#consubstantial

[allaboutyoupostnthings]

Father’s Day, the Blessed Trinity, and St. Joseph: A Heartfelt Celebration of Love

On this Father’s Day, we gather to honor dads with deep gratitude, seeing their love reflected in the Feast of the Blessed Trinity and the devotion to St. Joseph. The Blessed Trinity—one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, united in one divine substance—shows us the boundless love of God the Father through His Son, Jesus, who is fully God, one with Him . St. Joseph, Jesus’ foster…

Father’s Day, the Blessed Trinity, and St. Joseph: A Heartfelt Celebration of Love

[divinemercymeditation]

The consubstantial canon - Catholic Herald

The consubstantial canon – Catholic Herald

While working on the Letter to the Hebrews, I came across a fascinating theory that the Epistle began life as a synagogue sermon for the ninth day of the month of Av. I won’t go into the details of it, gripping though it is, except to mention that it depends in part upon the existence of something called the Palestinian Triennial Cycle (PTC). This is a set of readings appointed for use in Jewish…

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[catechumenthoughts]

Consubstantial (adj.)

of the same substance or essence (used especially of the three persons of the Trinity in Christian theology).

"Christ is consubstantial with the Father"

[texas-mnt]

Glossary of Trinitarian Terms, part 2

Glossary of Trinitarian Terms, part 2 #trinity #christianity

Today, we continue our look at various trinitarian terms. We have covered some in past post, but this will hopefully add a little extra insight or clarity on a couple of old and new topics. All this, we continue to build a foundation of  Trinitarian theology. We look at what the early church fathers and the developing church struggled with and what many of people today still have struggles with.…

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[thepotentiallyreverend]

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lol, digging through my old files I found this little bit of craziness from when I was trying to explain why the Roman Catholic Church elected to use "Consubstantial" instead of "one being" in the new translation.

[catholiclyindulged]

You Know You're Catholic When...

You can actually pronounce "consubstantial" and have a general idea of what it means.

[petersilas]

Palm Sunday Feast Day: If even for the Bough of a Willow

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[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for 2nd January

1 John 2:22-28; Ps 97; John 1:19-25

We believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he is without sin, and that he ascended into heaven, and will come again. We believe that Jesus taught God’s word with great prophetic authority, that he proclaimed the Gospel and performed miracles. These are the essential facts of the Jesus’ life. And it might surprise us to learn that all these things are also stated in the Qur’an, and so, believed by Muslims. But what the Qur’an also says is that Jesus’ virgin birth, although miraculous, was like that of Adam and Eve – an act of God’s creative power. So, Jesus was, ultimately, created by God. 

My purpose in drawing our attention to this is to make the early Christian heresy of Arianism more accessible today. Because in the distant fourth century a good number of people, including the Emperor Valens and his court in Constantinople, believed in Jesus, his miraculous virgin birth and his miracles and his works. They believed, too, in his pre-eminence and a kind of participation in God’s divinity. But ultimately, like the Muslims of today, Jesus was created by an act of God’s creative power; willed into being by God, and so, ultimately, a creature. As one of the Arian sayings put it: “There was a then when he [the Logos] did not exist”. Although the Arians (rather inconsistently) worshipped Jesus and prayed to him, they were firm in holding that Jesus was definitely not of the same substance ‘ousia’, as God the Father because God was One, Alone and Eternal. Such strict Arian monotheism, as I have suggested, continues to hold sway today, and this is understandable.  

But Christian orthodoxy struggled with what Jesus had revealed about himself and about God, who are so united, somehow, that St John can write: “No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also”. As such, God is essentially relational: eternally Father who generates the Son from eternity. Today’s two saints, two Doctors of the Church were among a group of three bishop-theologians of the 4th-century from Cappadocia – a part of eastern Turkey; firm friends who strived to enunciate this true Faith, namely, that Jesus Christ is true God from true God, of one substance (homoousios) with God the Father. 

This formula, homoousios was translated into the Creed in Latin as consubstantialem, and it is now rendered in English as ‘consubstantial’. This theological coinage was strange then, even as it is strange to us now in the new translation of the Missal, but it is an important theological term, fought over by saints such as Basil and Gregory. Why? Because it tries to counteract any notion of Jesus’ being other than God, subordinate to God, or created and not eternal. The Cappadocian saints went on to say the same of the Holy Spirit, that he, too, is consubstantial with the Father. Thus, they advanced our knowledge, if not our understanding, as such, of the mystery of God the Holy Trinity. 

But why is it so crucial that Jesus be “true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father”? For the same reason that we celebrate Christmas, namely, for the sake of our salvation. Because only one who is truly divine, who is true God, can redeem humanity from sin by freely dying for our sins on the Cross. Only one who is truly God, then, can make us, human beings, partakers in his divinity, and so, have eternal life. As St John affirms: “This is what he has promised us, eternal life”. If Jesus was not God, he could not promise us this. 

Interestingly, the Qu’ran understands this correlation between Christ’s divinity, the Cross, and our salvation through them. Hence, it affirms that Christ is just a creature, and as such, there is no need for the Crucifixion, which it denies, and therefore, salvation does not come through Christ. For, quite rightly, if Christ were not true God, then to worship him would be not just foolish Arian inconsistency – it would be idolatry.