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Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist – Mater Eucharistia

Christ in the City

Lumen Fidei: A Commentary by Fr. Robert Barron

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

 

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth—

and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters—

Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.” (Genesis 1:1-3)

God created and continually sustains all of creation. [CCC paragraph 301]

God created space, time and light.
God created the sea and the sky.
God created the plants: grass, herbs, and fruit trees bearing various fruits.
God created the sun, the moon, and the stars.
God created the fish that swim in the sea, and the birds that fly in the sky.
God created human beings.
When God was done creating all these things, he rested and declared all of them good.

In the end, there will be God.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Creator, the Savior, and the Giver of Life.
The Trinity.

Notes

People of all faiths are fascinated by our origin in the universe. This section is dedicated to their thoughts on the subject.

The Christian author Stephen Miller:

“Some people read this creation story as a myth.
Others read it as a science book, searching for clues about how the universe unfolded–
some insisting that the story took place over seven 24-hour days.

“Many Bible experts say both approaches are too extreme.
The story is no more a myth than God is, because the point of the story is to show that
God created everything.”

–The Complete Guide to the Bible (page 13)

Gerald L. Schroeder, Jewish author and MIT-trained physicist in God According to God:

“The great self-revelation of a Creator is the creation It brought into being.”
…
“Fourteen billion years ago, there was a big-bang creation of energy.” (page 25)
…
“Light beams became alive, and became not only alive, but self-aware, and acquired the ability to wonder. The wonder is not whether this genesis took six days or fourteen billion years or even eternity. The wonder is that it happened.” (page 29)

 

Scott Hahn, Our Father’s Plan:
http://ewtn.edgeboss.net/download/ewtn/audiolibrary/iq_2022.mp3

“The first 11 chapters contain the main themes of the Bible.
You can compare them to an acorn that sprouts a shoot and becomes a tree.”

Scott Hahn also explains:

• How the genealogy listings in the Bible act like a camera lens.
• How God forms a covenant with Noah and his sons.
• The differences between a contract and a covenant.
• Four key themes and what they mean.

Father Barron: What is the Trinity?

“We say that God is love.
God isn’t just something that God does.
It’s who God is.

The claim that God is love is the ground for the Trinity.
Lover, beloved, and the love that they share.

Jesus, sent by the Father, is himself God.
Within God there is sender, sent, and the love between them.

Final Thoughts

God works throughout human history to unite us to him. Genesis is the beginning of that story, which tells who we are and who created us. Fast forward 14 billion years later, and God calls his creation to be One with Him, and share in his glory. This is especially apparent in John 17, Jesus’ great prayer:

1. When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
2. just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him.
3. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
4. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
5. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
6. “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
7. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
8. because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
9. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours,
10. and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.
11. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.
12. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.
14. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
15. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.
16. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
17. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.
18. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.
19. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
20. “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21. so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
22. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
23. I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.
24. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
26. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

Father Barron comments on The Holy Spirit and the Trinity. The Trinity is a mystery. In the context of theology, a mystery can be described as follows:

“In a strict sense  a mystery is a supernatural truth, one that of its very nature lies above the finite intelligence.” — The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia on Mystery

Msgr. Charles Pope also gives this wonderful article on his blog for Trinity Sunday: 1 and 1 and 1 Makes One. A meditation on the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity

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