Most Blessed Trinity - Year C "Response to Protestant Pastor"

 

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. All of us believe the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons one God.

Each person of the Trinity has a specific function. God, the Father, is the creator. Jesus Christ, the Son, is the redeemer. The Holy Spirit is the sanctifier. Yet, because each person is one with the other persons, all persons create, redeem and sanctify.

The Blessed Trinity is in scripture. For example, The Blessed Virgin Mary was the first human being God revealed the Blessed Trinity. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, asking Her if She would become the Mother of God. He said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (the Father), therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” (Lk 1:35)

The Trinity was also revealed at the Transfiguration and at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. At Our Lord’s Baptism, the Holy Spirit was seen in the form of a dove and the Father spoke and said, “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:16-17)

Jesus revealed the Trinity when he told His Apostles, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The Church teaches that when we are baptized, the Blessed Trinity comes to dwell within our heart, original sin and all personal sin is washed away, we become a member of the Church, and we become a child of God, such that we can cry out “Abba Father.” (Rom. 8:14-17) Through baptism we share in the divine life of the Trinity, as we become God’s children.

In the March 19^th, issue of the Harvey County Independent, a protestant pastor wrote an article called, “False Gospels Have Been Around Awhile.” When referring to what he said was a false gospel, he wrote, “It’s called the Jesus-plus gospel.” He said, “In another words, it is Jesus plus something else that saves us. Maybe it’s Jesus plus another holy book, of Jesus plus a creed….” He said, “The bottom line is this: There is one gospel message found in the Holy Bible, which teaches that Jesus and Jesus alone is sufficient to save us. If anyone, no matter who it is, tells you differently, they are teaching a false gospel.”

First, we must recognize these words from the Protestant pastor are a direct reference to what Catholics believe. When he refers to Jesus-plus, he is referring to the Sacraments and to Sacred Tradition of Catholics.

If taken strictly, which I doubt he means it in a strict manner, does he exclude the Father and the Holy Spirit and their role in saving men and women? We can’t separate the persons of the Trinity because they are perfectly one. Jesus is our savior, but the Father and the Holy Spirit participate in saving us.

When referring to “Jesus plus”, is the Protestant pastor also referring to the Church itself? But Jesus gave us the Church for a reason. The Church is “the instrument” in which Jesus saves us. Jesus said, “Peter, you are rock and on this rock, I will build my Church…” Jesus gave us the Church and leaders of the Church, to help save us. As St. Paul tells us, the Church is the pillar and bulwark of truth. (1 Tim. 3:15). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#86) states, “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."

The sacraments are the means, Jesus Himself chose, to save us. Jesus instituted all 7 sacraments.

Does the Protestant minister accept the need for baptism? Suppose for a moment he does. Then would baptism be a Jesus plus thing?

I am certain he does not accept Confession because very few ministers would. However, Jesus wants all to go to Confession and the early Christians did go to Confession to a priest. Confession is found in scripture, when Jesus told His apostles, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained”. (John 20:23) St. Justin, who died in 165AD explains that the early Christians confessed their sins to a priest. He said, “Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who . . . confess their sins to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience.”

The protestant minister rejects the Eucharist. But Jesus said, “This is my body given up for you (Luke 22:14)..And Our Lord said, “If you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will have eternal life”, (John 6:54). Non-Catholics say Jesus meant this symbolically. But if that were the case, then Jesus would have said it was only symbolic, especially when “many of His disciples left Him and would no longer follow Him”. (John 6:66). But He didn’t tell them it was symbolic, He let them leave. Why would He let many leave if He didn’t mean it literally?

The minister most likely also rejects, the Priesthood (bishops, priests and deacons), yet these are all in Sacred Scripture in (1 Timothy 3:1,8; 5:17). The early Church had them because Jesus wanted them. St. Ignatius of Antioch in 107AD, (only about 10 years after the last apostle died), shows us that the early Christians were receiving the Eucharist and that there were bishops, priests and deacons. He said, “Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice—even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God.”

Would the minister also reject Anointing of the Sick which is found in the book of James--"Is any among you sick? Let him call for the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." (Jas. 5:14–15).

Does he also reject Confirmation which is found in the Acts of the Apostles, “..they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 8:14-18)

All of these are in scripture. All of these were instituted by Christ. All these were done by the early Church. He is right when the minister said, we only need Jesus to save us. But He is missing something very important. And that is the means in which Jesus intends to save us. The means are the Church, the leaders of the Church and the sacraments, all of which Jesus is the source and how we come in contact with Him.

If one rejects the means Jesus desires to save us, would one also reject Jesus Himself?

The protestant pastor excludes all creeds. However, in the history of the Church creeds were necessary because of false gospels, which Catholics call heresies. For example, in 325, all the bishops gathered in union with the pope at Nicaea to clarify who Jesus is-- due to the Arian heresy. Bishop Arius denied the divinity of Jesus, which began to spread in the early Church and as a result a Creed was developed to help the people to understand, Jesus is fully God and fully man. We say the Nicene Creed every Sunday at Mass.

On another occasion, the Council of Ephesus in 431AD was called-- due to the Nestorian heresy, which claimed Mary gave birth only to the human Christ. The Council affirmed Christ is a divine person, who assumed human nature when conceived in Mary’s womb and therefore Mary is the Mother of God, because Mary is the Mother of Jesus, who is God.

The Nicene Creed helps us to know Jesus saves us because He is truly God and truly man. The Creed reminds us that there are three persons, and one God. It reminds us the Trinity is the same substance.

Without creeds (statements of beliefs), people can have the wrong understanding of who Jesus is. They can take scripture out of context.

We can clearly see this today. For example: Jehovah Witnesses deny Jesus is God. They also deny the Holy Spirit is God and they even state they do not believe in the Blessed Trinity. Another example: Mormons don’t believe Jesus is God. They believe Jesus is an angel. Muslims don’t believe Jesus is God, they believe He is only a prophet. (None of these religions believe in the Blessed Trinity).

If Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons accepted the Nicene Creed, they would believe Jesus is God and believe in the Trinity.

When any Christian church says, it does not need a creed, but only Jesus, it risks losing the understanding the fullness of who Jesus is. How would it be possible for Jesus to save us, if He were not fully God and fully man?

This is why in the Nicene Creed, we say, Jesus was “incarnated” (became man) by the Holy Spirit. He is fully God and fully man. Also in the Nicene Creed, we say, Jesus is consubstantial with the Father. We use the word, “consubstantial” in the creed because of a heresy which said Jesus and the Father are not the same substance.

Some religions have invalid baptisms. When I was an associate pastor at St. Francis in Wichita, I called one of the largest Protestant churches in Wichita and asked which formula they used for baptism. Because there were multiple ministers at that church, the pastor told me, “Each minister uses whatever formula he or she wants to baptize. Some ministers baptize in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Another minister baptizes in the name of Jesus. And some baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of Holy Spirit.”

But how can they choose to baptize in any other way, except the way Jesus instructed His apostles which is in Scripture. “Go.. and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of Holy Spirit.” The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said all other formulas are invalid.

How can those who subscribe to scripture alone, not use scripture when baptizing and how can they even refer to the Blessed Trinity, without tradition? The word “Trinity” is not in the bible. The tradition of the Catholic Church gave us the words, “Trinity, consubstantial, incarnation, etc…”

If one were to exclude everything outside of scripture, it would contradict scripture itself. The false gospel idea of “scripture alone”, is a man-made idea. In fact, no-where is “scripture alone” found in the bible. Quite the contrary, St. Paul in 2 Thess. 2:15 states, “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.” Even the last sentence of John’s Gospel proves there is more than scripture to what Jesus said and did. St. John said, “But, there are many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

Some non-Catholics exclude everything Jesus said and did, outside of scripture. Therefore, they are not accepting the fullness of what was revealed by God because of their false doctrine of scripture alone.

Just think about this for a minute. There was no such doctrine as scripture alone for the first 1500 years of Christianity. Were all those Christians wrong including the apostles and St. Paul? Or were the people 500 years ago who rejected the tradition of the Church wrong? The answer is clear, the “Jesus plus Gospel” (the Church, Church authority, the Sacraments, Sacred Tradition) all of these Jesus gave us----and make up the authentic Gospel, and that which lacks these is truly, “the false gospel”.

Today, let us rejoice in the Blessed Trinity and in our Catholic faith, handed down to us from the apostles. And may, Mary other Mary, help all to come to know who Jesus really is and all Jesus revealed. For God the Father, sent His only Son, to save us. He sent the Holy Spirit to form the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, which will last until Jesus comes again to the Judge of the living and the dead.