{"id":59940,"date":"2011-06-18T03:11:24","date_gmt":"2011-06-18T03:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thesmokingpriest\/?p=59940"},"modified":"2011-06-18T03:11:24","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T03:11:24","slug":"the-mystery-of-god-and-communion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/06\/the-mystery-of-god-and-communion.html","title":{"rendered":"The Mystery of God and Communion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">St. Augustine was once confronted by a pagan leader who showed him his idol and said, &#8220;Here is my god; where is yours?&#8221; Augustine replied, &#8220;I cannot show you my God; not because there is no God to show but because you have no eyes to see him.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is clearly revealed to us throughout the New Testament.\u00a0 However, we already get a glimpse into this mystery in the first book of the Bible.\u00a0 <em>\u201cGod said, let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves\u2026\u201d <\/em>(Genesis 1: 26).\u00a0 Us?\u00a0 Ourselves?\u00a0 These words reveal to us the nature of God.\u00a0 God is one God, but three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.\u00a0 One God, not three Gods.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cThe mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.\u00a0 It is the mystery of God in himself.\u00a0 It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.\u00a0 It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith\u201d (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 234).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">We can look upon God as a communion of persons.\u00a0 We can see the image of God stamped into all of existence.\u00a0 Human nature, marriage, the family, human society and the Church are all icons of the Triune God who is a communion of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Man is a communion because man has been created as male and female.\u00a0 Adam is not complete until the creation of Eve. Pope John Paul II affirmed that \u201cman becomes an image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion\u201d (Theology of the Body, John Paul II, p. 163)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The marriage of man and woman is defined as an \u201cintimate community of life and love\u201d (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1603). \u00a0The intimate life of married spouses is an image of the interior life of the Blessed Trinity.\u00a0 \u201cAuthentic married love is caught up into divine love\u2026\u201d (<em>Gaudium et spes, <\/em>Vatican II, 48). \u00a0\u00a0Moreover, the Sacrament of Matrimony can be considered as the prototype of all of the sacraments \u00a0\u201cbecause all of the sacraments draw their essential significance and their sacramental power from the spousal love of Christ the Redeemer\u201d (The Theology of the Body Explained, Christopher West, p. 362).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Finally, the family, human society, and of course the Church are, in essence, communities or communions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Pope Benedict says that \u201cthe Church is Eucharistic fellowship\u201d (God is Near Us, p. 115). \u00a0\u00a0I find these words to be quite significant because they indicate that it is not enough just to go to Sunday Mass as a private spectator.\u00a0 Each parish is a community or communion of believers.\u00a0 As living members of the parish family, we are called not only to worship, but to participate in the community life of the parish.\u00a0 The parish is our church family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cFaith is a personal act \u2013 the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself.\u00a0 But faith is not an isolated act.\u00a0 No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone.\u00a0 You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life.\u00a0 The believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others.\u00a0 Our love for Jesus and for our neighbor impels us to speak to others about our faith.\u00a0 Each believer is thus a link in a great chain of believers.\u00a0 I cannot believe without being carried by the faith of others, and by my faith I help support others in the faith\u201d (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 166).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">As I stated in my new book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatherjames.org\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><em>Get Serious! A Survival Guide for Serious Catholics<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,<strong> <\/strong>I firmly believe that after every Eucharistic Celebration, whenever possible, there should always be some kind of fellowship activity.\u00a0 Moreover, sprinkled throughout the liturgical year, there should be well organized parish family life activities that provide an opportunity for the entire community to come together for fellowship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Community with other persons will make us human and allow us to come to a deep encounter with God.\u00a0 Community must exist in our families; it must exist in our neighborhoods; it must exist at school and in the work place; it must exist in our churches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">We all know that we live in an isolated and fractured world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">We can begin to change the world by building community right where we find ourselves planted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St. Augustine was once confronted by a pagan leader who showed him his idol and said, &#8220;Here is my god; where is yours?&#8221; Augustine replied, &#8220;I cannot show you my God; not because there is no God to show but because you have no eyes to see him.&#8221; The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":382,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,11,79,12,83,76],"tags":[78,19,34],"class_list":["post-59940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-catholic-spirituality","category-eucharist","category-evangelization","category-jesus","category-theology-of-the-body","tag-catholic-spirituality","tag-theology-of-the-body","tag-trinity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Mystery of God and Communion - The Smoking Priest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/06\/the-mystery-of-god-and-communion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mystery of God and Communion - The Smoking Priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"St. Augustine was once confronted by a pagan leader who showed him his idol and said, &#8220;Here is my god; where is yours?&#8221; Augustine replied, &#8220;I cannot show you my God; not because there is no God to show but because you have no eyes to see him.&#8221; The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/06\/the-mystery-of-god-and-communion.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Smoking Priest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-18T03:11:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Father James Farfaglia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Mystery of God and Communion - The Smoking Priest","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thesmokingpriest\/2011\/06\/the-mystery-of-god-and-communion.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Mystery of God and Communion - The Smoking Priest","og_description":"St. Augustine was once confronted by a pagan leader who showed him his idol and said, &#8220;Here is my god; 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