One of the false claims of secular culture is that Jesus was merely a great teacher who said insightful things about human life but never claimed to be divine. On the contrary, throughout the Gospels, Jesus clearly and unambiguously presents himself as divine, as he does in the Gospel reading for this Sunday. He states: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:19). If a mere human were to say that, we would consider the statement blasphemous. Only Jesus, who is God Incarnate, can make such a claim.
The Gospel passage for today was a key element of the development of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. One way to try to conceptualize the mystery of the Holy Trinity is to start with the premise that God is infinite love. Love, by its very nature, requires a love dynamic. In God, there is the Father, who is the One Who Loves. His love is received and reciprocated by the Son, who is the Beloved. The love that exists between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity is an eternal exchange of infinite love, which is not bound by time, but takes place in the eternal timeless now of God’s infinite nature.
Read more...
Photo Credit: Saint Mary of the Presentation Catholic Church (Geneva, Indiana) - stained glass, Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock, detail from Wikimedia Commons.
_-_stained_glass,_Behold_I_Stand_at_the_Door_and_Knock,_detail.jpg){kind=link}