Catholic Theology And The Secular World
God's Plan Of Salvation
In a previous article, The Simple Math Of One God In 3 Distinct Divine Persons, I attempted to explain the mystery of three distinct divine persons as One God using as an example our multiple human relationship roles. Using the human understanding of fleshly relationship, God humbled Himself and came to earth in the flesh to help us learn of Him and His ways. The first lesson learned of the mystery of God's Spirit was that if we wish a relationship with Him, we must become humble servants of God and each other.
We come to a relationship with God, Father, by obedience to following what God, Son says to do and thus attain a wholeness (holiness) with God, found within the third relationship of the 'person' of God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the combination of Father and Son and bringing us to the knowledge that God is LOVE.
GOD loved us first by reconnecting with humanity through the spiritual aspect of ourselves — our souls. This connection is explained in the article, The Source Of One Faith In God. The reconnecting to communion with God is all about God's grace, a grace that brings us to Faith and trust in God's ways.
As the article explains, from the initial grace of God to a soul named Mary, there came to be born God's family, human and Divine, and in name called the Christian church on earth — formed by the Holy Spirit, and headed by God's ONLY Divine Son, Jesus. Jesus appointed an earthly authority to guide the disciples of His way upward to the triumph of Heaven.
The reason for the One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of Jesus Christ is to grow our Faith in God, Father, through His One Divine Son's teachings. In this Faith, we come into a Holy communion with the Spirit of Love that brought about the unified Spirit of God, Father, and Son of God and in a Holy communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ. A mutual understanding of the eventual destination from which we came: HEAVEN! There comes a taste of Heaven in all the consolations we experience on earth of JOY,
J-esus, O-thers, and Y-ourself, for being a part of God's family, as explained in Heaven's Reflection On Earth.
As stated in the Lord's Prayer, God's will be done — that we come to know God's love and give that love He gave to us first by serving others through the multiple types of relationships we have with each other. Though there are many relationships to our one personhood, we are guided by LOVE in all relationships by our knowledge and understanding of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One Holy Family of God held together by the Sanctifying Graces of our incarnate God, Jesus Christ.
About the Author
Born and baptized in infancy into the Catholic Church, I have always been a practicing Catholic, living the gift of faith in God, with wisdom now understanding such living does take ‘lots of practice.’ For me, over 45 years worth of practice -- and that is as much as I will say about my chronological age. Please note by this introduction that I do enjoy lighthearted humor, which led to my 'call' to pursue the vocation of cartoon illustration. Such vocation is a very competitive field yet I do feel God directed my steps to both earning my daily bread and honing the illustration ability via the field of pre-press print production in such areas as community newspapers, retail advertising print production, and small print shop laying out text and image to be visually appealing.
From the repetitively doing of the graphic artwork of pre-press production, I came to realize that I can not only write with a picture (cartoon) but I can draw with words. What also came to be through the daily, dutiful, and disciplined service work for a living was the ever growing knowledge of my Catholic faith, as I persevered in 'offering up,' best I understood that, at each stage and age of my life, as I attended Catholic Mass weekly, and later in life daily Mass. Indeed the work-a-day world takes a lot of endurance and I found that attending daily Mass before going to the daily job in a print shop gave me an amazing 'strength' and 'endurance.'
I hope the articles I write for Catholic365.com are down-to-earth and fun, and that I have helped others to understand how special the Catholic faith practice is, and the grace that comes through the Catholic Church.
