Whose Mom's Favorite?

One of the biggest debates between my sisters and me was which one of us was my father’s favorite child. The week before he died, he called all three of us into his hospital room and decided to end the debate once and for all. He told us the order of his most to least favorite child.

Most parents will say that they love all of their children equally. That does not mean that you favor your children equally. There are valid reasons to favor one child over another. A child may have a special need that requires more attention. Some favor their first born or their last born. Some favor a daughter over a son or vice versa. Some children are more independent and some more needy. Every child is different.

The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was a perpetual virgin. She did not have any children other than Jesus. We believe this because she stood at the foot of the cross with only friends and relatives. The last thing Jesus did upon the cross was to entrust the care of his mother to his beloved disciple. If Mary had any other children this, not only would have not been necessary, but it would have been scandalous for Jesus to do. Jesus fulfilled the command to honor thy mother and father and would have not violated Jewish custom by entrusting his mother to Saint John had he had any siblings or step-siblings.

Mary’s perpetual virginity was a gift to her. It allowed her to dedicate her life and her love solely to Jesus. Imagine the jealousy that being the brother or sister of Jesus would have caused. Mom loves you best because you’re God. Of course you’re mom’s favorite!

But this doesn’t only apply to Mary. It causes issues for Joseph as well.

There is a (t)radition in the Eastern Church that Joseph was an older man and a widow. The thought is that he had children with his first wife. This is a belief that the Western Church does not hold. Personally, I believe we can use the same logic we use to say that Mary had no other children with Joseph as well.

The infancy narrative in the gospel of Luke tells us that Joseph had to go back to his ancestorial home of Bethlehem to be counted in a mandatory census. He traveled there with Mary when she was ready to give birth. If Joseph had any other children, they too would have had to go to Bethlehem to be counted in the mandatory census. If this is true then one of two things would have happened. The first is that Joseph and Mary would have stayed with Joseph’s other children. But this wasn’t the case. They tried to find room at an inn. If Joseph had other children and they had no place to stay they would have stayed in the stable with Joseph and Mary. The gospel does not say that either of these things happened.

In fact, no gospel ever mentions Joseph having other children in any story of the infant Jesus. They were not mentioned when Joseph, Mary, and Jesus had to flee to Egypt. They were not mentioned when Jesus was presented in the temple. They weren’t mentioned when Jesus was lost and then found in the temple at the age of twelve. Joseph and Mary’s only concern was finding him. There is no mention of other children until late into Jesus’ public ministry when scripture talks about the brethren of the Lord. Protestants, who want to believe that Mary was just a normal person with a normal life and a normal marriage, read this out of context to support their desire that Jesus had brothers and sisters. If Mary was just another schmuck like the rest of us there would be no reason to pay her the honor she deserves.

Now imagine being Joseph and having other children, either with a first wife or with Mary. He would have been just the foster father of Jesus while being the actual father to other children. It would have made it very difficult not to favor those children who came first or biological children who came after. This would be especially true if Mary dedicated herself to Jesus and the other kids relied more upon their father. Joseph was not created immaculately and was subject to the same concupiscence we all are. Having only one child, a child that God asked him to care for as his very own, would have been just as much a gift to Joseph as he was for Mary.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. Mary so loved God that she did the same thing. She gave her only son for the salvation and redemption of the world.

Thank You!

When I first entered into formation one of the people in my class asked me to tell my conversion story. Because he was not alone, I created this blog. My family and the majority of my friends were not Catholic, so when I finished telling my story I decided to use this blog to explain why Catholics do the things they do.

What started with just a handful of people reading has now been read by people in over seventy-seven different countries. I am amazed at how one small voice can reach people in every corner of the globe and I am truly humbled by it.

To all of you who have taken the time to read something on this blog I would like to say thank you. You are the reason I continue to write. If you are reading this, take a moment to leave me a comment with your first name and where you are at in the world. I will offer a prayer of thanksgiving and ask for you to be blessed.Please pray for me that I be inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit to always be a holy man who serves God's people with love and humility.

Topics for new blogs are always welcome. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions feel free to email them to me at DeaconBobCollins@gmail.com. Perhaps you can inspire the next blog entry.

THANK YOU!

Is Purgatory Necessary?

Catholic belief is that purgatory is a state of being between this world and the next where a person goes when they die if they warrant heaven and is not yet in a state of perfection. Non-Catholic Christians reject the idea of purgatory and believe a person goes directly to heaven when they die. I am going to explain the Catholic teaching on purgatory so you can better understand why it is not only a very beautiful teaching, but a very necessary one as well.

In The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, senior tempter, Screwtape, refers to humans as amphibians-half spirit and half animal. As spirits we belong to the eternal world, the supernatural world, but as animals we inhabit time. This means that while our spirits can be directed to an eternal object, our bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change.

Heaven is eternal or outside of time. If time is the measurement of continual change, and there is not time in heaven, there is no change in heaven. Those in heaven do not change. God is perfect, sacrificial love. Nothing imperfect can exist in the direct presence of God. For a person to be in the direct presence of God he must be perfect as God is perfect.

When God created the angels, he made them perfect, with full knowledge of who he is. They were given free will to worship and serve God or to serve themselves. Because angels can enter heaven and stand before God in timelessness, they have to be in a state of non-change. Once an angel makes their choice it is binding on them for all eternity. This is why angels who were cast out of heaven can never receive salvation and redemption. They are cursed to hell forever.

None of us achieve perfection in this life. We are given this life to work on our perfection, that is, we were given this life to learn to love the way God loves. When we die, we still have work to do. Non-Catholic Christians believe that when we die God takes us where we are at and automatically brings us to the fulfilment of perfection. Perfected, this person is now able to enter into the presence of God in heaven.

The problem with this idea is that it nullifies free will. God respects our free will above all else for not to do so would violate his very nature. God is total, sacrificial love. Love can never be forced. For love to exist there must be a choice. Free will exists so that we can choose to love or reject God. No free will, no ability to love God in return.

This creates a dilemma with the non-Catholic Christian understanding of what happens at our deaths. When we die, we cannot stay here. If God cannot automatically bring us to the fulfillment of perfection, we are unable to behold him in heaven. If we cannot stay here and we cannot enter heaven, where do we go?

The Jews believe in a place called Sheol, or the shadow world known as the Shades. Sheol is a place of stillness and darkness. If you lived a righteous life you would go to the part of Sheol known as the Bosom of Abraham. If you lived an immoral life your soul was consigned to the abyss, or the pit of hell reserved for the devil and his demons.

The Catholic belief of purgatory is similar to Sheol. Purgatory is a place of purgation where we learn to let go of our attachments to this life. This is a place where our love is perfected until only sacrificial love remains. Purgatory is more of a state of being than a physical place. When we die our souls are separated from our bodies and it is our souls that enter into purgatory. Because there is still change there is still time but time is experienced differently. In purgatory we are transitioning from time into timelessness.

Imagine being in a completely dark room with no light. Your eyes become a custom to the dark. Then imagine that you are sudden cast into the brightest light you have ever seen. The light would be so painful to your eyes that you would clench them tightly shut. You would be in agony until your eyes had the time to adjust to the light.

Going from this world into the presence of God is much like that. We are going from the darkness of this world into light itself. God’s light is so bright that we are blinded by it no matter how tightly we try to clutch our eyes shut. Purgatory is a place that allows us to come slowly into the light, only as fast as our eyes can adjust to it.

Purgatory is a very beautiful teaching of the Church. God allows us to continue to grow closer to him even after our time here is complete. It would be so much easier if God could just snap his fingers and make us perfect like him so we can be with him in heaven without having to do a thing ourselves. But if he could do that there would be no purpose for this life. If I have to be perfect to enter heaven, and God cannot just automatically make me perfect when I die, purgatory becomes a very necessary place.

An Army of One

There once was a young man who wanted to serve his country. When he was of legal age, he joined the army and went off to boot camp. After finishing all of his training he was stationed at an army base in Germany. There he went about his day doing all of the things a soldier does, obeying the commands of the officers above him.

The young soldier, however, did not agree with the way the base was being run and with some of the things that they were required to do. He thought that he knew a better way and made suggestions to his superiors on how they should be doing things. He was reminded that he was in the army and that the army had a particular way it did things. Unable to be obedient to the oath he took when he enlisted, the young man decided to leave the army.

But the young man still wanted to serve the country he dearly loved, so he started his own militia. He modeled his militia after the army. It looked like the army. It did army things. It even used the army manual which the young man modified, removing the sections he did not agree with, and changing others to align with his personal opinion on how an army should work.

His militia attracted many people to it who wanted to serve as he did but believed that the army had gone astray and no longer served the purpose for which it was created. They believed themselves to be the true army.

And then, one day it happened. One of the men who had enlisted into the militia and was trained by the militia thought he knew a better way to run the militia. When he was told that this was the militia and that the militia had a particular way of doing things, he too, decided to set out on his own and start his own militia and run it according to his own option on what was right and true. This quickly became a trend as more and more people broke off to start their own militias based upon their own opinions on how best to serve the country. What started off as a few became hundreds, then thousands, and eventually tens of thousands.

The only thing that all of the militias can agree upon is that the army is wrong. Many believe the army to be the true enemy. Some have pulled so far away that their militia no longer resembles the army at all. On occasion, someone reads the actual army manual, the one without sections removed or pages changed, and begins to question why it is thought that the army is wrong. Seeking understanding of the truth, many leave their respective militias and join the army.

Disclaimer - This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Or is it?

The Meaning of Life

One of the oldest pursuits of man is to find the meaning of life. Why am I here? What difference does any of it make? The Baltimore Catechism, which originated at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 asks the question,

“Why did God make me?”

It answers the question with,

“God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be with him forever in heaven.”

God brings every person into this world because he wishes to be with that person forever in heaven.

When God made the angels he gave them all knowledge of who he is. Who is God? God is pure, sacrificial love. Love can never be forced upon another. Love can only be offered. This means that all persons, angelic and human, must be able to accept or reject God’s infinite love. To be able to reject God’s love there must be something other than his love to choose from. Hell exists as a choice so that love can therefore also exist. Because the angels were created with full knowledge of who God is their free will choice, once made, is binding upon them for all of eternity. The devil cannot repent of his pride and reenter heaven.

God went a different route when he created us. Mankind was created with no knowledge of who God is. God put into our hearts an infinite hole only he can fill, which creates within us the desire to know our creator. Then he slowly reveals himself to us over time. In a way, this allows us to court our God and fall in love with him. Our free will choice to accept or reject God’s love becomes binding on us at the moment of our death. God sends no one to hell. We choose hell by rejecting God’s infinite love for us. This makes the ultimate purpose of our lives to know our creator so we can freely accept the love he has for us and spend all of eternity with him in heaven.

We were created in the image and likeness of God. If God is sacrificial love, then that is the image we were created in. Because of the disobedience of our original parents, we are fallen, broken creatures. We no longer conform to the image we were created in. We have been given our time on earth to reclaim that image. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. If heaven at the end of our lives is the goal we desire, we need to spend our lives configuring ourselves as closely as we can to the image of Jesus. Does that mean we have to swing a hammer for a living, walk on water, or cure lepers? What does the image of Christ look like and how can we conform our lives to look like his?

The answer is three-fold.

Sacrificial love is the highest form of all love, a supernatural love. It is a love that puts the good of the other above all else. This is the love God has for the world –

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

This is the love Jesus has for us –

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13

And it is this love that Jesus has commanded we have for each other –

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” – John 3:34.

How did Jesus love us? He gave up his life as a sacrifice for us. This is the kind of love we are called to have for one another. We are to sacrifice for the good of one another. What a different world this would be if we all could put the needs of the other before our own selfish desires.

In 1 Samuel 15:23 we read,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the word of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”

Obedience is more pleasing to God than sacrifice. In fact, sacrifice would never have been necessary if our first parents were obedient to God. Sacrifice, and now penance, is only necessary because we are disobedient to God’s commands. Jesus’ obedience and sacrifice on the cross repaired the damage that is done by our disobedience and makes it possible for eternal life in heaven to be offered to us. But eternal life is only possible if we obey God’s commands. We cannot be disobedient to God and think that he will allow us to live with him in an intimate union with him for all eternity.

God gave us the Ten Commandments, commandments that flow from the very nature of God, which is sacrificial love. Jesus summarized these commandments down to two; Love God above all else, and love each other with the same love God has for us. When we follow these two commandments, we are obedient to God and our obedience is more pleasing to him than any penance we can offer.

Through his death on the cross Jesus won for us the salvation of the world and opened to us the gates of heaven. But if this is all he did for us it would not have been enough. Through the disobedience of our first parents, we became slaves to death. As slaves we needed to be ransomed back from death. Jesus’ suffering and death redeemed mankind. Redeem means to buy back. Jesus bought us back at the cost of his suffering and death. Suffering is the currency in which love is measured. You only love someone as much as you are willing to suffer for them. Ask any loving parent who has had to watch their child suffer and they will tell you that they would gladly take their place if it were possible.

Through Adam’s sin we were sold into slavery. The ransom for our freedom was set so high that no mere human could every pay it. It required God to become one of us, to offer his blood of infinite worth to free us from the bonds of slavery. As Catholics, we believe in redemptive suffering. If suffering is the currency of love, God can use our suffering to give love and grace to ourselves or others in need. Saint Paul teaches that, through the Mass the crucifixion is made present to us so we can make up in our bodies that which is lacking in crucifixion of Christ. What could possibly be lacking in the crucifixion of Christ? Quite simply, our participation in it. We are allowed to unite our suffering with that of Jesus’ and share in the redemption of mankind.

The purpose of life is therefore this: to conform our lives to the image and likeness of Jesus, to be obedient to his commands to love God and each other with sacrificial love, and to demonstrate that love through our redemptive suffering for the good of each other.

Time is a Mystery

Time is a mystery. When we hear the word mystery we think of a who-done-it. The actual meaning from the Greek is ‘a thing whispered’. This is what the Church means when she says that something is a mystery. It is not so much a secret as it is a thing whispered. Time is a mystery.

For us, the past is locked in time. What has happened has happened. We are powerless to change it. The future is yet to be written. We know not what it holds. The present is the current moment where time intersects with eternity. One moment later it is the past and one moment to come is the future. We are stuck in the eternal moment of now.

Things are much different for God. God is in the what we call the eternal now, not the eternal moment of now. That means for God every moment of time, from the very first moment to the very last moment, is the same moment. Everything is now. Being omnipresent, everywhere is here for God. Every place that has ever existed, exists now, and will exist are the same place for God.

The Church teaches that Mary was conceived without the original stain of sin. She was immaculately conceived. It is taught that God borrowed from the salvation won for us through the crucifixion of his son and applied it to Mary at the moment of her conception. For us creatures stuck in the eternal moment of time, it would appear that God took from the future and applied it to the past. But for God in the eternal now this happened at the same moment. The moment that Mary was conceived is the same moment Jesus was crucified.

It has been said that the Catholic Mass acts as a conduit through which time and space are connected and we are brought to the actual crucifixion of Jesus on Calvary. Through the Mass, we enter into God’s eternal now and Jesus’ crucifixion is made present to us. The supernatural reality of this is veiled to our eyes so we can come to believe in it by our own free will. Love can never be forced and the crucifixion is the greatest act of love that will ever happen. The Mass is made present to us so that we can participate in it. We have to die with Jesus if we are to rise with him to eternal life. We have to choose the cross of mercy or receive the cross of justice.

To God, all people are alive in the eternal now. This means that every person who has ever lived, is living, or will live in the future is alive to God now. We pray for those who are in need of our prayers in our time. We pray for the repose of the souls of those who have passed. We pray for those in purgatory. We limit our prayers based upon our understanding of time.

I would like to introduce a radical idea for prayer. One not restricted by our understanding of time. We are not limited to praying for only those in our time, or the ones who have recently passed, or the one in purgatory. Because we pray to a God who is in the eternal now, we can pray for any person who has ever lived or will live in the future.

Yesterday was June 6, 2024. We remembered those who died at the invasion of Normandy eighty years ago. I urged my brothers in my Knights of Columbus council to take a few moments and say a prayer for those men who died that day and the days to follow on both sides of the line. Our prayers cannot change the past but God can use them to deliver his grace to those who need it at that time. Prayers are offered in love and love is never wasted with God. Love knows no bounds, including the bounds of time and space.

In the same manner, we can also pray for those who will come. We don’t know who they will be but we can still pray for their good. God will use these prayers to also give grace. We can pray for our children’s children. We can pray for our world. We can pray for those who will face their death. That love we offer will be used for their good. Love is never wasted with God.

So pray as it you had all of the time in the world because we pray to a God who does.

Hope

After Mass one Sunday I was approached by a parishioner with a question. She wanted to know if our resurrection is a given. When I said it was if we trusted in the Lord, she asked why then we say we hope for the resurrection in the Mass. Why would we hope for something we know will come?

The answer is that we have two types of hope. We have natural, or worldly hope, and we have supernatural hope.

Natural hope is the longing for something that may never be. I hope that the Cubs will win a World Series again in my lifetime. That may or may not happen. Chances are it won’t, so I hope all the more.

Supernatural hope is not the longing for something that will never be but the anticipation of a promise fulfilled. Jesus has promised that if we trust in him we will have everlasting life. We hope in the resurrection or we wait in anticipation for Jesus’ promise of everlasting life to come to fruition.

My hope is that the Cubs win the Series before my real hope in the resurrection is fulfilled.

Communities that play together pray together

Attendance in the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States has been in decline for decades. A lot of ink has been spilled on the reasons for this and a lot of thought has been put into how we can reverse this trend. The faith is on fire in places like Africa where people will literally put their life on the line to attend Mass. What is the difference between there and here? Why is the faith on fire in Africa but waning here?

At one point I would have answered that question with the word relevance. The Church in the US is getting smaller because a relationship with God has lost its relevance in our lives. We have replaced the one true God for a multitude of false gods that we give priority to. Ironically, the devil has used free will to lure people away from God by giving them an overabundance of choices. There is not just an overabundance of Christian religions to choose from, but an overabundance of things we can spend our time on. We no longer need to gather at a church to spend time with people. We no longer even need to actually gather with people to fulfill our need for social interaction. We can now do that from the safety of our phones and computer screens without actually meeting someone face to face. This gives us the ability to appear loving, caring, and compassionate when, in reality, we really don’t give a hoot for others. The more I think about this, the more I realize that it is not relevance or choice that has pulled people away from organized religion. The true root of the problem is love.

God is love, agape or sacrificial love. Sacrificial love is the highest form of love. It is a supernatural love that puts the good of the other before the self. We were created in the image and likeness of God. We were created in the image and likeness of sacrificial love. But we are fallen creatures who love imperfectly. Love must be learned. We are given this life to learn to love as God loves. Most have a difficulty getting past love of self.

There are three rules for love that even God with his infinite power and knowledge respects. The first rule of love is that for love to exist there has to be a giver and a receiver. Sacrificial love could not exist if there was nothing to sacrifice for. If God had to depend on his creation to receive his love, he would cease to be God, for there would be something greater than himself. This is one of the reasons we have a Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an infinite, sacrificial, agape love between themselves. God needs nothing from his creation.

The second rule of love is that love has to be freely given. Love cannot be forced. There is a particular term for forced love that it comes with a prison sentence. God cannot force anyone to love him or anyone else. Love is a gift freely offered. It is not always accepted or returned.

The third rule for love is that for love to exist there has to be a choice. If there is no choice but love then love is being forced. This is why the tree of knowledge was put in the Garden of Eden. This is one of the reasons there is suffering in this world. Suffering exists so that love can exist.

I have no memory of my father ever attending a church service other than for a wedding or a funeral. I have no doubt the love my father had for God. I can look back now and clearly see the goodness of God working through my father. He required that his children have a religious upbringing and the family church was Lutheran. My “official” religious training started when I was three years old. I was enrolled in the Sunday school program and never missed a week. I went two weeks a year for vacation bible school and added Wednesday nights when I got to confirmation age.

On confirmation day, we went from being children of God to adult members of the church. Mid-week school and vacation bible school became memories of our youth. We were now expected to actively participate in the adult service and were no longer allowed in the children’s classes. I missed the intimate instruction and really didn’t care for the service. My church life plummeted faster than a rock thrown down a well. Now an adult, church attendance was left up to me and I chose not to darken the doorstep of any church for a good eight years.

I was a fallen-away Christian. Why? I had spent all of my youth to that point in church. I was taught all about God and the bible. Jesus loves me, this I know. Cuz the bible tells me so. Hopefully many of you now have that song stuck in your head. If I was asked back then I think I would have told you that I knew God loves me. I would have probably also said that I loved God too. So why then did I get as far away from Church the second it was my choice?

Growing up, Church was an obligation. I did not have a choice in the matter. I was going and in that there was no debate. Love cannot be forced, so when you are forced to do something, you cannot truly love it. When you cannot love the church, you cannot truly love God either. When you separate the church from God you are left with nothing more than a building. You love the church because she is the bride of God and inseparable from him. You cannot love God and despise his bride.

The Catholic Mass acts as a conduit between space and time. The Catholic Church teaches that the Mass re-presents Jesus’ crucifixion on Calvary. I think a more accurate statement is that the Mass makes the crucifixion present to us in our time and place, although the supernatural reality of that is veiled to our eyes. To see the supernatural reality unveiled to us would remove all doubt and our faith would become knowledge. Another word for faith is trust. Trust in Jesus is what saves us, not our knowledge of who Jesus is. To see the supernatural reality of the crucifixion removes trust and leaves us with knowledge.

The Catholic Church teaches that attending Sunday Mass is an obligation; it is a requirement for being Catholic. Again, love cannot be forced, so when you are forced to do something, you cannot truly love it. Being forced to do something you do not truly love many times has the opposite effect and drives you away from it. Mass was not an obligation for me as I was converting from the Lutheran faith to the Catholic faith. The more I came to understand the faith, the more I came to love it and the more I came to love Christ’s bride, the more I came to love him.

That is the secret to bringing people back to the faith. The early Church was united in a common life. Because of the number of choices we have, we no longer share a common life. We gather together for forty-five minutes each week to worship God and then we go our separate ways. The first step to restoring the Church is restoring the communal life we used to share. We need to gather as a people for more than just worship. Bible studies and faith talks are great but they only bring in those who enjoy Mass and they do nothing to attract the youth who long to be anywhere but church.

Before covid happened, my parish offered coffee and donuts after all Masses. People from all walks of life came to this gathering, most notably were the young families with children. The parents gathered to talk about parent things while the kids played together. When covid hit all of this ceased. When we closed the churches, young families also ceased to come. We have never recovered from this. We have brought back donut Sunday and people are slowly starting to trickle back it. If the Church is going to have a future in the United States, we are going to have to get creative in finding ways to reestablish our community. Jesus is the head of the body but he is also center of our community. As the community grows the opportunity to fall in love with God also grows. When one is in love with God Mass is never just an obligation. Mass is an opportunity to be with God and with a family that we will be spending eternity with.

Three in One

Who is God?

Let us begin by first talking about faith. When I say the word faith, I would expect you would understand that as your belief in God and that is a valid understanding of faith. But, another word for faith is trust. Faith is what you put your trust in. When we are talking about religion, we are talking about faith in a God or gods. Aetheists are people who do not believe in God, but they still put their trust in something. For many, they put their faith in science, so science becomes their god.

The word religion means relationship. What makes the various religions of this world different from one another is their relationship with God. For example, Christians call God Father for he has revealed himself to be our Father in heaven. This is highly offensive to the Muslims because to them God is supreme and would not lower himself to call his creation his children. We have vastly different relationships with God. So, if we want to begin to understand the Catholic religion, that is the Catholic relationship with God, we have to begin by understanding how God has revealed himself to us.

The problem here is that we are trying to define an infinite God using very finite terms. In other words, we are trying to define the limitless by very limited means. It would be easier to pour all the waters in the ocean into a thimble than for us to fully define who God is. A creed is a statement of faith. Every Sunday we say our creed at Mass. Our creed says this about who God is –

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from True God. Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father. Through him all things were made.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and Son is adored and glorified.

That is a lot. Let’s break it down so we can better understand it.

I believe in one God. We do not have three individual Gods, but just one God who reveals himself to us in three unique persons. This is a triune God, three in one. We are human beings. It is said that God is being itself. More accurately, God is greater than reality. He has no beginning and no end. He exists outside of time and space. All of reality, all of time, from the very first moment until the very last moment, exists inside of God all at once. For God, every place, all of the vastness of space, heaven, hell, earth, and everything in between is here, every moment is now. There is no past, present, or future for God. There is just now and now is every moment all at once.

This one God manifests himself to us in three distinct persons. The first person of God is God the Father. As our creed says, through the Father all things were made, visible and invisible. We are natural creatures and live in the natural, or visible world. There is also the supernatural world which is invisible to us. The supernatural world is where spiritual beings like angels and demons dwell. It is also where all people who have passed from this world to the next are. The natural and supernatural worlds exist together but the supernatural is veiled to our eyes.

The second person of God is known as the Logos or the Word of God. In the fullness of time the Word humbled himself and became incarnate, meaning he took on flesh, becoming one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He came to reconcile us to the Father, repairing the damage that was done by the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden. He brought salvation and redemption to mankind. As our creed says, he was God from God, light from light, true God from true God, consubstantial with the Father. Consubstantial is a word that means of the same substance. Jesus and the Father are of the same stuff. The Father wasn’t one God and Jesus another. They were the same God.

Jesus was fully human and fully divine. He had a human nature and he had a divine nature and the two were never in conflict with one another. This is a challenge for people to understand. How can Jesus be 100% one thing and 100% another thing at the same time? No one can be 200%. Here is a visual that might help you to better understand how this works.

On the left side of the room we have a red light. When the light is on it fills 100% the room with red light. Everything in the room looks red. This represents Jesus’ human nature. On the right side of the room we have a blue light. When that light is on it fills 100% of the room with blue light. Everything in the room looks blue. This represents Jesus’ divine nature. When we turn both lights on the room is filled 100% with the red light and 100% with the blue light. The two do not compete with each other. Everything in the room looks purple. Now, if we take a box and place it in the center of the room, when we look at the left side of the box the box will be red. When we look at the right side of the box the box will be blue. When we look directly at the box the box will be purple.

We can see Jesus’ dual natures represented like this when we read scripture. Sometimes we see Christ’s human nature when he is doing something like weeping for his deceased friend or when he becomes angry in the temple. Sometimes we see his divine nature when he does things like forgive sins, heal the sick, or raise the dead. Most of the time we will see Christ’s combined natures working together.

The third person of God is the Pneuma, which is Greek for breath or wind. We refer to him as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Breath of God. In the creed we say that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified. In the beginning God, the Father, used his Holy Breath to proclaim one Word. That Word was Jesus and through that Word came forth all creation. All things were created through him. All things were created for him. He is before all things and through him all things are held together.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is what we call the Trinity. One God, three persons.

What is our relationship with God?

The English language is usually a vocabulary rich language, meaning we have many words for the same thing. Take for instance the word walk. To walk means to travel on foot between two points. Instead of saying walk I could say amble, stroll, lumber, sashay, trudge, stride, wander, trek, tread, or storm. Each of these words means to walk but in a particular manner. When we use them, you understand exactly how I am walking.

When it comes to the most important word in any language, English is sorely lacking. The most important word in any language is love. In English love means a whole variety of things. I love my wife. I love hockey. I love my pet squirrel. I love pizza. Love has been used in so many ways that it has almost become meaningless.

In Greek, which the New Testament of the bible was written in, they have many different words for love. We have eros, from which we get words like erotic. Eros is the love of passion, lust, and pleasure. We have storge, which is a protective love, like the love between parent and child, or patriotism, love for one’s country. We have ludus, which is a playful love. It is the affection between young lovers. We have mania, which is obsessive love. We have philia or brotherly love or friendship. From this we get words like Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. All of these types of love are earthly loves. They are types of love we share with one another. There is a greater love than these.

The highest form of love is agape. Agape is selfless, sacrificial love. It is unconditional and bigger than ourselves. It offers boundless compassion and infinite empathy for everyone. Saint Paul explains this love in 1 Corinthians in that famous passage we hear at almost every wedding.

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Corinthians 13: 4-8

If the essence of God could be captured in one word it would be agape. God is perfect sacrificial love. God has knowledge. God has power and authority. God is love. From this love all existence flows.

There are three rules for love that even God with his infinite power and knowledge respects. The first rule of love is that for love to exist there has to be a giver and a receiver. Sacrificial love could not exist if there was nothing to sacrifice for. If God had to depend on his creation to receive his love, he would cease to be God, for there would be something greater then himself. This is one of the reasons we have a Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an infinite, sacrificial, agape love between themselves. God needs nothing from his creation.

The second rule of love is that love has to be freely given. Love cannot be forced. There is a particular term for forced love and it comes with a prison sentence. God cannot force anyone to love him or anyone else. Love is a gift freely offered. It is not always accepted or returned.

The third rule for love is that for love to exist there has to be a choice. If there is no choice but love then love is being forced. This is why the tree of knowledge was put in the Garden of Eden. This is one of the reasons there is suffering in this world. Suffering exists so that love can exist.

One attribute of love is that love longs to grow. The Trinity is perfect on its own, but because God is love he longs to increase that love. Love is increased when it is shared. God created reality so that he may share his love with it. God’s love is infinite. It knows no beginning and no end. We were created by Love, for Love, through Love, to be loved, and to love. Let me clarify this a bit. We were created by Love, God the Father, for Love, God the Son, through Love, God the Holy Spirit, to be loved by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to love, God first and each other as God has loved us. This is the meaning of life.

Because God is all good and bestows on to us every good gift, including the breath in our lungs, we owe God our love, our adoration, and our worship. Observant Jews pray three times a day, morning, noon, and evening. It is what the Catholic Church based her Liturgy of the Hours on. The LOTH is the official prayer of the Church. It is broken up into seven periods – the Office of Readings, Morning, Daytime (broken up into Midmorning, Midday, and Midafternoon), Evening, and Night. All clergy are required to pray these hours. Deacons are only required to pray Morning and Evening hours. Priests and Bishops have to pray five. Many of the religious orders, the monks and nuns, they will pray all seven.

The Shema is the centerpiece of Jewish prayer. It begins with a verse from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. It goes –

Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength.

This verse applies to us just as much as it applies to the Jews. We are to love God above all other things. He is to be first in our lives. This is what we owe God for his unlimited love for us. We love God before all else. He comes before our spouses, our children, even our own lives. This is what it means to be in right relationship with God.

God is a Trinity. The Trinity is the perfect family. God wishes to adopt us into his family so that we can live with him forever in heaven. The choice is ours. He has shown us the way but it is up to us to follow that way. He has given us the Church to teach us this way.

One way we can visualize the Trinity is to look at a three-wicked candle. There is only one candle, but three individual and distinct flames. Each flame draws its life from the same wax. Each flame produces its own light and the flames never compete against one another. The wax they melt combines into one pool, indistinguishable from the other.

One candle - One God

Three flames - Three Persons of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

The pools of melted wax - Three individual wills, separate but indistinguishable from one another.

Fulfilling the Law

“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!”

Matthew 5, 17-18

The Mosaic Law was given to the tribes of Israel for a couple of different reasons. The first was to direct them how to live in right relationship with God and with one another. A secondary reason was to set them apart from the rest of the world. This was to keep them from becoming like the world, which ultimately leads away from God. They were meant to be the shining example of how humans were supposed to live. The Law itself did not set the tribes of Israel apart from the world but it was their obedience to God in following the Law that did.

Jesus told his disciples that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Even the most scrupulous Jew, who followed every jot and tittle of the Law, did not fulfill it. What made Jesus’ observation of the Law different?

One of the greatest Hebrew words is hesed. There is no direct translation of the word hesed into English. Words like mercy, love, compassion, grace, and faithfulness relate to the word hesed, but none of these fully grasps the concept. Hesed describes a sense of love and loyalty that inspires merciful and compassionate behavior towards another person. I have heard it said that being hesedic means to do more than the Law requires. To be called hesedic is one of the greatest compliments a Jew can give you.

Yet, Jesus teaches us of an even greater love than hesed. The Greek word used is agape. For Christians, agape is sacrificial love. It is the total giving of self for another. Hesed is the highest form of natural love. Agape is the fulfillment of hesed and is the perfect, supernatural love. God is agape. God is perfect, sacrificial love that knows no bounds.

So how did Jesus fulfill the Law? Jesus was the living Law come down from heaven. Being sacrificial love himself, he did not simply observe the Law but he lived the Law sacrificially. When fulfilled, the Law is not an observation that initiates an inward action. The Law is meant to be the beginning of sacrificial love, not just towards God, but towards all of creation. The Law, when lived inwardly, is useless. As we see in many of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus time, their hearts were closed to sacrificial love due to their pride of inward observance to the Law. St. Paul is our greatest example of someone puffed up with pride in his scrupulous observance of the Law. He cast it all aside when he learned of agape and the true reason for the Law.

As Christians, we are not called to simply obey the Ten Commandments. We are called to fulfill the Commandments. We fulfill the Commandments the same way Jesus did. We live them sacrificially. To sacrifice for the Law means to put the object of the Law before ourselves. Most of us are casual observers of the Law, obeying what it says when it aligns with our lifestyles.

Take for instance the first commandment – You shall have no other gods before me. Most of us can recognize the command to worship God. How often does this command fall second to sleeping in on Sunday, attending youth sporting events, vacations, skipping Mass because we don’t like the weather, or for fear that we may catch whatever illness is making the rounds? No one expects anyone to put their life at risk by traveling during inclement weather. Keeping people healthy was one of the reasons we were given when Mass was suspended during the covid chaos. But, to follow this commandment sacrificially means we need to be willing to die to worship our God. This is something our brothers and sisters in Africa do every day. They do not hesitate to walk eight or ten miles in all kinds of weather to attend a Mass, that if they were discovered, they would be martyred for their faith. To love God above all other things includes our very lives.

Fulfilling the commands sacrificially also extends to the commands we were given for how we live in right relationship with one another. Thou shall not commit adultery; the six commandment. For someone obeying the Law this means not to cheat on one’s spouse. For someone living sacrificially, we fulfill this command by giving our lives for our spouse. We love them by serving them. We are willing to die for them if necessary. When a spouse is sacrificing for another divorce, is not only not an option, it is not even a thought.

Because he fulfilled the Law through sacrificial love, Jesus was able to boil the whole law down to just two commandments –

“But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22: 34 – 40

We are to love both God and each other with the same love God has for us; agape, complete sacrificial love. This is what it means to fulfill the Law.