paperback form soon.) So I am going do one of the simple things: The Trinity.
Yes I know that people have spent their entire lifetime trying to understand this simple statement. I am lucky to stand on top of their shoulders. Since I was in Elementary level Sunday school it has been all about trying to understand this concept and bible stories.
Right now I am working on college applications as I am on the tail end of my time at community college era. The humbling part is that there is something I am terrible at, the personal statements. I cannot form the words to describe myself on their questions like: “why I want to go to our school” or “tell us your goal to us.” I cannot do that. I cannot sell myself in the context of putting words on paper. I am more than words on papers; my presence at school supersedes me.
I feel it is the same thing with understanding the trinity. I might type something down and delete since I think it is not good enough. But there comes a time where I am going to have to hit the summit button on my application since I cannot make it perfect. But it in a since it is perfect since that is all I have to talk about myself. Just like we only have our language to describe the trinity.
Last quarter I got an email from Cascadia Campus Crusade for Christ talking about the "Trinunity" they said:
TRI-UNITY — The teaching of the Bible concerning the Trinity might be summarized thus. God is a Tri-unity, with each Person of the Godhead equally and fully and eternally God. Each is necessary, and each is distinct, and yet all are one. The three Persons appear in a logical, causal order. The Father is the unseen, omnipresent Source of all being, revealed in and by the Son, experienced in and by the Holy Spirit. The Son proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit from the Son. With reference to God's creation, the Father is the Thought behind it, the Son is the Word calling it forth, and the Spirit is the Deed making it a reality. (They got their definition from some website)
This is not what the church teaches since 253 to 256 talks all about what it is. In 256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus gives the most beautiful thing I have ever seen for trying to quantify the Trinity.
“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
splendor. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity
grasps me. . .”
I was going to say some stuff after this, but I cannot form the words; just like on my college applications. So I am going to wrap it up.
I have a feeling that the Catechism is not the place to turn to for my Trinity theories and lessons. Maybe I just read some St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Gregory of Nazianzus next Lenten season.
-Giles
P.S. Gonzaga and Seattle University please let me in. :)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Preparation is Half the Battle
Getting ready for my Lenten journey I wanted to know what a mentor of mine thought about my disgust for the so called “Christians” on campus. In essence he said that you need to know the teaching down pat and do not reason with them (Thus far I have failed the latter). So I thought of this idea. I am not doing this so I can drive though the holes in their “proof that God exist,”* with an aircraft carrier, I can already do it now. I wanted to do this so I can learn from my own faith and figure out that everything is too beautiful to live. Since my people have written billions of words on everything I ever wanted to know about being a Roman Catholic. I have a couple stories typed up about the struggle I had with my other brothers and sisters in what they would call, “our faith in Jesus”, but I will save them for a later date.
The thing that cemented this idea was listening to a podcast that my former theology teacher did for a radio show. The link is HERE.
Clapp has done four other podcasts, each one is very fascinating. Also, it is the perfect thing during the Catholic bashing I get on a daily basis now.
Tomorrow I will actually have my first post, diving head first into the Catechism.
-Giles
*Mainly it is Sola Scriptura, but it is so fragmented I do not know what to make of it.
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