Monday, August 02, 2004

God's Fingerprints

God is, in His very essence, a Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father is (not "was"), before all eternity; the Son is begotten (not "made") of the Father eternally; the Holy Ghost proceeds from both, because the Holy Ghost is the manifestation of the love between the Father and the Son.

This essence, I'm discovering more and more, is God's fingerprint - and it's stamped all over the place.

It began with the Creation itself. Creation was an act of all three persons of the Trinity: God the Father spoke all things into existence; yet John 1:1ff. indicates (as do other NT writings, and the Nicene Creed) that it was through Jesus that all things were made; finally, the Holy Ghost hovered over the chaotic waters prior to creation.

When it was all said and done, God created His first-born and only-begotten human son: Adam. I'm open to correction here, but I do believe Adam is the only human to have been created directly by God, without the participation of a woman (unless you want to count the participation of "Mother Earth," c.f. Job 1:21, but that's another story).

Then, just as the Holy Ghost is the result of the love between Father and Son, and proceeds from both together, so also Eve is created: she is taken from the side of Adam, made of "human parts," but is also given the breath of life, an immortal human soul, by God.

In this case, Eve resembles the Holy Ghost.

Of course, it's a short skip and a jump from these early shadows to the New Testament fulfillments ... Adam wasn't the last man to go into a "deep sleep," have his side opened up, and his bride taken from that opening.

Our Lord, after having fallen into death, had His side opened, and His Bride, the Church, was symbolized by the blood (Eucharist) and water (Baptism). Thus again we see that the Church resembles the Holy Ghost, and has the very image of the Trinity stamped into her.

This same Trinitarian image is firmly stamped in the sacrament of matrimony. A man and a woman come together as one flesh, and the love that flows between them - if they aren't contracepting - will eventually result in a "proceeding" of a third person. The newborn child in any family is a picture of the Holy Ghost.

Of course that's one very good reason - the fundamental reason, I think - why contraception is an absolute evil. It effaces the image of the Trinity on earth - and I can only think of one antagonist who would want to ruin the Trinity's image: diabolos.

If only there was time, we could think about the Trinitarian images in the Mass ... but that's another subject for another writing.