God, through the centuries, revealed Himself to holy people to inspire them in their works for His kingdom. Although Jesus, while on earth, alluded to the Holy Spirit in some events in His discourses and teachings, never was it fully revealed.
The Holy Spirit was given by God the Father in answer to Jesus’ prayer (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 729). It was poured out in abundance to the followers of Jesus Christ who were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, a Christian holiday, on the seventh Sunday after Easter.
Tongues of fire descended from the sky and rested on everyone. Filled with the Holy Spirit they began to talk in different languages. (Acts 2:1-13)
The Holy Spirit is the last person in the Holy Trinity that was revealed (CCC 684) and it is through the Holy Spirit that faith is awakened and nourished.
The nature of God will forever remain a mystery. As Saint Augustine emphasized, “If you understand Him, He would not be God.”
Self-sacredness
Adherents to the New Age believe there is a complimentary relationship between God and His creation. In Monism, there is unity between everything and everyone. Because “all is one,” everything too is part of a divine essence.
Thus, there is a persistent and increasing belief that the person is “the standard of truth” with “self-sacredness.”
So in man’s continuous search for selfhood and good life, meaning of one’s existence, prestige, fame, power and wealth are the benchmarks of self-fulfillment in a secular world, and are self-determined.
Belief in an all-knowing, all powerful, all-loving and ever-present God is challenged by many people. Pope John Paul II lamented, “human progress planned as alternatives to God’s plan introduces injustice, evil and violence rising against the divine plan of justice and salvation.”
Three divine persons in one God
Think, envision and reflect of having three persons as one God. It is apparently incomprehensible, improbable, impossible and illogical. This inseparable oneness in theology is called circumincession.
The dogma of the Holy Trinity is the most basic and essential in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, yet it is beyond human understanding. Three divine persons in one God. No divine person does anything by Himself. They are inseparable, in their glory, nature, power and majesty from all eternity—a life of love and unity. Thus, every time one makes the sign of the cross, the Holy Trinity is acknowledged.
Pope Francis’s homily on his April 30 morning Mass enjoined everyone to “listen to and understand God’s will through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Man is a “pagan dressed as a Christian if he does not leave space for the Holy Spirit” in life.
He emphasized, “We cannot be Christians without walking with the Holy Spirit, without acting with the Holy Spirit, without letting the Holy Spirit be the protagonist in our lives.”
Faith, a divine gift
Without God’s grace of faith, man with his finite knowledge can never believe that the Three Persons in One God is present in all places, all things at all times and possesses infinite knowledge, insight, awareness and understanding.
The intellectual, who insists that to see is to believe or demands proofs of God’s ineffable attributes, will never be convinced. For faith is needed to open all the doors and windows of the mind so man’s spirit can believe. And faith is a divine gift, a grace that enlightens the mind to will and believe on Three Persons in One God.
The Council of Trent underscored “faith as the basis and root of all justification.”
On faith and disbelief, Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.
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