Bread of Life Voice

When the Christian song ‘God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost come down’ is being rendered, an uniformed fellow may readily expect the coming of three Gods from heaven. Such hope may not be real in actual sense because we have only one God.

But in that one God, there are three persons – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Their three persons manifested both in creation and ‘recreation’ of Man.

In Genesis 1:26, when man was about to be made, the plurality of the persons was made manifest: Let us make man in our image. And in Luke 1:35, Angel Gabriel in response to Mary’s question said, ‘the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’ 

As upheld in the Council of Constantinople II in 553 AD, we do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the ‘consubstantial Trinity’ (CCC 253). The three persons do not share one divinty among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire, thus by nature one God.

Further still, the three persons are distinct from one another. As held in the Council of Toledo XI in 675 AD, ‘He is not the Father who is the son, nor the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.’

In relation to their origin, they are distinct from one another. ‘It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds’ (Lateran Council IV, 1215, DS 804)

The principal lesson from message of Trinity is unity. In our families, there must be mutual cooperation and respect. Love should reign, and should bind the members of family together – the father, the mother and the children.

Moreover, there should be unity of the family, the church and the State. The policies of the State should enhance the lives of her members. Thus when the State owes her workers their salaries, she is invariably destroying the family which is the bedrock of every society. 

Conclusively, as there are three persons in one God, we must learn to live together as one, irrespective of our different personalities, ethnicity, languages, cultures and colours. We are one though many.

Shalom.