Have you wondered why Christians are so fond of the cross? Do you notice that there are crosses and there are crosses still with the bloodied Jesus on it? These are things that have puzzled me a lot before I know about Christianity.
Christian Catholics have the crucifix which is the cross with Jesus still on it. Other Christians only have crosses minus the body. Let’s not get into the why Jesus is on some crosses and why Jesus is not on others. It will cause a lot of arguments if I dwell into that.
So, just let me jot down all these things that are slowly becoming clearer to me. Crosses to Christians are not just merely symbols. It signifies the burdens, hardships, sufferings, pains, rejections and all the hurt feelings we have in us. And sometimes, it is the burdens of others that we are shouldering.
Today, we have a visiting priest – Father Joe M. (sorry I do not know his name ‘cos no one tells us) from the Franciscan something-something Cappuchin. These individuals are different from the priests from our churches because they have made a poverty vow or something. When I see the brown habit (or whatever you call that brown robe), I have a lot of admiration because I have read about the life of St. Francis Assisi. (not that I have lesser admiration for our parish priests, ok? But they are rather pampered compared to the Franciscans. Hehehe.)
The good or the bad part of me is I always act very attentive and interested eventhough the homily (sermon) is boring or too technical or too historical. Some of the errrm….communion ministers were getting fidgety and I feel bad about it. Poor Father came all the way to this very lansi parish and I hope he feel welcomed. So, I put on the ‘yes, yes, I am listening, keep going’ look. The homily is quite long and yes, it is not something that we have not heard.
But Father (I didn’t get his name) said something that makes sense to me. He said when he first started praying, he needed a picture of Mother Mary to get him to concentrate. He said that we are sometimes not intuitive, not sensitive, not etc etc enough to be able to get into prayers. So, we need a symbol, a picture or an image to do that. Now, that explains why some other Christian denominations sometimes misunderstood our fondness to have crosses, crucifixes, pictures, images and etc all around our Catholic churches. Let’s just say that we are less imaginative than the rest of you.
(Jesus on the cross at St. Anne Bukit Mertajam)
Then, Father (in his brown robe) told us that after sometime, he could connect with Jesus the person and then, Jesus on the cross. Father said we should get a coloured cross with the bloodied and injured Jesus and stare at it if it helps us to focus on His sufferings. He said that most crosses like the huge one hanging above his head (hehehe) are all brown in colour and hence, the effect is not there. Fuyoh, from then on, I like him already. He is so technicolor.
But something else he said is, we shouldn’t bother about going for communion if we cannot make peace with our enemies. He said receiving the Body of Christ is a communion with our enemies. So, he lambasted no one in particular that we cannot say ‘I believe or Amen’ if we cannot remove the animosity from our hearts. I personally find this very powerful reminder and I thought it would jolt most people back from their wandering minds and glazed looks. But eheh, not so. I am not being judgemental but rather, I am observing human characters, ok? I sometimes wonder why people go for masses when they have that ‘ah boring, let’s finish this faster, will ya?’ look on their faces. I mean, they have been sitting there with no expression, no eye contacts or even looking in the direction of the priest (or rather poor, lonely priest talking to himself) so I take it that they are not even listening. *evading stones Matrix style*
Today, September 14th is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. I do not have a cross at home. Yet. Maybe I should consider getting one crucifix with Jesus bleeding from His hands, feet and sides. Because I have very short attention span and I need the extra dose of technicolor to make me stick to my prayers.
God bless the priest. (I later found out that the priest is Fr. Joe M. of the Cappuchins)
September 14th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Shallom. Is it ok for catholic to create an image of Jesus Christ? is it not considered as Blasphemy? hope you can answer my confusion.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The early Church councils settled the matter of icons and images and statues, etc. As it stands, it is not a sin to create an image of the Lord Jesus; one of the reasons (and not the only one) is that Jesus himself is the visible image of the invisible God: he made it possible for us to put a face to the unseen God.
So long as we are not worshiping the image, but rather the Lord whom we bring to mind when we see the image, we do not sin.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
nonsense. i think it just pains me to see people believing in this twisted religion. naive. all i can see is you just go to church for the fun sake of it. enjoy. its not a true religion anyway. look, the picture is horifying. think again. urgh. no sense.
these days, church have loads of money. i noticed most christians are just there for the money and network.
September 15th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
nonsense – I actually find your comment amusing.
Jeff – Tks
jacknaim – Blasphemy? Nope. Why should it be? We are talking about the face of Jesus, not the face of God. Ah…let’s not get into that again or else it is another round of the Holy Trinity.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I don’t go to church for “the fun sake of it”. I go to worship God as a member of His Church: as the Church is the Body of Christ, so the Church worships her Creator as a body, as a corporate group of members.
“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.” (2 Cor 4:3-4)
“He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God…” (Col 1:15)
Ask yourself… if the camera had been invented in the time of Jesus, would it be blasphemy to take his picture? Or if someone had painted a picture of him, would that have been blasphemy?
September 16th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Jeff – Thanks for the things you taught me.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:36 am
to nonsense :
that’s quite harsh my brother…..
to Jeff pinyan :
are you sure that the word ‘likeness of God’ is special phrase to Jesus only and a permission to create idol and label it as Jesus. Or, maybe it just have other meaning. I found something interesting about that. God also refer to other man is ‘likeness of god’. for example In Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, a and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
also in Genesis 5:3
When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.
what i want try to said that, the action that u took has had causing other to mis interpret your religion. They thought that you guys worship idols which is absolutely forbade by God. So since you said that Jesus is Son of God a.k.a God, then it would be a blasphemy and against what God almighty taught.
September 16th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Jacknaim: “are you sure that the word ‘likeness of God’ is special phrase to Jesus only and a permission to create idol and label it as Jesus. Or, maybe it just have other meaning. … God also refer to other man is ‘likeness of god’. for example In Genesis 1:26-27″
Let’s read Phil 2:6-8 more closely:
[Jesus Christ], though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
So we see that Paul distinguishes between “the form of God” and “the form of a servant” (“likeness of men”, “human form”). Furthermore, is “form” necessarily the same thing as “image” and/or “likeness”?
The issue is more complex still, since God created humanity in (or “after”) His likeness and image, and we were created in perfection, in grace… from which we have fallen. Jesus is the perfect image of the unseen God because he wasn’t “created” in God’s form or likeness, but because he was eternally in the form of God.
September 16th, 2008 at 8:11 am
That’s why i got confuse. I thought that ‘his own likeness’ can meant something else. Maybe as a lord of universe (in our religion we called it as caliph; which functioning to take care of the world)
that’s why God create Adam in his own likeness and Adam has son in his own likeness.. you see what i try to tell you?
Another question is. In John 3:16 mention that God give his only begotten son. So how did God beget Jesus? the action and performance to beget?
my next question is based on your statement
“but because he was eternally in the form of God.”
so, If Jesus is eternally in the form of God, after the resurrection,
he must become God.. But why in the bible mentioning about him sitting in the right hand of God? Is there many God?
September 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am
God the Father begat God the Son before all ages. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit co-exist for ALL eternity. How? I don’t know… I wasn’t there.
Like begets like: God begat God.
Jesus didn’t “become God” after the Resurrection. He already is/was God.
And there is only one God, but three Persons in God. Jesus (the Son) sits at the right hand of the Father.
Scripture asserts that Jesus is LORD (Kurios, Adonai, YHWH). There is only one Lord, one God, and Jesus is He!
September 16th, 2008 at 9:40 am
but what is the meaning of JEsus sit at the right hand of the father?
September 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am
but what is the meaning of JEsus sit at the right hand of the father?
St. Thomas Aquinas deals with that issue in four parts, although his manner of writing and language might be a bit elevated for our conversation.
The phrase generally means the position of favor, of authority, of power. The Catholic Catechism has this to say:
September 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
This is an interesting article. I’m new and learning.
“three persons in God” – Jeff
When you say persons, do you mean persons – human beings? The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit – three persons? Are there other words to describe the trinity? Three persons (three living beings) in God, also mean God is a group of three members? But, The Father and the Holy Spirit never exist in human form, how can you say there are three persons?
September 16th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
“Person” isn’t a term that means human, it’s a term describing an “entity”. A person has a substance and a nature, roughly put.
The one God exists in three Persons and one substance: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Tertullian, a Latin theologian of the 3rd century, was the first to use terms (in Latin) like “trinity”, “person”, and “substance” to show that the Father and the Son are “one in essence, not one in person”. This means that the Son can speak of the Father without speaking of himself: the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father.
“Person” doesn’t mean “human being”. We are human persons. God is three Divine Persons in one God. Jesus is one Person, a Divine Person; although in the Incarnation he assumed a human nature (body, blood, soul, will), he was always a SINGLE Person, a Divine Person, with a Divine nature.
They are not “modes” of being, as if God is sometimes acting (or perceived) as “Father”, sometimes as “Son”, sometimes as “Holy Spirit”. They are three definitive Persons. The Son talks to the Father. They are manifested at the same time, even (such as the Baptism, the Transfiguration, etc.).
I think C.S. Lewis used the example of a cube versus a square. Humans are “two-dimensional”, we’re like a square. God is “three-dimensional”, like a cube (although He is three Persons, not “six sides”!). Because we are two-dimensional, the idea of a cube is… well… above us, beyond us, and confusing to us.
The existence of more than one Person in God can be posited this way:
1. Scripture tells us that God is Love. We also know that God is not changing, He is not created, nor could He need something of creation to perfect Himself. So we can say that God is Love from all eternity: Love is not something He created, Love always was, and God IS Love. And there was never an instant when God wasn’t Love.
2. Love requires one thing which loves, and the thing being loved. A perfect love is not a selfish love of one’s self, but a love of something other than one’s self, so a perfect love requires that the thing which loves and the thing loved are two distinct things. The reason this is so is because since God is perfect, God’s love is perfect, and God’s love is the right model for our love: then that means our model is self-sacrificing love for another, or selfish love of self… which does God appear to be imploring us to?
3. But for God to be Love from all eternity means God needed something to Love.
4. If we believe there is only one true God (which the Bible clearly attests to), then that means God loves God, but not in a love-of-self way, but in a love-of-another way. But He cannot be loving a creation. So there is “part” (let’s use that word for now) of God that loves another “part” of God.
5. But neither one part nor the other part (the lover nor the beloved) IS that “love”. The love itself is something distinct, but again, it cannot be a creation.
6. This means there is another “part” of God which is that love.
7. So we recognize three “parts” in God: one that loves, one who is loved, and the love itself.
8. But the divine essence of God cannot be divided into “parts”, such that only “part” of God is love. So we must try to understand this mystery in a way that does not divide God nor make more than one God.
9. Christian theology teaches that God is three Persons: each Person is God, but each Person is not confused with another Person. They are of the same single undivided Divine essence or substance. The WHOLE God is Love because one of the Persons of God is Love (identified as the Holy Spirit). The Father eternally begets the Son as an act of love, and the Son eternally obeys the Father and returns that love.
It might seem contrived, but it works (insofar as understanding the Trinity can “work” in a human brain) for me.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
which is actually come first? Father, son or Holy Spirit???
September 19th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
All three Persons have existed for all eternity. There has ALWAYS been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because God is unchanging. God has always been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even before time.
If there was a time when there wasn’t the Son, the Father wouldn’t be the Father!
September 20th, 2008 at 1:20 am
hurm.. very interesting. erm, can i see the reference in Bible regarding this. and also about the concept of trinity. If i not trouble you
September 20th, 2008 at 2:23 am
Here are three links (1, 2, 3) on the Trinity that has some Scripture and some early Church Father references. The last specifically touches upon the eternal Sonship of Christ.
God doesn’t change. We agree on that, right?
Therefore, IF God is a Trinity of Persons, He has ALWAYS been that way. You would agree with that hypothetical statement, right?
So the question for you then is, does Scripture indicate a plurality of Persons in God?
Surely you’re familiar with Deut. 6:4… “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD…” Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why on earth would Jeff post THAT verse of Scripture? It condemns his WHOLE argument as blasphemy!” Not quite.
The Hebrew word used for “one” here — ‘echad — means “a united whole” or “a composite oneness”, and is used in places like Genesis 2:24 (“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”) and Numbers 13:23 (“…cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes…”) and Judges 20:8 (“…all the people arose as one man…”).
Contrast that with yachid (Genesis 22:2, Amos 8:10, etc.) which means “a single one”.
I’m sure we agree that “the Father” is God.
Is Jesus, “the Son”, God? In addition to Philippians 2:5-11, there’s also Colossians 2:9 which says that “in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. There’s John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) and John 14:9 (“He who has seen me has seen the Father”). Thomas calls Jesus “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). And Hebrews 1:1-3 reads: “God … hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power”.
Is “the Holy Spirit” God? Scripture affirms this. See Acts 5:1-10, where Peter asks a man “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” and then tells him “You have not lied to men but to God.” Hebrews 9:14 calls the Spirit “eternal”. 1 Cor. 3:16 and 6:19 seem to equate the Holy Spirit with God.
And finally, Matthew 28:19-20 uses the phrase “in the name [singular!] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.
So yeah, I think Scripture attests to God being ONE in THREE Persons, and that each of those Persons IS God.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:21 am
If trinity is a major concept in christianity, why the word never appear in Bible? What was the language used by Jesus? I don’t think he spoke in Hebrew. The trinity concept always make me confused.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Jesus Christ (pbuh) said the following in the Bible:
“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
John 17:3
“How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?”
John 5:44
“The most important commandments,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, is one Lord’”
Mark 12:29
As described by Paul in his Letter to Timothy:
“Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”