www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Presbyterians take Trinitarian Theology to a WHOLE new "level"!

I'd read about this change in Getreligion.org and remember it being pointed out that "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" would still be used for baptisms. So no question about validity then.

A feminine description of the Holy Spirit may be dangerous. Jesus Christ Our Lord was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Mary is the only Mother of God. The Holy Spirit is the least explicitly masculine Person of the Holy Trinity, but is not explicitly feminine either.

Zenovia and John,

Thanks for your comments!

I'm not sure of the danger that you see, John. The fact that Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit - "the power of the Most High will overshadow you" - does not change the fact of God's Fatherhood. (I am just assuming here, but you may be "oversexualizing" the encounter between Mary and the HOly Spirit. Is that correct?)

As to Mary being the only "Mother of God", this idea of seeing a princple of divine maternity/femininity within the Godhead does not somehow threaten Mary's role as "God-bearer" or "She who bore God". It only serves to make the connection between Mary and the Holy Spirit more explicit. (Again, my argument for her being a created visible "icon" of the Holy Spirit through grace.)

Of course, this is all speculative, but it is not without foundation, at least in the early Syrian Christian tradition.

God bless!

Gordo

The following is from St. Francis, ca. 1215, from his Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, which appears as the Prologue to the Rule:

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'All who love the Lord with their whole heart, with their whole soul and mind, with all their strength, and love their neighbors as themselves and hate their bodies with their vices and sins, and receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and produce worthy fruits of penance.

Oh, how happy and blessed are these men and women when they do these things and persevere in doing them, because the spirit of the Lord will rest upon them and he will make his home and dwelling among them, and they are the sons of the heavenly Father, whose works they do, and they are the spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are spouses, when by the Holy Spirit the faithful soul is united with our Lord Jesus Christ, we are brothers to him when we fulfill the will of the Father who is in heaven.

We are mothers, when we carry him in our heart and body through divine love and a pure and sincere conscience; we give birth to him through a holy life which must give light to others by example.

Oh, how glorious it is to have a great and holy Father in heaven! Oh how glorious it is to have such a beautiful and admirable Spouse, the Holy Paraclete.

Oh, how glorious it is to have such a Brother and such a Son, loved, beloved, humble, peaceful, sweet, lovable, and desirable above all: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave up his life for his sheep and prayed to the Father saying:

"Oh holy Father, protect them with your name whom you gave me out of the world. I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me and they received it. They have known that in truth I came from you, they have believed that it was you who sent me. For these I pray, not for the world. Bless and consecrate them, and I consecrate myself for their sakes. I do not pray for them alone; I pray also for those who will belive in me through their word that they may be holy by being one as we are. And I desire, Father, to have them in my company where I am to see this glory of mine in your kingdom."'

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Notice that in a 13th century context, this language is beautiful.

It has nothing to do with feminists (who wandered along centuries later) and being PC was unknown back then (thank heavens), but it has everything to do with what is beautiful in the spiritual and penetential life, while at the same time recognizing the earthy and rather inevitable fact that in the physical world, there is a masculine and a feminine nature of spirituality and they've got their place. Note what it does not do: it does not attempt to redefine the Trinity. It attempts to talk on human terms about how to emulate higher virtues.

Sincere Catholics embraced this language, as did, of course, the Vatican.

My point: St. Francis was not babbling feminist or PC hooey. He was trying to talk about deep spirituality and how we humans who call ourselves Christians live by daily conversion.

What the Presbyterians are trying in 21st century context, doesn't sound like the same thing, at least from what I've read. They sound like they are trying to substitute actual identities for the three Persons of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's sort of silly.

It is far more useful to dispense with redefining the nature of the Trinity, something humans can only grasp defining at a very basic level - and far better to figure out how we apply what we DO know to living our every day lives correctly and in a holy and penitent fashion.

We don't get to define or redefine the Almighty. He's beyond our feeble grasp. We're like children. If we're lucky and we take up a life of penance, we might define or redefine ourselves in a way more in keeping with the good path Jesus and the apostles and saints are leading us towards.

What the Presbyterians SEEM to be trying strikes me as a rather nonsensical endeavor. I sort of hope it is has just been mis-explained via the various media reports...

I guess the author of that article has voted for Curly Joe?! I'd feel flattered if she got the idea from our discussions...

My favorite comments on the old thread were about Shemp and his "false" stoogedom. That was so funny.

Hey, we could form three different "communities" already - funny how that works: we've got the Curly folks, the Curly Joe folks, and the followers of that heretical Cult o' Shemp.

I vote for Curly. The Curly Shuffle would be about the only form of "liturgical dance" I could truly say I'd enjoy.

lol

Just a slight correction - delete the "was" in between "Mary" and "conceived". I do not intend to assert a new doctrine here!

Gordo

Well, John, that depends on which language you are using. In Hebrew Ruah Elohim is feminine (Hebrew has only two genders). Greek Pneuma is the gender usually called "neuter" (really a category used for children). And Latin Spiritus is masculine. (In Latin the third gender really is neuter).
I don't think there is a lot of mileage to be gained in trying to genderize the Paraclete. In any case, gender is a feature of grammar, not biology so we should resist the fallacy "masculine means male". It doesn't.