Refer to our Sunday Experience pages to find different prayers to pray as a family sometime during the week as well as setting up a prayer space and other activities as a family.
For the Learn do the following:
1. Watch Video at the top of the page. (if you want more resources, or are interested in learning more about the topic click on the Extra tab).
2. Click on the appropriate grade for your child.
3. Read the "relates to..." section at the beginning. This is helpful to understand what to convey to your child is important about this lesson. It will help make the lesson both an intellectual and a lived lesson.
4. Read through and familiarize yourself with the sample script.
5. Teach your child the lesson, either using your own words or the sample script.
6. Either discuss the questions with your child (best option), or have your child write out answers to the questions.
7. Have your child do the activities and/or do the activities with them.
8. If working with a parish return the appropriate material in the way they have requested.
All Content for "The Way", Learn, is original content and copyright of the Diocese of Kalamazoo and may not be copied, reproduced, or used without prior written consent of the Diocese of Kalamazoo. © 2020 Diocese of Kalamazoo
(If you prefer a printable copy, click here for PDF.)
Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, we know there is a trinity because of Jesus’ revelation. This shows us that God must be love (that is what binds the trinity) and reveals all of Jesus’s actions within a familial relationship of God.
Relates to my faith: There is only one God, we do not worship multiple gods, or seek God as a genie, but go to the one who created all things and shows us what love is.
Sample Script:
God is the title that we call the being that created us. He cares about us, loves us and wants the best for us. Some things about God are going to be hard to understand. For example, God is three persons but still really only one. Sometimes we use different images to understand this better. These are not exactly how God is but you can think of a three-leaf clover, or a triangle, or even a family (Father and a Mother and a child). In different ways each of these are three but also one. God is kind of like these. He is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, see how there are three persons? But it is not like there is really separation between them. They are so close that the act and think, and work all as one God. So while sometimes a mom and dad, or a parent and child may disagree with each other, or may do things separate from each other, God does not work that way. The three persons are so close that they are always just one, this is because of how great their love is for each other.
I know this can be hard to understand, and I don’t fully understand it either. What I want you to know and understand though is who the three persons of the trinity are, and that they are one. So, we know the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Have you ever heard at Mass or at home when we are praying anyone say The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit? That is right when we do the sign of the cross. We start prayers this way don’t we, we say, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We remember this important truth about God every time we pray to Him.
One of the Scriptures we can use to remember this is Matthew 28:19, Jesus told His disciples to go and baptize people. He asked for them to be baptized not just in His name but in the Trinity:
"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Let us practice doing the sign of the Cross naming the three persons of God.
(Practice with your child the sign of the Cross)
Two things I want you to always know about this is: Jesus revealed to us the Trinity. When He was here, He wanted us to understand God better and let us know about the Trinity so we would know how much love God has for us. Also, that we only pray to and worship one God, not multiple Gods, and that this one God created and loves all of us.
How many Gods do we believe in?
Can you explain to me what Trinity means?
Who did Jesus reveal were the three persons of the Trinity?
What are some ways we can kind of understand the Trinity?
The Trinity is three persons that love each other so much they act as one, what does that mean about God’s love for us?
Have your child draw a cross on a piece of paper, then have them label the cross, as if they were doing the sign of the cross, with the names of the three persons of God.
Draw a picture of what the three persons of God are like and draw them in a way that shows that they are one.
Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the visible form of the invisible God. He shows us who God is, as all-knowing, all-mighty, all-loving, and all-present. His showing of the Father and gift of the Holy Spirit to us shows us how to relate to and with God.
Relates to my faith: God loves us enough to create us in His image, like a child. Though he has the “all” characteristics, He still loves us enough to want to be family with us.
Sample Script:
As we look to our world, we can understand that it is bigger than any of us. We look at everything around us and realize that there must be a God that created us. We might ask what this God is like. If we look at our world and also the bible that God has given us, we can find some of the answers to that question. We know that God is greater than any of us. In fact He is the greatest there is, so when we think of God we think in terms of ALL. We use titles like All-Knowing, All-Mighty, All-Loving, and All-Present. We use the term all, because He contains all of everything. So, let’s look at those phrases and try to understand. All-Knowing: Is there anything that God does not know? If God is the creator of everything, if he made everything, then He knows everything, right? He knows you. He made you. He knows what you like, how you think, what you don’t like. So, like me, your parent, I know a lot about you, but God He knows even more. What about All-Mighty? God is better and stronger than anything. Think of something that you might make. Are you stronger than what you made? In very similar ways God is like that, He is mightier, stronger, better, than anything He made. He is All-Loving, He loves us. Do you love me? I love you! In the same way and in many better ways God loves us. We are able to love because when God made us, He made us to be like Him. If He did not love, we would not be able to love. So, God loves but in a way that is better than any way we can. Finally, All-Present, God created time. Before God created anything, time did not exist. Now, that is hard to think of, right? Because God is ALL everything good, He is always present. Another way to think of this is that there was never a time when God did not exist. Can you remember when your brother (sister, pet, …) was not here, or did not exist? Well it is not the same with God. He always is.
Since, God is All-Knowing, All-Mighty, All-Loving, All-Present, we know that we can know things, we have strength, we can love, and we exist. We share in the fullness that God has, because He created us in His image. He loves us so much that He shares a little bit of who He is with us. Isn’t that great that God would love us so much? He thinks of you all the time. He gives you the ability to love, He shares with you His knowledge, and His strength. We have such a great God. God tells us in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible: “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness” (Gen 1:26) He wants us to know this great truth from the beginning, and revealed it to us right away.
Jesus also reveals this to us, and showed us who God is when He was here. I want you to always remember that Jesus reveals to us who God is, and that God loves us enough to create us in His image.
What does it mean for God to be All-Knowing, All-Mighty, All-Loving, All-Present?
Since God is All-Knowing what does that mean about what He knows about us?
Since God is All-Loving what does that mean for us?
God created us in His image, so what does that mean about us?
God created us to Love like He loves, so how should we treat others?
Have your student make a person out of clay. Have them describe it as they make it. What cool things are they giving this creation? In what ways is this creation like them? Talk to your student about how that creation has similarities to them but also has some differences. Let them know this creation could never be everything they are. Ask them to explain how that is like and not like God creating us.
Have your student list all the ways that we are made like God. Have them list ways we are not exactly like God.
Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the second person of the Trinity and
Relates to my Faith:
When we do the sign of the Cross we always say “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This reminds us that God is three persons. Yet, we do it as one action as the sign of the cross, so we remember that God is so unified, that He is only one God. This unity is the important thing.
So, while the Father is different from the Son, there is a unity that they share that is so great it is hard to tell the difference between them. Think of a mom and a dad or best friends that do everything together, or even a person and their pet. Sometimes we can look at those situations and think that the husband and wife, or friends, or person and pet are so close they act almost like each other. Sometimes a friend can finish the sentence of their friend, or they know where they want to eat, or what they want to play. God is kind of like that but so much more. It is different than just knowing what the other wants to do, or what their favorite color is, they are so close that those things are what they want to do, and are their favorite color. This closeness is so much that there is a third person of God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit not only binds the Father and Son together in unity, but has that same unity.
We can think of it this way. You can’t just love yourself. Love has to be shared. Love is desiring what is the best for someone else. I love you; I desire what is best for you. I am sure you love me; and you desire what is best for me. When we love that way, are truly loving each other. That binds us in a certain way. If we loved perfectly than what I think is best for you, and what you think is best for you are the same thing. For God that is even more true. God cannot just love Himself, so there is the Son. Now we have the Father and the Son, their love is so perfect that every action they do is the same. The love that binds them, and is the fruit of their love is known as the Holy Spirit. The love the Holy Spirit has for the Father and the Son is equal to their love. Thus, every action done by the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit is done at once individually, but also collectively as One because their love is so great.
So, while this is hard to understand it does teach us about our own lives. God created us in His image. He wants us to be a community. When we look at our family, or our church family, or all our friends we have, we need to think about how God wants us to love like He does. He wants us to care about what is best for the other. He wants us to love each other so much that we make the same best decisions for each other. When we talk about the Church someday, we will need to remember this because Jesus prayed that my followers “may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” We are called to be a great community and that will teach us more about the Trinity.
What do we mean when we make the Sign of the Cross?
Name one thing that unites the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?
What is one thing you learned about how humans love?
What is one thing you learned about how God loves?
Please explain a couple of ways that you can be a role model of God for others by showing them that they are loved.
Talk to your grandparents and parents separately about how they love each other (how Grandma loves Grandpa and separately how Mom loves Dad). What in their telling reminded you about how God loves you?
Together, as a family, discuss how you can serve your local community of your neighborhood and how you can be a witness of God to those around you.
Relates to Jesus: Jesus shows us the Trinity, He is the visible image of God. It is His love that we copy here. This relationship with Him will help us to understand how to love each other.
Relates to my Faith: As we know that God exists and that He loves us, we can feel that love and share it with others. It is only through knowing the love of God that we are able to share that love.
You might have heard it said before, either at Mass or by your parents or perhaps even here in Catechism class, that our Trinitarian God is a mystery. This is true; God is a mystery in that we don’t have the whole and complete understanding of who God is. However, what we do know is most telling. We know God is one, look at the 10 Commandments. We know that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Jesus has revealed the three persons of the Trinity. We know He is love and that this love is freely shared with His creation. Look again here at Jesus and what writers like John have to say about the love of God.
Staying with the reality that God is love, it is important to draw out what this means for us. We hear all the time and probably even do this ourselves, that we love this thing or that thing. “I love my new pair of shoes” is something we probably have all said at one point or another. Now, the shoes might be liked and highly valued and truly appreciated for giving us feelings of comfort and cushion and maybe even enjoyment. To love, and looking at the definition of love that calls love the selfless gift of yourself for the good of the other, not expecting anything in return, seems to be an overuse when describing the shoes. The shoes don’t care one way or the other if they are worn or not, they certainly can’t return love to the person wearing the shoe. The use of the word love here is certainly not the love God has for us.
Love has a much better and truer application when it is used to describe a relationship between two people. A husband to a wife, a child to a father, even a friend to a friend; for one of these to say to the other that “I love you” is appropriate because love here is not just a one way street. Rather, love when given to another individual can be received and then given back, is truly the lifeline of relationship that allows life to be fully realized. In loving, and in being loved, we realize what we are made for and who we are made for.
Love reaches its climax in our relationship with God. For while love between humans is a gift and is quite powerful, it is ultimately imperfect for we can’t love as completely as God can love, who is love Himself. Our loving relationships with others point us to God. For just as we experience love and harmony in this life, these experiences can sometimes go through ups and downs where we don’t feel as loving or a certain situation is thrown into disharmony. God, however, is love and harmony Himself and our relationship with Him bring us to a place in which we recognize what we need to model to be His Christian witnesses so that others can experience His love for themselves.
What are some of the attributes of God that we have learned?
Why can’t we truly love material things?
Name some of the characteristics of love that you have noticed with your parents.
How do the above characteristics remind you of your relationship with God?
How can others experience God’s love by how you live your life?
Write down on a piece of paper the things in your life that you like the most. Consider each of these things and prayerfully ask God what you like most about these things. Imagine not having these things. Could you not have them and be ok? If not, why?
Write a letter to the person (people) that you love and care for the most. Tell them why you love them and what about your relationship reminds you of God.
Relates to Jesus: Jesus shows us the relationship He has with the Father and the Spirit. That shows us how we are called to be part of a community. We are to be in relationship with Jesus and know Him so we can know and feel the existence of God.
Relates to my Faith: We have the Church as an extension of the Community that God is, and creates for us. Being in relationship with others in our Church help us to know God and to live out how he created us.
We are created out of the love of God and are given our mission for our life from this love, which is to say we are called to love God and love our neighbor during the days of our life. So love is not just some nice thing that we are asked to express but rather is truly the driving central force that orders our life towards fulfillment, happiness, and peace.
Throughout our human history, Love Himself has sought to be an intimate part of our human story, not wanting us to try and live a life centered in love apart from the Source from which all love flows. The Trinity, who is Love, wants us to experience the fullness of who He is so that we can encounter this life as completely as possible.
We see the Trinity’s action throughout Scripture that speaks to God’s desire to be with us. From the dawn of our creation, Adam receives his life from the love of the Father, the word of the Son, and the breath of the Holy Spirit. Shortly after, realizing Adam’s need for another to love and share in life with, the divine power of the Trinity creates Eve from a rib of Adam. Being in relationship and community with God blessed Adam with the gift of Eve.
We see in the story of Sarah and Abraham in their encounter with God in the visitors at Mamre how a life lived seeking to be in a loving relationship with God and the people around you can yield fruit of love and blessing. Abraham receives these three visitors who assure him that in a year his wife Sarah will give birth to a son, thus fulfilling God’s promise of offspring and blessing. You see, God being Love Himself and existing as three persons in community, wants His people to also live in community and experience love in their proper time and place (in this case, Sarah and Abraham, as wife and husband, are able to receive a gift of a child in love and support).
Scripture continues with numerous accounts of God, of love Himself, seeking to encounter humanity and walk with us. This desire of God to be with us extends beyond Scripture as well, as we have countless stories and examples from the Church and from Saints that speak to this reality. Even up to this very moment, God wants to encounter and be with us; God even wants to be with you!
So you might be thinking; “If God wants to be with me so bad, why haven’t I ever experienced Him like Adam or Abraham or the prophets or the Saints?” God does want to be with you and how He speaks to us is often individual to the person. We need to do our part to prepare to meet Him, doing the things that are pleasing to Him. So, we need to go to weekly Sunday Mass, pray daily, follow the Commandments, and serve our brothers and sisters in love, to name a few. Here, we give God praise, grow in relationship to Him, and soften our heart to hear and experience the God of love in our life. The community of the Trinity loves you and wants to walk with you during your life!
Tell two or three things that tell us God is love.
Describe the roles of the Trinity at the Creation story.
In the story about Sarah and Abraham, why do you think it is so important to receive visitors and guests with attention?
Have you ever experienced an encounter with God? What was it like?
What are some ways you are preparing to encounter God in your life?
Pick out a story from Scripture, together as a family, of the Trinity interacting with humanity. Read this together and discuss what you each notice about this encounter.
Keep a journal and each day write down a word or phrase that sticks out to you when you pray or go to Mass. Keep this word or phrase with you throughout your day; God could very well be speaking to you through these.
Relates to Jesus: Jesus has complete unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Even though He was the one we can see, and He was here on Earth as a physical body, He is in complete unity with the rest of the Trinity as ONE God.
Relates to my Faith: We only believe in One God. There are not multiple Gods that do different things. Instead the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is so great they are One, and we believe and worship only this One God.
The ancient Greek philosophers, when considering the first or primary things of the universe, would often consider the questions of where did all this come from or how did this all begin. Some would begin by looking around them, recognizing that this thing or that thing came before another particular thing, but there seemed to be an infinite number of things that came before this thing. An example to help here is, a child can trace his existence to his parents, his parents can trace their existence to their parents, their parents to their parents, so on and so forth.
So, the philosophers would say that there must be something or someone who started it all and who himself was not generated by another but rather always was, fixed outside the constraint and change of time and space. Different philosophers would have different names for this being, but we have come to know this being as God.
Through the gift of revelation, we have come to know God as everything the philosophers thought of and so much more. We know God to be a God of love, a God who is outside of space and time but is also intimately interwoven in space and time through creation while also desiring to be in community and relationship with that same creation. Further, with the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, we come to see and to know God all the more fully.
God is more clearly revealed as a Trinity, eternally existing as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three, what later our Tradition (made up partly of those Church Fathers and theologians who pray over and study the faith) would call persons of the Trinity, are distinct in who they are as persons. This is to say that each person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has distinct characteristics or modes in which they operate.
So, God the Father is distinct in person as He is the Creator, existing as pure spirit. God the Son, who takes on human flesh at the Incarnation is Jesus Christ, is distinct in person as the Redeemer, restoring the relationship between God and man through His saving action on the cross. God the Holy Spirit, who is the eternal expression of love between the Father and the Son, is the Sanctifier that strengthens and imparts wisdom on the Church and her people to be alive in the faith. These distinctions help us to explain the persons of the Trinity.
However, while the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons, they are not three distinct Gods. They are one God who eternally exist as the divine persons of the Trinity. This is to say that the three persons of the Trinity, while distinct as persons, are not distinct in nature for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the same nature, namely God. So, it is proper to profess that we believe in one God who is three persons. Our Nicene Creed, professed at each Sunday Mass and Solemnity, speaks the best to our Trinitarian God.
What are some things the philosophers used to speak of God that we hold true about God?
What has revelation told us about God?
Name the persons of the Trinity and briefly explain their distinctions.
Does each person have a distinct nature? What does this tell us about God?
Where, at Mass, can we learn more about the Trinity?
Discuss, as a family, what person of the Trinity you each feel closest to and share why.
Print off a copy of the Nicene Creed. Study it and pray with it as a family. What about the Trinity did you discover that you didn’t realize before?
Relates to Jesus: Jesus gives us the Mass, and in doing so gives us a way to worship the unity of who the Trinity is as we pray during Mass.
Relates to my Faith: Even though we know God through the Scriptures and Jesus revealing Him to us, we are also able to know God through our own experience in the world, because God has written Himself in our hearts from the begining.
God is interwoven and present throughout all of His creation. I think one of the most fascinating parts of the creation stories from Genesis is the care by which God creates. It certainly seems that God, being God, could have instantly snapped His spiritual fingers and boom, everything from the universe down to the smallest cell is created and ready to go. But God doesn’t do that; rather He gives each major category of creation a day so He can carefully and intimately and lovingly design exactly what He wants.
God, thus, can be experienced and seen in the created world around us. Just as a child born to his or her parents will bear the resemblance or mannerisms to their parents or family, so too does creation bear a certain resemblance to God. I think one helpful example here is the certain order that we see in the various forms of creation around us. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west each day, perennial plants grow in the spring and blossom while enjoying summer and wither come fall each year, cows always say “moo” rather than “cluck cluck” or “bark bark”. Our human bodies are made up of trillions of cells that aren’t just floating around but rather know what their specific roles are in order to help us function and operate in the numerous different ways so life can be lived.
What is this all saying? God is the author of all creation and when we look at the beauty and the harmony and the order with all of creation, we come to the conclusion that there has to be someone behind all of this. Or perhaps put another way, a more outstanding way, we could say the following; namely that, if we took away religion and theology and Scripture and any of the things that speak of God, we could still, based on our natural reason alone, posit or come to the existence of God. Creation, the beauty of creation, speaks of the presence of an Author to it all. This is just one general argument (there are many more that exist)!
Knowing that God is operative in and throughout creation, we understand that He desires to be worshiped and praised with the same sense of order and beauty. Our earthly Mass is a foretaste of the Divine Liturgy that we’ll participate in for all eternity. In the Mass we go to worship and give praise to God, who is active in our world and in our own personal lives. We adore Him and give Him thanks for the many gifts that He gives us. We petition Him with our needs and concerns and pray that He will look favorably on what is on our hearts.
The liturgy is recognition of the Trinity present. The Mass, again, is all geared towards worshiping God as Trinity but has a special acknowledge towards the Father, as all the offering of the Mass is directed towards Him. Jesus the Son is present in Word and Sacrament and in the priest, who in the person of Christ is offering Jesus back to the Father, re-presenting the sacrifice of the Cross on Calvary. The Holy Spirit holds a special place as well, sanctifying the worship space with His presence and most explicitly, moving through the priest to bless the gifts of bread and wine at the Epiclesis, readying these to become the Body and Blood of Jesus being offered back to the Father. Even as these actions seem separate the unity of the Trinity makes all these actions and forms one complete action in the Mass.
The Mass, the earthly Mass, is truly a foretaste of what eternity with God will be like in Heaven. We shall be so blessed to stand before the throne of the Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to see Him as He is, and worship and praise Him for all that He has given us. Being totally in the presence of love, we shall know Him as He knows us, and ultimate fulfillment will be ours forever.
What are some ways that we see God in creation?
Explain how one can come to knowledge of the existence of God without theology/religion. What is this type of reasoning called?
Name some ways we see the Trinity present during Mass.
How does our earthly liturgy/Mass foreshadow the eternal liturgy?
Why do you think it is important to go to Mass at least every Sunday?
Consider the following statement and deduce the existence of God using only natural reasoning (use the example from the above lesson as an example); “It is always good to protect the life of your brother or sister.”
As a family, discuss and share how you have encountered the Trinity at Mass. What special graces or inspirations did you each receive?
Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the ultimate example of what the existence of God is, Love itself. Therefore by knowing Jesus we can understand the existence of God even more.
Relates to my Faith: We are called to know, love, and serve God. Understanding the existence of God helps us to know Him. It is always good to explore more ways to know God exists and who He is.
God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, exists eternally as a communion of persons, meaning that the love that is shown to one is the same love that is shown to all. The nature of this relationship is such that it is not one of dominance or who can best the other, much like the pagan gods of old, but rather is a relationship of mutuality and unity that seeks eternally to simply love and love to the full.
The love expressed between the persons of the Trinity is not meant to reside simply within the Trinity. Rather, it is a love that goes out constantly to be freely shared, especially with the pinnacle of His creation, humanity. We can think of the love of God in this way, every single person that has been created is given a soul and is thus given a unique set of skills and talents to be used. Now, God doesn’t create junk and He doesn’t create because He is bored; He creates out of love and with the intent for each and every person to bring glory and praise to His name. Each soul He intends for greatness by calling them to holiness and to carry out His Divine Plan so people may encounter God and fall in love with Him. So, God’s plan for us is to experience His love and to fall in love with Him. Relationship with God, the inner life of love in the Trinity, is what it is all about.
You have probably heard by now, through all your years in religious education, that all of Scripture and the Christian life can be summed up in the five words of “love God and love neighbor”. The love of God, a love that explains who He is and who He wants us to imitate in this life, is not a love that is kept strictly to ourselves. It is a love that is so intense and so alive within us that it calls us to go outside of ourselves and share with others.
Now, this might seem strange or perhaps even too much to ask, but consider this: when we get excited about something or something good happens to us that we have been anticipating for a really long time, what is usually one of the first things we do? We scream, we jump for joy, and we go and tell someone about it! The good news that we have received is often immediately shared. We can’t keep it in, so we tell our parents, our siblings, our friends, and now-a-days we put it on Instagram and share with our 1,000 followers this very exciting moment in our lives.
Bring this to love now. When we fall in love with another person, all the above reactions apply but times it by 10. Love infiltrates every aspect of our life and is the topic of all of our conversations for months and years. You talk about this person you are in love with at every moment you can. The world needs to know about this person who makes you feel alive in ways that you didn’t even know was possible!
Going a step further now, a big step further, take this to God. God loves you so much, that He created you. He loves you so much that even when we reject Him, He loves you. He loves you so much, that even when you turn your back on Him, He suffers and dies for you on the Cross. He loves you so much, that He rose from the dead for you. He loves you so much, that He opened the gates of Heaven for you and sent the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen you through the ministry of the Church.
What is your response? Are you willing to die to your selfish ways (give them up) and live a life for God that responds to the love He has shown you? Are you willing to get excited about God in your life like you get excited about your new PS4 game or that grade on your test? Are you willing to fall in love with God who loves you so and grow in relationship with Him through Mass and prayer and serving others? Are you willing to proclaim God with your life in words and deeds so that others will say “I want what she has” and allow the God of love to infiltrate their life?
We are called to respond to Love with love. When we do, we live the mission of the Church as given us by God.
What does love within the Trinity look like?
Consider the most exciting thing in your life right now. Why does this excite you?
Is there anything in this excitement that reminds you of God? Ask God to show you how this speaks to you of God.
What is the scariest thing about knowing that God loves you?
How comfortable are you in sharing your relationship with God?
Write out the various questions and thoughts that you have regarding God. After you have created a list, gather together with a friends or family, and discuss with them their ideas on the matter. Then, get a YouCat (a Youth Catechism that can be found here) or if you parish has a Formed.org account search for a video on the existence of God to see how the Church answers your questions.
Together, with your family, discuss how comfortable you each are with living a life after the model of Jesus Christ. Discuss why it is important and what struggles and concerns that you each have.
Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the second person of the Godhead. In his presence on earth, both historically and in the sacraments, but most especially the Holy Eucharist, God has given us direct access to himself. No appointment necessary.
Relates to Faith: God is such that while we are on earth, his divinity remains hidden to us, but the evidence all around us, including our own religious natures, points to his reality. Likewise, if we are paying attention, we can see how he interacts in our lives, often in remarkable ways.
From the Catechism (The Catechism is a book put together by the Church to contain the teachings of the Church, it is broken down into paragraphs that are numbered. When the Catechism is quoted you use paragraph numbers instead of page numbers. This program will link to an onlie version of the Catechism where you can read directly what the Church teaches, it will be abreviated by CCC and then paragraph number):
(click on citation to go to online catechism)
CCC 27, 31-38
CCC 50
CCC 232-267
From the Bible (Here are some Scriptures that will help us to understand this topic better. You can look these up in your bible or do a search on Google to find an online version):
Genesis 1:1- 2:25
JN 14:15-31
Jn 10:30
LK 5:17-26
MT 28:19
Col 1:15-17
Addtional Videos to Watch (Feel free to watch as many as you would like for different understandings of this topic.):
Click on title to link to video:
1. Jimmy Akin answers a question about what is his favorite argument for the existence of God: (5 mins).
2. Dr. Peter Kreeft discusses the existence of God: (42 mins).
3. Philo-notes YT video on Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God: (9 mins,33 secs).
4. Christian (non-Catholic) apologist, Ruth Jackson, gives a primer on classic arguments for the existence of God: (4 mins).
5. Archbishop Fulton Sheen talks about God’s “search” for man. (25 mins)
6. Archbishop Sheen discusses the modern movement of the “Death of God” (23 mins)
7. Bishop Barron on the Trinity: (3 mins)
8. What is the Trinity: Fr. John Parks explains: (4 mins)
9. Catholic Bytes: episode 1 Does God exist (4 mins)
Narrative for Adults (This is a little more in depth discussion of the topic written in the way of a narrative that would be given in a talk to adults):
Today as we look at the world, we often see how the world questions the existence of God. Many philosophers and theologians have tackled this issue. Thomas Aquinas is one of the more famous and contrived five proofs, or “five ways”, of the existence of God based on Aristotle’s four classic arguments. The argument from "first mover"; the argument from causation; the argument from contingency; the argument from degree; the argument from final cause or ends ("teleological argument"). You can find out more about these arguments on Wikipedia, or they are easily searched on YouTube or your favorite search engine.
In his apologia of faith, The Grammar of Assent, published in 1870, St. John Henry Newman contrived the theory of “convergence of probabilities”. The basic premise of this idea when applied to the existence of God is that while formal incontrovertible proof of God’s existence is not possible, the converging evidence of his existence (i.e., the abundance of that which points to his reality) combined with human reason points to the probability of God’s existence. The element of faith is still needed to close the gap between this probability and full belief in the existence of God. A good summary of this argument can be found on Wikipedia by searching John Henry Newman, the Grammar of Assent.
That God exists we see we can know from reason. Who this God is; we know more from revelation. So, while God does remain hidden, he reveals Himself to us. We do not see him, but we know His movements. Much like the wind that we know exists from its effects we know God by His effects. We can know that God is ordered and structured because His creation has an order and structure to it. We know that God is going to be the perfection of things. So, if there is something that is good it comes from God and if something comes from God, He must possess the fullness of it. We can know that God is all powerful, because there is power in creation, and nothing in creation can be greater than the creator. We know that God is all-knowing because there is knowledge that we possess and again nothing can know more than what created it. These are all forms of natural revelation; the way God has written himself into the fabric of creation. However, we also have Divine Revelation in the Scriptures and through the Church. While we will discuss those at a different session, here we can focus on one of the items about God that is revealed in this way, the Trinity.
God is three persons but still only one God. This is revealed to us in a hidden way throughout the Old Testament, but Jesus reveals it fully to us in the New Testament. There are many verses where Jesus relates that He and the Father are One (see Jn10:30), His own divinity is claimed through many of His actions including the forgiveness of sins (see Lk 5:17-26). He talks about sending the Spirit, who is one with Him and the Father (see Jn 14:15-31). He even asks for all to be baptized not in His name, but in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (see MT 28:19). From a logical point of view, given our reality in the physical world, the Trinity is difficult to understand. There is a story of St. Augustine while writing a book on the trinity, here is the story from www.medievilists.net:
"While Augustine was working on his book On the Trinity, he was walking by the seaside one day, meditating on the difficult problem of how God could be three Persons at once. He came upon a little child. The child had dug a little hole in the sand, and with a small spoon or seashell was scooping water from the sea into the small hole. Augustine watched him for a while and finally asked the child what he was doing. The child answered that he would scoop all the water from the sea and pour it into the little hole in the sand. ‘What?’ Augustine said. ‘That is impossible. Obviously, the sea is too large and the hole too small.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the child, ‘but I will sooner draw all the water from the sea and empty it into this hole than you will succeed in penetrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your limited understanding.’ Augustine turned away in amazement and when he looked back the child had disappeared."
There is only so much our minds can comprehend. However, there are some ways in which we can understand why God is a Trinity. The method we will use here is to discuss God as all loving. As we explore the world, we can understand love, and thus we can know that God is all-loving, as we discussed He must possess the perfection of anything good. Now, when we look at love, love cannot be singular. Love really cannot live within a vacuum. In the modern world we focus on this idea of loving self before you can love others. However, in reality love cannot be truly focused upon oneself. Love by definition is the desire to sacrifice oneself for the betterment of the other. We must desire the good for ourselves and in a sense that is an aspect of love. But love is selfless and therefore is always looking outward. So, if God is the perfection of Love, it is difficult for Him to be singular. The love must go outward toward another. Here is where we find the Father and the Son. The Father’s love is toward the Son, the Son reciprocates this love and there finds a perfection in the shared love. However, for love to be perfect creates fruit of that love, in this we find the Holy Spirit. Now, because of the perfection of love that God contains there becomes no division between these three persons and thus we find one entity: God. Now this probably hurts our head, but it is a glimpse into the understanding of the existence of God and who He is. The official teaching is that there are three persons but one God.
This trinity has existed for eternity. This is a mystery. We teach that the Father did not exist before the Son, or either one of them before the Holy Spirit. Their existence is tied together, and their unity cannot be broken. As Trinity, God has existed and continues to exist. His title that He gave Moses in the Old Testament was “I am” this shows even more that He is existence, there was never a time that He was not. From a grammar point of view “I am” points to a forever nowness. He lives now, not just the future, not in the past, but He is constant present. All time exists in Him and He is present to all time. Everything ever created or ever will be created, exists in Him, in His present. He holds all things in existence, as we will discuss in a future session. But know that You are constantly present before Him.
Even though He is always present, in a certain way God in his divine being remains hidden. If He were not hidden, we would not have total free will to choose or reject him. In the way man was created, we would not be able to contain the infinite love of God’s divine being. Our hearts would literally burst from love. His love would be so overpowering, we could not reject Him. This is what is meant in Exodus when God told Moses that if anyone looked upon Him he would die (EX 33:20). If we had full knowledge of the existence of God there would be no merit, we could not give our assent to the knowledge of God. In finding the hidden God, revealed in His creation, we can seek Him, find Him, and love Him more faithfully, which gives rise to the words of the newly risen Christ to the doubting apostle, Thomas, “Blessed is he who has not seen, yet believes” (John 20:29).
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