Community of St. Joseph Cathedral & Holy Cross Church

06/02/2026

06/02/2026

Saints Marcellinus and Peter
June 2
Franciscan Media
Saint of the Day

Saints Marcellinus and Peter’s Story
Marcellinus and Peter were prominent enough in the memory of the Church to be included among the saints of the Roman Canon. Mention of their names is optional in our present Eucharistic Prayer I.

Marcellinus was a priest and Peter was an exorcist, that is, someone authorized by the Church to deal with cases of demonic possession. They were beheaded during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. Pope Damasus wrote an epitaph apparently based on the report of their executioner, and Constantine erected a basilica over the crypt in which they were buried in Rome. Numerous legends sprang from an early account of their death.

Reflection
Why are these men included in our Eucharistic prayer, and given their own feast day, in spite of the fact that almost nothing is known about them? Probably because the Church respects its collective memory. They once sent an impulse of encouragement through the whole Church. They made the ultimate step of faith.

Franciscan Media
Saint of the Day

06/01/2026

In his everyday spirituality, St. Francis de Sales counsels us to begin at the beginning. Making God a part of that first conscious­ness of the new day starts things out on the right footing. Thus, St Francis’ Spiritual Directory opens with this exhortation:

First of all on awakening, we are to direct our minds completely to God by some holy thought such as the following: Sleep is the image of death and awakening that of the resurrection.

Not merely as the first among many things to do each day, but first of all the devout person thinks of God, whose grace­ful action makes awakening possible (with the aid of an alarm clock to make it timely!). That we are alive for another day is the gift each morning brings. Recognizing the source of that gift by directing our mind to do so is the appropriate response to such a gracious gift. It may take some practice, but it will prove beneficial to make this the first thought of the day, instead of reacting with annoyance or reluctance at having been awakened.

Beyond an existential awareness, the practice of directing our minds to God corresponds to and fa­cilitates a positive psychology. Experience shows that the mood with which we begin the day tends to color the entire day. What Francis de Sales understood is that start­ing the day with God in mind leads to keeping God in mind throughout the day.

Awaking with Scripture in Mind
To fashion that mindfulness of the divine gift of our awak­ening each day, Francis suggests we adopt biblical images and thoughts. In this, he moves us beyond sound psychology to the adoption of a spiritual or theological understanding of the new day. Although a seemingly benign beginning to the day, the act of getting out of bed represents for St. Francis de Sales the profound reality of the resurrection and that gift of life beyond death to which we are ultimately called. To get into the habit of seeing each day as a mini resurrection is to cultivate a thor­oughly Christian attitude toward our earthly existence. Thus, he suggests that, when we wake, we meditate on the verse:

O dead, arise and come to judgment. (cf. Eph. 5:14)

Or we say with Job:

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that on the last day I will rise again. My God, grant that this be to eternal glory; this hope rests in my inmost being. (cf. Job 19:25-26)

At other times we might say with him:

On that day, O God, you will call me, and I will answer you; you will stretch forth your right arm to the work of your hands; you have counted all my steps. (cf. Job 14:15-16)

The Christian attitude with which we greet each morning is founded on faith in the Redemption and our vocation to eternal life. To cultivate this consciousness, we could recall the book of Job, that classic story of the wise man who longs to make sense of human existence amid the innocent suffering of his personal life, and who does so thanks to a divine intervention. Like Job, we can reaffirm faith in the living God and entrust ourselves to the call and care of divine providence. To do so at the beginning of the day creates a bulwark against which the travails we may encounter during the day will hold no sway.

But the tale of Job offers only one example among many pos­sible aspirations. For this reason, the saint says:

We should make these holy aspirations or others which the Holy Spirit may suggest, for we have the freedom to follow his inspirations.

The biblical thoughts St. Francis de Sales suggests are worthwhile words to remember and to recall, with practice, each morning. But, as he cautions here and throughout his spiritual direction, the words matter less than the affections. If we are inspired to think or speak differently by the Holy Spirit, so be it. As long as we somehow direct our mind to the Divine at day’s dawning, we have begun to live today well.

But there’s more with which to start our day.

Praying the Angelus in the Morning
With the Angelus we make the morning exer­cise of adoring our Lord from the depths of our being and thanking Him for all His benefits. In union with the loving offering that the Savior made of Himself to His eternal Father on the tree of the Cross, we offer Him our heart, its affections and resolutions, and our whole being, and beg for His help and blessing. We greet Our Lady and ask for her blessing, as well as that of our guardian angel and holy patrons. If we wish, we may say the Our Father. All this should be done quickly and briefly.

That may seem a lot to do quickly and briefly! But it can be done in the time it takes to shower or to make the morning coffee.

The brevity that the saint counsels here is an indication that, again, the saying of multiple prayers is not the primary empha­sis. Rather, he recommends them here as something customary, hence, simple to do. The prayers he mentions—the Angelus, the Hail Mary, the Our Father—refer to the traditional prayers with which we grew up, prayers that are easy to remember and easy to say. Although elsewhere St. Francis de Sales emphasizes the mindfulness that makes prayer effective, here his point is simply to sanctify these early moments of the day by means of thoughts and words already familiar to us. These are the basic elements of the morning exercise that in other spiritual traditions takes on a more definitive and lengthier form with fixed wording.

In Salesian spirituality, the more important point, as always, lies in the cultivation of our heart and soul. Notice the affec­tions the saint calls forth here: adoring, thanking, offering, even begging help and blessing. These shape the posture of the humble believer before the all-powerful God, the God who has power over life and death and who, by divine providence, has willed that this day we be alive. It is not likely that we will think such heady or heavy thoughts in the early hours of the morning, but by following the saint’s suggestions we will attune ourselves to the divine gift that beckons us to begin the day.

Praying with the Saints
In cultivating these affections, he urges us to recall the ex­ample of Mary (our Lady), the angels, and the saints (holy pa­trons), whom we can greet, or call on, with a simple “pray for us.” Again, it does not seem like much, but this simple litany creates the mental reminder that we are not alone in this life, that others who lived well have gone before us, and that help for the day stands nearby.

All of this is intended to turn our morning routine into a sacred one. Routines play a key role in human life. Able to be done without our giving them much thought, they are comfort­able, and often comforting, acts. Psychologically, even if not consciously, they represent a way of exercising a modicum of control over the chaos of our surroundings. Our habits lead us to do the same thing over and over again each morning; were we to deviate from this habitual routine, we would probably think something was “off ” or just not right.

Donning the Cross
So, too, with the routine of praying. The words we use and the actions we perform (e.g., making the Sign of the Cross when seeing a crucifix) constitute rituals. When that routine or ritual becomes a habit—as is intended by the exercise suggested here—it creates a comfort zone in which to steady ourselves before we take on the duties of the day. Hence, even the next step in the morning routine can be made sacred:

As we begin to dress, we will make the Sign of the Cross and say: Cover me, Lord, with the cloak of innocence and the robe of love. My God, do not let me appear before you stripped of good works.

Here the practicality of Salesian spirituality becomes obvious. Everyone gets dressed! Everyone does so automatically, without even thinking much about it (except to decide what to wear). And everyone does it every day, even when the attire is casual. Why not, then, take this daily routine and turn it into a daily prayer?

By the aspiration suggested here, we seek to “clothe” or cover ourselves with a theological sensibility. What is our Christian mission this day and every day? To live well. To live in con­formity with God’s will (innocence). To appear to others in the attire (a regal robe) by which a Christian is recognized and known—namely, love (or charity), without which we would be stripped of the good works or moral deeds that distinguish human action from that of animals.

Thus clothed with the intention to live the Faith we believe, we are ready to start our day in a grace-filled way. Now it is time to prepare for what is going to happen on this particular day.

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from a chapter in Fr. Dailey’s Live Today Well, available from Sophia Institute Press.

Photo by Jayrome Balicol on Unsplash

This article is made available courtesy of The Catholic Exchange.

05/31/2026

Trinity Sunday: An Image of God’s Love
- By Gayle Somers

On this first Sunday after Pentecost, the Church calls us to remember the Most Holy Trinity. Why is this perfect timing?

Gospel (Read Jn 3:16-18)
Today’s Gospel is different from any we have seen during the long seasons of Lent and Easter. On Sunday after Sunday, the Gospels have reported actions of Jesus. They have been passages full of conversations and events that moved His story along, culminating in His Ascension into Heaven and His promise to send the Holy Spirit. Today, however, St. John gives us a kind of summary of this. It is simple, but what a sweep it has! Read the first verse carefully so as not to miss its impact through familiarity: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” If we understand the scope of this statement, we will know why it is perfectly fitting that today is Trinity Sunday.

“God so loved the world” inevitably takes us all the way back to Creation, where we first meet “God” and “the world.” Why does God love the world so much? We can’t fully answer this without figuring out why He made the world in the first place. As we read through the first few chapters of Genesis, the one thing we immediately grasp is that the physical world exists as a home for the crown of creation: man and woman. In a brief but remarkably important verse, we see God’s intention for mankind: “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen 1:26). Surely this doesn’t tell us everything we’d like to know about our creation, but it tells us what we most need to know. God, the “Us” in this verse, wants man to be like Him. First, notice the paradox. There is plurality in the language of singularity. There is only one God creating the universe, but this God is “Us.” Mysterious! It will take a very long time for the meaning of this paradox to be made clear. Next, implicit in this statement is an invitation. Why make man in “Our” image and likeness if not to welcome him into the communion and fellowship of “Us”? This is vital information. If man is made in the image of the God Who is “Us,” then man is made for communion with the “Us” of God. In addition, we find in the next chapter of Genesis that “it is not good” that man should be alone (Gen 2:18). This was the only thing in creation pronounced “not good” by God. It makes perfect sense, however. If we are like the God Who is “Us,” then we are meant for communion with other beings like us. This would be a true reflection of being in God’s image.

As we read on in Genesis, we find that God’s plan was seriously interrupted by man’s disobedience. Adam and Eve’s willfulness broke their communion with God and with each other. They incurred God’s just punishment, but because “God so loved the world,” He made them a promise. A “woman” and her “seed” would someday do battle with the Enemy who seduced them into rebellion. In the meantime, they were expelled from the Garden, but it was not destroyed. That hinted at the possibility of a return.

So, very early on, the stage is set for the drama of salvation that needs the rest of history to unfold. We began to explore that history in Advent, when we discovered that a young girl in Nazareth was “the woman” promised by God, and her “seed” was Jesus, God’s own Son, Who existed from the beginning but became a Man in the Incarnation. The “Us” of Genesis is beginning to take shape. Lent and Easter rehearsed the truly unimaginable history of God’s Son dying in our place to lift the punishment pronounced on us (as children of Adam) in the Garden. He experienced God’s just judgment for us, and in His Resurrection, He defeated Satan, sin, and death in one fell swoop. Then, in a move no one could have predicted, when He ascended into Heaven, King Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to complete the long-standing intention of God at Creation. It is the Holy Spirit, God’s own life in us, Who makes it possible for man to step into the fellowship for which he was made, not only with the “Us” of God, now fully revealed to be God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but also with one another. Wow!

This history helps us more fully understand St. John’s summary statement about God’s love. We know the great heights from which man fell in the Garden and the dramatic response from God—sending His only Son—to restore us. Jesus came to save, not condemn. The condemnation on sin already rested on man from the Garden. It didn’t appear in man’s history at the Incarnation. Believing in Jesus will save man from sin’s judgment. That is why St. John says, “Whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.”

“God so loved the world” that He did everything necessary for us to know and love Him back, a work accomplished, at various times in human history, by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now that the story is complete, it is the perfect time to say, “Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity today!”

Possible response: Blessed Trinity, thank You for all You have done to welcome me into Your fellowship for eternity. I was made for this.

First Reading (Read Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9)
Having reviewed the scope of salvation in our Gospel reading, we can now examine one piece of the vast history that led St. John to write, “God so loved the world.” Here we find ourselves on Mt. Sinai, as Moses returns to the LORD’s presence after Israel’s apostasy with the golden calf. In his fury at seeing for himself the orgiastic rebellion of God’s people, Moses threw the first set of the tablets of God’s Law down, shattering them in a prophetic demonstration of what the people had done by their disobedience. Moses interceded on their behalf, however, and God accepted his mediation. Now, Moses takes another set of tablets into the LORD’s presence so that He can write His Law on them a second time for His people.

Not included in today’s reading is Moses’ request that God do more than re-write the tablets: “Moses said, ‘I pray Thee, show me Thy glory” (Ex 33:18). Even with Moses’ long friendship with God, his heart’s desire was for “more,” as it should be for us, too. God grants his request, passing by him as he was protected in the cleft of a rock. In a very rare self-description, God identifies Himself as mercy, grace, patience, kindness, and faithfulness. Notice in this encounter the shadowy suggestion of the Trinity: “Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses.” God in Heaven (the Father) comes down in a cloud (the Spirit), and stands, passing by like a man (the Son). When Moses experiences this, he “bowed down to the ground in worship,” as we are called to do on Trinity Sunday. Look carefully at Moses’ request for God’s wayward people: “…do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins and receive us as Your own.” What is he asking?

Moses wants communion, nearness, physical proximity for God and Israel, the very thing for which we were made. He acknowledges the problem caused by sin (resolved by Jesus, hundreds of years later), and longs for Israel to be God’s own children (accomplished by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost). Not even Moses, who knew God so well, could have imagined how this prayer would ultimately be answered. Because we do, we have yet another reason to say, “Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity today!”

Possible response: Blessed Trinity, I ask of You, for myself and the Church, what Moses asked on Sinai: “Do come along in our company” this day.

Psalm (Read Dan 3:52-55)
If our readings are getting us cranked up to bless the Holy Trinity today, this hymn of praise from the Book of Daniel gives us perfect words to do it. Its lines contain an increasing intensification of what we know God’s love for the world should call forth from us: “Glory and praise forever!”

Possible response: Blessed Trinity, I can feel in these words the ecstasy of Your reign over all creation. Help me keep this vision! It dims for me sometimes.

Second Reading (Read 2 Cor 13:11-13)
This epistle reading, with amazing brevity, helps us to see the practical application of the work of the Holy Trinity on our behalf. Imagine if we asked of St. Paul, “What difference does the doctrine of the Trinity make to my daily life?” Good question! Here is his answer. Let us savor every simple phrase: Brothers and sisters, rejoice (the only appropriate response to the work of the Trinity). Mend your ways (Jesus has conquered sin and given us His Spirit; live in that victory). Encourage… agree… live in peace…greet each other with a holy kiss (live the unity won for us by the Trinity). The God of love and peace will be with you (Moses’ request for God’s presence among His people has been accomplished by the Trinity). The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity today!).

Possible response: Read the epistle again—it IS our response.

Image by Renata Sedmakova on Shutterstock

05/29/2026

Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat
Franciscan Media
Statue of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat
Saint of the Day for May 29
(December 12, 1779 – May 25, 1865)

Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat’s Story
The legacy of Madeleine Sophie Barat can be found in the more than 100 schools operated by her Society of the Sacred Heart, institutions known for the quality of the education made available to the young.

Sophie herself received an extensive education, thanks to her brother Louis, 11 years older and her godfather at baptism. Himself a seminarian, Louis decided that his younger sister would likewise learn Latin, Greek, history, physics and mathematics—always without interruption and with a minimum of companionship. By age 15, she had received a thorough exposure to the Bible, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church and theology. Despite the oppressive regime Louis imposed, young Madeleine Sophie Barat thrived and developed a genuine love of learning.

Meanwhile, this was the time of the French Revolution and of the suppression of Christian schools. The education of the young, particularly young girls, was in a troubled state. Sophie, who had discerned a call to the religious life, was persuaded to become a teacher. She founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, which focused on schools for the poor as well as boarding schools for young women of means. Today, co-ed Sacred Heart schools also can be found, along with schools exclusively for boys.

In 1826, her Society of the Sacred Heart received formal papal approval. By then she had served as superior at a number of convents. In 1865, she was stricken with paralysis; she died that year on the feast of the Ascension.

Madeleine Sophie Barat was canonized in 1925. Her liturgical feast is celebrated on May 25.

Reflection
Madeleine Sophie Barat lived in turbulent times. She was only 10 when the Reign of Terror began. In the wake of the French Revolution, rich and poor both suffered before some semblance of normality returned to France. Born to some degree of privilege, Sophie received a good education. It grieved her that the same opportunity was being denied to other young girls, and she devoted herself to educating them, whether poor or well-to-do.

We who live in an affluent country can follow her example by helping to ensure to others the blessings we have enjoyed.

Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat is a Patron Saint of:
Educators/Teachers

05/28/2026

Saint of the Day for May 28
(June 27, 1766 – June 30, 1853)
Franciscan Media
Saint of the Day

Venerable Pierre Toussaint’s Story
Born in modern-day Haiti and brought to New York City as a slave, Pierre Toussaint died a free man, a renowned hairdresser, and one of New York City’s most well-known Catholics.

Plantation owner Pierre Bérard made Toussaint a house slave and allowed his grandmother to teach her grandson how to read and write. In his early 20s, Pierre, his younger sister, his aunt, and two other house slaves accompanied their master’s son to New York City because of political unrest at home. Apprenticed to a local hairdresser, Pierre learned the trade quickly and eventually worked very successfully in the homes of rich women in New York City.

When his master died, Pierre Toussaint was determined to support himself, his master’s widow, and the other house slaves. He was freed shortly before the widow’s death in 1807.

Four years later, he married Marie Rose Juliette, whose freedom he had purchased. They later adopted Euphémie, his orphaned niece. Both preceded Pierre in death. He attended daily Mass at St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street, the same parish that Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton had attended.

Pierre Toussaint donated to various charities, generously assisting blacks and whites in need. He and his wife opened their home to orphans and educated them. The couple also nursed abandoned people who were suffering from yellow fever. Urged to retire and enjoy the wealth he had accumulated, Pierre responded, “I have enough for myself, but if I stop working I have not enough for others.”

Pierre originally was buried outside St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, where he was once refused entrance because of his race. His sanctity and the popular devotion to him caused his body to be moved to the present location of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.

Pierre Toussaint was declared Venerable in 1996.

Reflection
Pierre was internally free long before he was legally free. Refusing to become bitter, he daily chose to cooperate with God’s grace, eventually becoming a compelling sign of God’s wildly generous love.

Venerable Pierre Toussaint is the Patron Saint of:
Barbers
Hair Stylists

05/26/2026

By Mike Aquilina

In many places throughout the world, Christians observe Pentecost Sunday as a celebration of God as the Trinity — three divine Persons living eternally in perfect unity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the mystery at the heart of Christianity, and from the beginning it distinguished the apostolic Faith from everything else. It is the foundation of every Christian creed; all other dogmas, all other revelation, come from the fact that God is three in one.

The Apostles preached, insistently, that “God is one.” St. Paul said it plainly (Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:4–6; Gal. 3:20), as did St. James (James 2:19). In the entire New Testament, there is nothing to suggest a second god — a god besides God.

The Apostles’ monotheism was continuous with their religious herita e. God had said through the prophet Isaiah: “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5). And, in the time of Jesus, Jews daily recalled the words of Moses: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4–5). The God preached by the Apostles is one, and he demanded a total and undivided commitment from anyone who would enter his covenant.

Yet from the first day of the Church’s life, it was clear that the one God is also three. As Peter preached his first public sermon, he spoke of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, [Je­sus] has poured out this which you see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

The God Peter preached was not a solitary being, but an eternal communion. The God revealed on Pentecost was interpersonal. Only of such a deity could the Apostles say: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).

* * *

The Apostles grounded this most fundamental belief in a revelation given by Jesus himself. In the last sentence recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus instructed his disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). They were to act in one divine “name” that clearly applied to three distinct persons. Father, Son, and Spirit share the “name” of God equally. Jesus’ Great Commission, then, was the immediate background for Peter’s first proclamation.

But even before the Great Commission, Jesus had spoken of himself as “one” with the Father (John 10:30). The being of the Father and Son, he said, was relational and inseparable: “the Father is in me, and I am in the Father” (John 10:38). As God had revealed himself to Moses by the name “I AM” (Exod. 3:14), so Jesus claimed that name as his own. “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). Only immortal, eternal God could make such a statement.

Nevertheless, Jesus was clearly not the same person as the one he addressed as “Father” — and who identified Jesus as “beloved Son” (Mark 1:11; 9:7).

Jesus knew that he was divine, and he applied unmistakably divine titles to himself, such as “lord of the sabbath” (Luke 6:5). His appeal to God as “Father” was perceived as a divine claim, which the Pharisees condemned as blasphemy and supreme arrogance. “This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he . . . called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). And Jesus did not back away from those charges. Instead, he expressed his expectation “that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (John 5:23).

From the reactions of his opponents, we can see that Jesus’ self-understanding was scandalous. Nevertheless, the disciples and evangelists reported the Master’s divine titles and claims without commentary, explanation, or defense. They had received a revelation — an idea usually rendered by the Greek apokalypsis, which means “unveiling.” Jesus had shown them something that had previously been veiled from human sight, something humanity could not have discovered on its own. The Apostles were duty-bound to report the content of the revelation, even though they could not pretend to comprehend it.

Jesus had, moreover, spoken of a third divine Person — distinct from the Father and Son yet united to them. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit as someone like himself: “another Counselor” (John 14:16) —yet, again, someone whom the Father could “give” and “send” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit would himself be an active agent — a person and not a force — teaching and reminding the disciples of all that they needed to know.

The divinity of the Spirit was self-evident to the Apostles. In his interrogation of the wayward Ananias and Sapphira, Peter used the terms God and Holy Spirit interchangeably (compare Acts 5:4 and 5:9).

Such was the God proclaimed by the Apostles — and expe­rienced by thousands of people in the New Testament period.

* * *

Christians, over time, would reflect on the mystery and see hints of it in the Old Testament. They noticed that the cre­ation story portrays God using the first person plural, us and our, to speak of himself and not the singular me and my: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26, em­phasis added). God is one, and his singularity is reflected in the verb forms of the narrative; and yet, when he speaks, he speaks as a collective.

Later in the book of Genesis, God’s promise appears to Abraham by means of three messengers. Other books of the Bible present God’s wisdom as a person (see Proverbs 1:20 and chapters 7–9). Similarly, “the word of the Lord” appears often as not simply a message, but a messenger, who comes and goes (for example, 1 Kings 17:2). When Jews in the diaspora composed the Targums, paraphrased and expanded versions of the books of the Bible, they often depicted “the Word” (Aramaic memra) as a personal figure.

This article is from Ministers and Martyrs. Click image to preview other chapters.
The most prominent Jewish contemporary of the Apostles, Philo of Alexandria, speculated much about God’s “Word.” Philo personifies the Word as the mediator of God’s revelation; God is known in and through the Word. For Philo, the Word is a deuteros theos — a “second god”! — and yet is also the archetype of man.

Other religious Jews were discussing the possibility of a plurality of “powers” in heaven. Yet none went so far as the author of the fourth Gospel, who wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). For the early Christians the Word was eternal and transcendent, but became a man in order to save the human race. The apostolic Faith proclaimed the eternal “Word” as enfleshed in the historical Jesus.

The word flesh (Greek sarx) was graphic and must have been scandalous. The same term could be used to describe meat hanging in the marketplace. Here it describes the human body of God. (Later, in John 6:51, Jesus will use the same term, sarx, to describe his body given as “bread . . . for the life of the world.”)

The New Testament doctrine of God was revealed at Pentecost — revealed in the words of St. Peter and in the event itself. But nowhere in Scripture is it presented systematically. The word Trinity appears nowhere in the Bible.

Nevertheless, the testimony of the Apostles is clear. The awaited Messiah, sent by God, was not merely one of the great men of history, but rather God himself. The Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, in turn, was not an impersonal gift, but the gift of a divine person. From the beginning, the Church instinctively worshiped Jesus and the Holy Spirit as God. St. Paul prayed to the Father and Jesus together:

Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. (1 Thess. 3:11–13)

Paul also pronounced blessings in Jesus’ name (Rom. 16:20; 1 Cor. 16:23) and in the name of the Trinity: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14).

The most ancient Christian homily we possess outside Scripture begins with the line: “Brethren, it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God, as the Judge of the living and the dead.” And one of the earliest pagan reports about Christianity, the letter of Pliny the Younger to the emperor Trajan, describes a congregation gathered to “sing hymns to Christ as to a god.” The New Testament contains several passages that testify to Jesus’ divinity and that seem to be cast in a musical form (John 1:1–18; Phil. 2:5–11; Col. 1:11–15). Hymns to the divine Christ were likely part of Christian worship from the beginning.

What was implicit in Scripture became explicit in the Church’s worship — and made more explicit still in the speculative theology of the following generations. By the end of the second century, Greek and Latin writers had coined new words to describe the mystery of the three in one: Trinas in Greek, Trinitas in Latin — the etymological sources of the English word Trinity.

But the earliest proof is in the Church’s worship of God as Father, and of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. A maxim of the early Church tells us: The law of prayer is the law of belief.25 And the Church has prayed consistently in a Trinitarian way since the time of the Apostles.

* * *

The God revealed at Pentecost was not a new God. He was, as the disciples proclaimed to the Jews in Jerusalem, “the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers” (Acts 3:13; 7:32).

The experience of that God was decidedly different. The eternal Word had “pitched his tent” among his people; that’s the literal meaning of the Greek in John 1:14. And, as if that were not close enough, he promised that they would share his life in a still deeper way. He would “abide” in them, and they would abide in him (John 15:4–10). They would be “filled” with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4; 4:8; 6:3, 5; 7:55; 13:52).

God would live in the believers, as believers lived in God. God shared human nature, so that humans might come to share his divine nature. St. Paul said: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9; see also Gal. 4:4–6). As Jesus was the Son of God, so the members of his Body, the Church, would know themselves to be children of God (see 1 John 3:1–2).

This was the deepest meaning of salvation. Jesus came “to save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21); but the cleansing from sin was a preparation for their new life as God’s children. Around the same time the Fathers were developing a language to describe the Trinity, they were coining terms just as bold to describe salvation. They called it divinization and deification, to emphasize the reality that Christians were God’s children. Jesus’ promise of the Spirit was not a word game. It was the promise of a share in God’s very nature (see 2 Pet. 1:4).

That sudden infusion of divine power explains the ecstatic behavior of the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It also ex­plains the power with which the Apostles worked miracles from that day forward. It is perhaps the only plausible expla­nation for the success of the work of evangelization in those first generations. The sociologist Rodney Stark estimates that the Christian Church grew, over its first three centuries, at a steady rate of 40 percent per decade.

That’s not something the Apostles — as we know them from the New Testament — could accomplish. Remember: Peter was a coward, Thomas a doubter, James and John ambitious dreamers.

With military might and a wealth of resources, Alexander the Great had failed to conquer the world. So had imperial Rome. Yet believers, or rather Christ, who lived in them (Gal. 2:20) and enabled them to act with his divine power, would succeed.

Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from Ministers and Martyrs: The Ultimate Catholic Guide to the Apostolic Age, which is available from Sophia Institute Press as an ebook or paperback.


This article is made available courtesy of The Catholic Exchange.