The Holy Trinity
by Rev. Father Josef von Zieglauer
(translated by Elisabeth Meurer)
„In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit“: On the
orders of Jesus, this is the way we are all supposed to be baptized.1)
He is the second person of the Triune God, sent by the Father „to
reveal to everyone the realization of the mystery which had been hidden
in eternity in God, the Creator of the universe...”2)
Now, concerning God, we are not allowed to think and believe anything
else than that He is one God in three persons: the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
This is a mystery of faith, an insight which is only accessible to us
by the revelation of God. We would never have been able to attain it,
nor would we have been in a position to dare pretend that we had
explored or discovered such things by our own insight. However, God’s
mysteries have the following characteristic: They are too rich, too
bright for our minds. But if we accept them with faith, we can, in its
light, understand and judge everything which we see in the world more
correctly and fruitfully. This is comparable to the sunlight: The sun
is too bright for our eyes, we cannot look in it without going blind.
But it is only the sunlight by which the whole world discloses itself
to us with its richness, its beauty and sensibility. The same is true
for faith. Hence you can understand the words of the holy Doctor of the
Church, Anselm of Canterbury (+ 1109): “Credo ut intelligam”, i. e.: I believe in order to understand (better).
God the Father - the Creator and Lord
We start with God the Father. The first basic truth of faith says:
“There is only one God.”3) Without this truth, we cannot be saved. It
is necessary “necessitate medii”; so it is necessary to attain
salvation. There is no possibility to be justified before God without
this faith.4) The second basic truth is added: “God is a fair judge who
rewards good and punishes evil.” Is the one, true God difficult to be
recognized? We see so many things in the world and search for their
causes. From the traces we can deduce things or events which we have
not actually seen or experienced. If there are unexpected changes in
our field of vision, we search for their causes at once.
The same is true for the whole world. A child already looks with
curiosity and thirst of knowledge into the world which is presented to
it. The more our sense develops, the more we ask: ‘Why do things
exist?’ or ‘Where do they come from?’ We also draw the further
conclusion: Why am I there? For I could also not be there. Or: Why is
there anything after all? Those questions arise from the basic
experience of nothingness where we have come from, from contingency, as
philosophers call existence which has come from nothingness. This is
what the Maccabean mother already taught to her youngest son.5)
We are amazed at the variety of all events, the more we progress in the
recognition of the world and of nature. This amazed question leads to
the recognition of an almighty, omniscient, highly wise cause, namely
God. It is only one God. He must be there, if there is anything at all.
Finally no other cause is possible. By the way, he is a good, almighty,
even fatherly God.
We get further on in our research. Wherever we find sense and order,
reasonable activity, organization – in a household, in a factory or in
a community, we infer from this that there is a wise, providing father
or mother or director of the factory. For without this providing
guidance, this order and this trouble-free effectiveness cannot be
created. When looking at the world, we therefore recognize: There is
one God who guides the stars, the winds, the growth of the plants, the
variety of animals’ lives and their whole interaction. He is infinitely
great and mysterious, full of wisdom, richness and fatherly goodness,
but also full of majesty and eminence. We are His creatures, we are
obliged to Him – not the other way round. The fact that we exist after
all is a free gift of God. This requires an adequate response in our
behavior. We have to submit to Him, to respect the order which we can
recognize, to praise God in view of the sensible order of the world
that we find. For even the creatures which are not endowed with reason
praise God in their own way.6)
Our submission to God’s plan is to be voluntary. Unfortunately, it can
also be refused. We experience this already in human relations: in each
family, each community and in each company. Whoever has become part of
a community and is secure in it has to obey to its order. Otherwise he
will – at least in a company – be excluded or punished for being
guilty. On the other hand, the willing and obedient person will be
rewarded and honoured. Merit and guilt are the facets of our free will.
What is already valid in the community of man must be even more
important in our behavior towards God. Therefore the second basic truth
says: “God is a fair judge who rewards good and punishes evil.” So man
can recognize the existence of God as well as the fact that he depends
on Him and is obliged to submit to Him.
We find that the recognition of this fact is clearly based on the
revelation in the Old Testament and on Jewish tradition. Despite
various aberrations, there are, however, to be found some traces in the
old pagan religions as well. Although the heathens had confused ideas
about God, they nevertheless felt the moral obligation to submit to
God. Let us take the “TAO” of the Chinese as an example, the harmony of
the universe; and adapting to it is moral commitment. On this principle
they built a mighty and in its way well-organized state. They also
created a rich culture. St. Francis Xavier S.J. (+ 1552) admired it so
much that he asked the Pope for the best missionaries, so that the
Chinese might also see the true light of the Gospel. Furthermore, we
can think of the Romans. They highly estimated the “pietas”, piousness,
reverence towards divinity and its order. This enabled them to create a
system of laws corresponding to natural law which is still appreciated
today. In the Old Testament God made the “Chosen People” accustomed to
obedience to his commandments – in a mighty and often also severe way.
For owing to human error, the spirit of rebellion has hat its
disturbing influence among the heathens as well as among the Israelites.
In fact, a series of misapprehensions present themselves to the
insubordinate person. However, all these misapprehensions lead to the
one conclusion, namely to the termination of the submission to God, i.
e. The rebellion against God (emancipation). The person who does not
want to believe and to submit to God uses many excuses.
The first thing to present itself as an explanation for any event is
mechanical causality. The heathens already tried to see the world as a
perpetuum mobile, an eternal dying and development where good and evil
are only necessary steps of development. The philosophers Johann
Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814) and Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831)
with their dialectics thought that they had discovered a different
explanation, namely the necessary contradiction of antithesis and
thesis which then leads to synthesis in order to cause an essential
leap forward and by this a new antithesis again.7)
The above mentioned recognition of an almighty, omniscient, fatherly
cause is rejected as childish and naive. The insights of science about
evolution, the development of the cosmos and consequently of our earth
as well show that there is always a cause for any change in its
procedure. This can lead us into recognizing a mechanical, chemical,
physiological necessity for anything that happens. In the same way you
can observe the procedure of production in a factory producing parts
for vehicles, the causes and effects. But if I do not know the final
product, I do not understand the purpose of the parts. If the final
product is not yet finished, the whole procedure of construction must
already be planned, calculated and designed. This is only the case if
someone has completely thought out all this.
This is the way the evolutionists see the development of the world:
They examine the causes, they even see the final product: a nice,
habitable, rich world full of sensibility and order. But they do not
want to admit the one thing, namely the fact that there must be someone
who has planned all this. Instead of accepting the inventiveness and
omnipotence of the Creator they prefer assuming an undetermined force
which must be in the things, a blind will ruling everything or the
absolute where you cannot understand how this is supposed to work.
However, they accept anything except for a Creator. Furthermore, the
view of the beauty, the richness and the sensibility of the creation is
more and more obscured by utopian visions of the future. However, these
lead straight to misuse and destruction of the order given by God, of
the beauty and sensibility. That is why they are so desperately looking
for new values today. Doesn’t it say already in the story of Creation
that on the sixth day, God finished His work, that He blessed it and
made the seventh day a day of rest, a day of worshipping and honouring
the Creator?8)
Those theories of a necessary and inevitable development which are used
to explain the whole world history lead to seeing the values in
relative terms. For the sake of development former views and judgments
are considered to be of the past and therefore no longer binding. They
put all their heart in progress without knowing what this progress will
bring along! In recent history this has led to bloody revolutions, to
the decline of all values, to rebellion against any order in family,
society and the states, to blindness with regards to the order of
nature and to the sinful claim that all this was inevitable progress:
The rapid development of science and technology has only confirmed this
attitude. So the belief in the Lord and God obviously is a corrective
of such a wrong development of things – according to the following
quotation of the Bible: “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.”9)
Whit the above mentioned development they have omitted God because they
do not want to worship God. The worship of God was of special
importance in the Old Testament as well as among the heathens, although
the latter worshipped false gods. It had an eminent rank in social
order. Especially the sacrifice was the most meaningful sign of
submission to divinity. In the modern practice of religion this
submission has been almost completely suppressed. The ancient heathens
already foresaw this in the myth of Prometheus who stole the fire from
Zeus and brought it onto the earth. How much this is similar to today’s
development where man wants to seize the omniscience and omnipresence
of God by means of the knowledge and the use of the electromagnetic
waves. Of course the new insights offer unforeseen possibilities. But
there is also the risk of the total control over mankind and its
enslavement. For God is Lord and Father who loves His creatures; the
false gods are tyrants, demons seducing and enslaving mankind!
God the Son - Wisdom and Truth
Now let us talk about the second person in God. Let us keep in mind:
“There is only one God!” That is what our Credo says. But God, the
Lord, has let us look even deeper into the mystery of His life. For He
let the eternal word come into the world. “In the beginning was the
word”10), the Gospel of John starts. I would never have the audacity to
make such a statement if it had not been revealed to us by divine
grace. After this revelation, can we say anything about this mystery?
I will try: When in our childhood, we heared: God is eternal, He has
always existed, He will always exist, the following thought already
came to our minds: Now, what did God do throughout the whole eternity
when He was all alone? The answer was: God is infinitely rich and
glorious in Himself, so that the whole universe is not even like “the
drop in the bucket”. Yes, this is the mystery of godly life. God is
spirit, and spirit means recognizing and intending, deciding
deliberately, and the decision arises from love. It is the movement
towards good.
As there is only one infinite God possible, the object of His cognition
can only be His own perfection. However, for recognizing and loving the
other person is required and the word expressing the subject of what is
recognized. That is the only way spiritual life is. From there we also
see that the entire created world with its beauty, its sensibility and
its richness of gifts and possibilities would make no sense if it were
not recognized: cognition is the light which brings everything to the
light and to the conscience. And the word is the account of what has
been recognized. The more comprehensive and faithful the recognition
is, the more expressive and faithful is the word.
So the interior life of God can only consist in God recognizing His own
perfection eternally or better: in His eternal present – and expressing
it in the spiritual word. Now, we humans can only see the outlines of
what this looks like. But according to God’s revelation, this fact is
beyond doubt. This is the begetting of the Son by the Father. The word
is the true image of the recognized glory of the Father, the Son is the
image of the Father: “The Father and I are one.”11) And if we accept
the revealed word of God, namely that God created man as His image and
as similar to Him12), then we can better understand the process within
Trinity which is called begetting. Begetting is a procedure coming from
nature: The begetting of the spirit consists in recognizing and
expressing this recognition. Man is also a spiritual being. Therefore
he also needs the other person. The first “other person” is God. From
Him we have received everything. But He created the male and female. We
also need the other human person. Only in this way life becomes more
beautiful and rich; we express our insights to the other person in the
word and obtain other insights in the word of the other person. Only by
mutual interchange, mutual communication and learning the whole
richness of human life can develop.
So God’s word, the eternal Son of God, became a human being and lived
among us.13) The godly word is light, because it is the truth and we
depend on this truth. But “the light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not comprehended it.”14) Here the following is valid: He
who does not accept it remains in the darkness.15)
By this we see that we need the word, the communication for the
development of life, namely the communication of the truth. Jesus, the
Son of God, came into the world to give evidence of the truth.16) But
Pilate, the governor, shrugged saying: “What is truth?”17) Now, we
depend on truth. But alas, if it is not suitable for the defective ego,
truth far too often has to give way to error, to lie in communication.
So in today’s flood of information communication far too often is
disinformation. We see how urgently truth is needed. Woe if it is
suppressed by sources of information full of interests – economic,
political, marketing-orientated ones! Of what a topic interest is today
the following word of the apostle: “And the light shines in the
darkness, but the darkness has not comprehended it!”18)
Especially from the age of enlightenment on people began to strive for
acquiring knowledge and forming judgments by using their own reason.
Man is to make himself free of the mental immaturity caused by his own
fault and to use his own reason. Man has been led to this attitude by
the many findings and discoveries of natural sciences, of historical
research and of source research. This attitude has filled him with a
far too strong self-assurance. However, we cannot overlook the fact
that without adopting the insights of other people no enlargement,
extension and progress in knowledge is possible. Don’t we recognize
that, when adopting insights of other people, we may also be exposed to
errors? The same is true for the adoption of scientific discoveries,
especially if the arts are concerned: The different schools show the
possibility of error. Scientific discoveries can be verified in the
experiment, i. e. They can be proved to be true. In arts, this is by
far more difficult. The acceptance of judgments in arts may far too
often be influenced by personal moods, sympathies and basic attitudes.
Set aside today’s flood of information with its gleaming diversity and
loudness, it is possible, owing to the discoveries of experimental
psychology and the methods of group dynamics, not to transmit knowledge
but to manipulate people so that they get attitudes, wishes or show a
certain behavior in consuming, which have been determined in advance.
This is not the spirit of truth but of the adversary, the Prince of
this World and the “father of lie”, as our Lord called him.
On this background we can guess the love of the Father in Heaven: that
He sent the Word, the Son, the revelation of truth, into the world: the
revelation of the mystery which had been hidden in eternity in God, the
Creator of the universe.19)
Therefore the following is true: “Be concerned above everything else
with the Kingdom of God and with what He requires of you, and He will
provide you with all the other things.”20) For: “Will a person gain
anything if he wins the whole world but his soul suffers?”21) Not the
world is our aim, our true home, but Heaven, the eternal communion with
God. What a courage and what a challenge it is to counter this world
with these principles, that world which is only concerned about its own
pleasure. So Jesus, the Son of God, the Father’s image, has come as a
man in order to live among us, to make the truth known to us in human
words, the eternal truth (!), by His life in order to be our example
and to lead our way, by His cross and by sacrificing His own life in
order to atone for us and to defeat the false offers of happiness from
the world (today, these are especially: machines and sex) in order to
open us by doing so the entrance to heavenly, never ending joy. This is
the priority of the revealed word to all earthly curiosity, thirst of
knowledge and happiness. This is the dogma, the word of God in whom we
believe, not because of our mental powers but because of the
truthfulness and omniscience of God, who cannot lie and not be
mistaken.22)
That is what Jesus preached and achieved by sending the apostles
appointed by Him and their successors and, by expressly predicting that
their preaching would be reliable, transmitted to His church. But as
the children of this world are no fools either, as experience shows and
our Lord Himself admitted, for often they are smarter than the
children of the light 23), they have not been afraid of using many
valuable principles of the divine doctrine as a label for wrong and
deviant attitudes. For the devil often appears as an “angel of the
light”! However, the following is true: “But even if we or an angel of
the light should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one
I preached to you, do not believe it!”24)
That is why the dogma, the doctrine, the continuous annoyance of the enemies of the truth, belongs to the word of God!
There are countless attempts to falsify faith on which the magistery
had to comment with divine authority. Hence a large number of dogmas,
i. e. of binding explanations of faith and corrections. Of course no
one is obliged to know them all, something that would hardly be
possible. But every catholic is obliged to know the most important
revelations mentioned in the Credo, the Commandments of God and all
binding commandments of the church and the necessary aids of grace. All
these things are summed up in the catechisms. As the protestant
deviants separated themselves from the living magistery and only accept
the Holy Scripture as the only source of their faith, they almost
necessarily split up into so many different ‘churches’. In order to
grant a certain cohesion among his followers even Martin Luther
(1483-1546) wrote a catechism of his own to commit them to his
interpretation of the Holy Scripture.25) In this regard the catholic
catechism is a necessary support and a protection against arbitrary
dealing with the Holy Scripture. As it has been totally submerged today
in public education in the post-conciliar ‘church’ as well, we find the
much lamented serious ignorance among a very large number of Catholics.
Today the dogma is often considered as a straightjacket for our brains,
as a blinker restraining our thinking but no longer communicating the
word and the wisdom of God and His light which allows us to get
marvelous insights into God’s greatness and love; this is what I try to
show in these expositions. Furthermore, any scientist, technician and
artist knows that he can achieve his work only if he strictly adheres
to the rules of his subject.
Another reason for the hostility against the dogma is presented to us:
the concern for peace in the world. Jesus said: “Peace is what I leave
you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world
does!”26) Wasn’t it already the devil who made the following proposal
during the third temptation of Jesus in the desert: “All this I will
give you, if you kneel down and worship me!”27) As if he were saying:
Why are we going to argue? If we two stay together, then the whole
tension will be gone.
Similarly they want to be more careful today with the claim to truth of
the catholic religion – in the course of the understanding among the
religions. Only recently the diocesan delegate for the dialogue with
the Jews stated that they wanted to put more emphasis on that which
they had in common with the Jews, the catholic church having more in
common them than with other religions: Indeed we have the whole Old
Testament in common, and in the New Testament we can notice the deep
rooted ness in Jewish faith: Jesus Himself was a Jew as well, He had
grown up in their tradition, a rabbi as there were more, only an
especially charismatic one etc. Now, if we presume that Jesus is like
this, then this Jesus would have had to answer differently to the high
priest’s question in front of the Sanhedrin: “Are you the Son of God?”
For example: “No, it was not meant like that. It is always the people
who are adding something. You know: The miracle is most useful for
faith: One says he felt it, another person passes it on saying that he
saw it etc. So the image that they had of me was transfigured with the
aureole of divinity. However, I only wanted to emphasize the spirit of
the Thora in contrast to the Pharisees’ narrow-minded fixation on
trivialities. I simply wanted to help people. So they made me God.” If
Jesus had said so, everything would have ended in disgrace, then there
would have been neither redemption nor Christendom. However, the Jews
then would never have got this global importance which indeed they only
owe to Christendom. In fact, for the Christians the Jews are still the
“Chosen People” where the Savior has come from. The Jews certainly
played a negative role in the case of Jesus. But according to the words
of the holy apostle Paul they will accept their Savior at the end.28)
The revelation of the Son of God shows one more thing: He is of one
nature and essence with the Father, with all the eminent
characteristics, but His relation with the Father is the relation of
the Son. Furthermore, as Son of God who became a man, He is also in the
relation of subordination to the Father29), but without His dignity and
His Divine Majesty being diminished. On the other hand the Father
recognizes His glory in the Son and expresses it in the Word which
completely reflects this glory. In His glory the Son sees the image of
the Father. He loves the Father like a Son, brought forth by the
Father. This means subordination in love. And the Son showed this
subordination by His obedience on earth, an obedience until death:
“Father, take this cup of suffering away from me. Not my will, however,
but your will be done!”30) By doing so, Jesus ennobled and sanctified
subordination. Ignoring this revelation men have today been led to feel
subordination to be belittling, discriminating, and this is what has
led to this strange new discovery of women’s dignity – to women’s
emancipation. It is a real invention of the devil who in this way has
destroyed woman, her characteristic and her kindness. There are some
pagan religions, and especially Islam, which offend woman’s dignity.
And these caricatures are used by the devil in order to make people
hate the subordination of woman!
Subordination is not a shame. Serving God means ruling!31) The refusal
of subordination has already reached the point that even children are
put off it and a partnership between children and parents is
established instead of the obligation to obedience! Oh, if only the men
recognized, in their wives, the dignity of woman from the example of
Mary, the Virgin and Mother of God, then no women’s emancipation would
be required!
This is the task which the Divine Son of Man carried our: to atone the
pride and the ingratitude of men by His obedience until death. The
Cross is the weapon with which our Lord Jesus fought the destructive
and tempting power of the devil.
The Holy Spirit – a Guide in Love
The Holy Spirit, the third divine person, is the breath of the Father’s
love to His Son and of the Son’s love to His Father. While the Father
recognizes, in His Son, the entire glory of His nature and the Son
sees, in His Father, the origin of His perfect image, they both breathe
the Spirit of love, of joy, of infinite happiness towards each other.
This is how the church explains the revelation of the Holy Trinity.
Love is the divine life, the Holy Spirit. This is life within God: God
is love.32) Man has been created as the image of God and as similar to
Him, as the image of God, and the fact that he is the image of God
consists in an intellectuality in cognition and will.
By inventing the electronic brains man has created for himself an
instrument being by far superior to the human brain – which is often
unreliable – with regards to exactitude, quickness and prompt
availability of a countless number of data. But the computer certainly
can help us with obtaining insights; nevertheless it remains a machine.
It does not recognize anything but only provides the material for us
like the scripture for example. Only our cognition enlarges the view,
creates interest, curiosity, perhaps also joy or rejection. Spiritual
recognition means the flourishing of life, of joy, of love and of
happiness. It is the will which makes its decisions according to
recognition, which forms the inner attitude of man, which can arouse
love, the delight at beauty and good, and which guides our inner
attitude. Love makes our life worth living even in sorrow and disaster.
The refusal of love makes man fall back into an attitude formed by
self-interest considering the other person as a mere disturbance and
burden. So the will forms our moral value and our responsibility for
our own decisions. The revelation of God in all the richness of the
world, in its indication of God’s mercy which shows itself in the
history of salvation is to arouse in us the love of God and the
grateful delight at Him and devotion to Him. However, as the world and
the men are troubled by negative use of their will, by saying “No” to
God, all this also has its dark sides, and the consequence is the
possibility of further rebellion, hostility, cursing and of bad wishes.
We are exposed to this decision. In this case our help is the
revelation of God which the Son has brought to us: It is not this world
which is our home, it will pass as the church often says in its
blessings when it calls on Christ, the Savior, “Who will come to pass
judgment on the living and the death and the world by the fire.”33)
So our home is not the world. “Do not love the world.”34) It is only a
place of transition and probation. Our home is Heaven where we are with
God. It is the Holy Spirit who is infinite love, who can encourage and
strengthen our will to “desire heavenly things”.35) Any mere earthly
enthusiasm comes to an end, often to an abrupt one. Nevertheless men
can let themselves be carried away very much, very often even into
doing very dubious things. Only think of the hysterical attacks which
then easily degenerate into commotion and brawls. But there you can
also see that man is capable of enthusiasm, that it can even become a
‘motor of life’. However, this ‘motor of life’ can also lead to
accidents, if it is misled.
“Our heart is restless until it rests in You, oh God.”36) Today
Buddhism is considered by many western intellectuals as a religion
similar to the Christian one. It even attracts many people strongly;
however, owing to a lack in knowledge of their own Christian religion
and the considerable secularization of our life in wealth, this force
of attraction is considered by many people as an effective
counterweight. Many things there are similar to Christianism: the
modesty of needs in the monks’ life aiming at the renunciation of the
satisfaction of their needs in order to keep themselves free of
unnecessary burdens. For any pleasure only brings along suffering. And
one final thing is also attracting: compassion which can make us become
generous people relieving the pains of other beings. All this seems to
be very similar to Christianism, and some people think that they find
it to an even larger extent in Buddhism than among us.
However, Buddhism is not a real religion, for religion means: bond with
God. Buddhism has a rather very negative attitude towards the world:
Its aim is the Nirvana which is not described more precisely, the
flight from all earthly burdens. Buddhism certainly recommends
compassion: compassion is nice and has an eminent rank especially in
the Christian faith. But compassion is not the whole love. By the way,
can man wish to be pitiable? Well, if one has sunk deep into a hole,
then he is glad to find a good Samaritan. Compassion can also be
embarrassing: “I pity you!” This is often a word of contempt one wants
to hurt another person with. Such compassion is an offense!
Compassion can be embarrassing in another way as well. Goethe already
expressed this in his prologue of Faust I, when after the angels’
hymn of praise regarding God’s Creation, Mephisto, the devil, is asked
by God if he has not to say something as well and answers: “I do not
know to say a thing about the sun and the worlds. I only see how men
slave away. They pity me in their days on earth...!” There we already
find the following blasphemy: “Couldn’t you create a better world?” It
was by compassion that the old snake already tempted our progenitors to
be disobedient to God: “Did God really forbid you ...?”37) Shouldn’t
this make us think if we see how the modern church, which still calls
itself catholic, sees its only purpose of being in simply helping
people, especially the excluded ones: People whose marriages failed,
sexual perverts among others. Help is offered to anyone, even to the
detriment of God’s Commandments which alone can strengthen man in his
dignity and which are the way to salvation. The mission of the church
is not to make life on earth as bearable as possible but to announce
the Kingdom of God, the praising of God and to show the eternal
destination, namely Heaven, to which we are all called. However, the
only way to reach this destination is the Cross. Jesus says: “Be
concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what
He requires of you, and He will provide you with all these other
things.”38) Taking ones cross is only possible in love, in the entire,
comprehensive love. By one-sidedly emphasizing compassion according to
the modern conception of many people in the ‘church’, namely that they
are only advocates of the weak, hereby is shown the true face, the
dangerous artfulness of the seducer: We want to help you in your
misery; we do not have to offer anything else which is worth loving. A
better world then? Anyone can recognize that this remains a utopian
dream. All those people wanting to create a better world have not
achieved this. What about even more technology and technical progress?
Anyone sees that this does not bring along happiness either but always
new burdens and dependencies. Love is more than compassion and
helpfulness. These indeed belong to a Christian life. However, love is
also amazement, admiration, longing. Withholding the longing for the
greatest happiness, for the communion with God, from the faithful in
favor of mere earthly improvements, this is no love!
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth! Basically we want to know the
truth. It obviously is the motivation for all thirst for knowledge and
curiosity. And we would all be disappointed if the insights which we
believed in proved themselves to be wrong. That is why only the truth
is worth loving! Jesus confessed in front of Pilate: “I was born
and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the
truth.”39) And therefore the church established by Jesus is the
messenger of the truth. Hence the mission of Jesus to the apostles
appointed by Him: “Go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel
to all mankind. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever
does not believe will be condemned!”40) So Jesus preaches an obliging
doctrine which is unparalleled. If someone makes a speech, he has to
strive for the approval of his audience by proving his competence and
by clever rhetoric; but he cannot order people to believe. Only God can
do this. Therefore the teacher delegated by Christ must strictly adhere
to the doctrine the latter instructed to teach. The former will also be
credible if his own actions correspond to the doctrine. But even if he
fails to do so, the obligation remains: “You must obey and follow
everything they tell you to do; do not, however, imitate their
actions.”41)
Christ only provided the apostles with this authority and gave them the
guarantee of infallibility. Therefore the church is the community of
all baptized people, so of those who promised to believe in the
revealed truths when they where baptized and who obey the Pope and the
bishops. So there has always been made a difference between the
teaching and the listening church. In this context it is clear that the
teachers have to listen as well: to Christ and His order. Today you
hear some people say: “We are the church.”42) In this way everyone
seems to be involved in the church’s task of teaching. A conspicuous
symptom of this view is the rather large number of students of theology
whereas there is at the same time an absence of vocations to priesthood.
The revelation of God has come onto us by the Holy Scripture and by
oral (apostolic) tradition. Without the tradition mentioned we could
also misunderstand the Holy Scripture. The doctrine of the church is
summed up in the catechism. It contains the doctrine about the history
of salvation, the Commandments, the means of grace, especially the
seven sacraments, which has been authenticated by the church. By oral
propagation, by preaching and in religious education, these truths are
continuously explained and recommended to be observed. Whoever changes
the meaning of these truths, manipulates or even changes them, cannot
claim to faith and obedience! So already in the past vigilant faithful
resisted the errors of preachers who were suspected of heresy or who
indulged in it. Think for example of Nestorius (+ approx. 451). Owing
to his false Christology, he denied that Mary is the Mother of God.
These faithful hat joyfully celebrated the condemnation of Nestorius at
the Council of Ephesus (431)! According to the prediction of Jesus, the
faithful know their shepherd’s voice. They do not follow a false one.
Jesus says: “I know My sheep and they know Me!”43) Today theology is
practiced as so-called free research. Those who practice it do not
allow religious myths, as they call it, namely religious commandments,
to interfere in their science! They approach the contents of faith like
a person dissecting a corpse. Therefore they brought theology in
discredit also among many clergymen. However, the following is true:
Theology without faith, only based on historical research and analyses,
is the death of the spirit! (...)
It is no longer the norms of faith which determine service and
religious education, but the free initiative of the group. The faithful
person who felt at home in the traditional Catholic Church now finds
himself being let alone or left to be at the mercy of the diktat of the
group! So it becomes almost impossible for the individual to form a
judgment of his own about whether that which is being presented to him
is still reconcilable with the religion which he once practiced and to
which he once swore to be faithful. Certainly devout, praying, blessed
and saintly laypeople have always provided the church with valuable
ideas or suggested initiatives,44) but it was always the ordinary
magistery which was the office of the church appointed by God and who
gave these initiatives its confirmation.45) If today the ‘church’ knows
to perform only the task of helping people in their earthly needs, then
it makes itself the servant of the world. Solschenizyn already
reproached the Moscow patriarch of his servile attitude towards the
Soviet government. A church that sacrifices its own faith, its most
valuable good, for the peace of the world makes itself the servant of
the world. With far-sighted forethought of this possibility, Pope Leo
XIII (1878–1903) introduced the prayers after the Holy Mass, especially
the one for the freedom and the elevation of our holy mother, the
church. These prayers have been dropped secretly with the argument of
the historical circumstances, the loss of the secular rule of the Pope.
What a threadbare argument! The groveling of the church before the
world to the detriment of its claim to truth is by far worse than the
loss of the Papal States!
I will get the reply that even today a higher authority often restricts
any changes that are too daring, that control is indeed still working,
a fact that indeed often leads to vehement protest among the
progressists. Do not let yourselves be misled! Even the innovators
somehow have to consider the sensus fidelium, the faithful sense of
Catholics practicing their faith. Therefore the latter always have to
be calmed down or appeased. Basically the innovators only let time be
on their side. It is said: What is not yet possible today can be
introduced already tomorrow without any problems. One proof of this
ulterior motive is the hint which they often give, namely that they had
proceeded too quickly then. This proves that they no longer believe in
the unchangeable truth but in the necessary development.
However, we must inevitably face the end of all earthly life, the
judgment, the question of being chosen or condemned. Whoever neglects
the highest value that exists - and for which the Son of God let
Himself be crucified - in favor of an earthly development, a rosy
future or illusion, has laid hands on God’s offer of love. He despised
the best, and so he will lose the best forever. Heaven or hell are
awaiting us, there is no escape, like we cannot escape death either.
This issue is largely hidden. Some consider it as incompatible with the
love and mercifulness of God. They even insinuate that the saints in
Heaven are sadists, that they can rejoice while knowing about the
horrible agony of the condemned. But let us stop at this circumstance.
The beginning of all wisdom is the fear of God. Whoever does not fear,
honor and love God will have no access to His love. Mary, the blessed
Virgin and Mother of God, did not have to fear any punishment from God,
but nevertheless she lived in the greatest fear of God. She did not
fear anything more than doing anything that could hurt the love for God
and offend God. If we have transgressed in life, only the fear of God
can bring us to recognizing in what danger we have put ourselves. Only
the fear of God can lay us in the arms of God’s mercy, so that we
search and estimate His sacraments, that we bow to His Cross and find
salvation there. For we are frightened when we see that the fear of God
is even not to be taught anymore to children at school!
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum, Deum tuum!”
Footnotes:
1) Mt 28, 19
2) Eph 3, 8 ff
3) Wilhelm Pichler: “Catechism of Catholic religion”, Bozen, 1958, p. 11: The Six Basic Truths
4) Rom 1, 5; Hebr. 11, 6
5) 2 Macc 7, 28
6) Ps. 19, 2: “The Heavens praise the glory of God.”
7) Note of the editor: Whereas in the work of Hegel the schema of
thesis, antithesis and synthesis leads into contradiction, Fichte uses
it in a methodical way in order to get to the highest point, (...) to
the cause in itself, to the absolute, to God!
8) Gen 2, 1-3
9) Sir 1, 14
10) Jn 1, 1
11) Jn 10, 30
12) Gen 1, 27
13) Jn 1, 14
14) Jn 1, 5
15) Jn 3, 20
16) Jn 18, 37
17) Jn 18, 38
18) Jn 1, 5
19) Eph 3, 9
20) Mt 6, 33
21) Mt 16, 26
22) Num 23, 19; Jas 1, 13
23) Lk 16, 8
24) Gal 1, 8
25) compare: Martin Luther: The great catechism“, Gütersloh, 1995; „The
small catechism“, Gütersloh, 1958, among others, by the same author
26) Jn 14, 27
27) Mt 4, 9
28) Rom 11, 25
29) Jn 14, 28; compare also: 1 Cor 15, 28
30) Lk 22, 42
31) Mt 19, 28: “When the world will be created newly, ... then you
twelve followers of mine will sit on twelve thrones to rule the twelve
tribes of Israel.”
32) 1 Jn 4, 4
33) Apostolic Credo in a former version
34) Phil 3, 20; 1 Jn 2, 15
35) Litany of all Saints – in the older version
36) Augustinus: “Confessions”
37) compare: Gen 1, 3
38) Mt 6, 33
39) Jn 18, 37
40) Mt 28, 19; Mk 16,15 f
41) Mt 23, 2 f
42) Quotation of the “Bewegung für eine lebendigere Kirche” (movement for a more lively church)
43) Jn 10, 14
44) Catherine of Siena (+ 1380) implored Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome from Avignon (France) in 1376
45) E. g. think of the orders of the Benedictines and the Franciscans. Their founders were no priests.
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