In the 2008 documentary, “Religious”, Bill Maher, who is well known for his show “Real Time with Bill Maher”, embarks on journey – albeit a rather tongue-in-cheek one — throughout the US, the Holy Land, and the Vatican to get answers to questions that skeptics and seekers have been asking for centuries about Christian theology and religion itself.
Along with visiting the actual Holy Land to get answers to his questions, Maher also visits a clone Holy Land / theme park in Florida, where he meets the cast and crew that perform a daily reenactment of Christ’s death and resurrection in front of a live audience. The star of the show, of course, is Jesus – -and Maher gets some one-on-one time with, well, “Jesus”.
Putting aside that the dialogue between Maher and “Jesus” shows Maher does not have a good command of Scripture (and that he uses the usual, overly literal interpretations of the Bible that many atheists often champion as biblical scholarship) – “Jesus” throws an intellectual fastball at Maher by comparing the Trinity to the three main forms of water: liquid, gas, solid. Meaning that although each form is different from the other, they all equal water. Just as God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are distinct, yet are all one God.
I give “Jesus” credit for using that clever analogy to explain the Trinity – though I may need to elaborate on that some in another video. Namely, analogies – including the “water” analogy – about the Trinity can be misinterpreted as three “gods” or three essences that operate independently of each other, when they in fact act as one. Or as St. Augustine explain in his works, Confessions:
“I speak of these three: to be, to know, and to will. For I am, and I know, and I will: I am a knowing and a willing being, and I know that I am and that I will, and I will to be and to know. Therefore, in these three, let him who can do so perceive how inseparable a life there is, one life and one mind and one essence, and finally how inseparable a distinction there is, and yet there is a distinction.” In other words, if you combine separate “being”, “knowing,” and “willing” into three distinct traits, they all still comprise the same essence. But more on that in another video!
In the meantime, the concept of the Trinity leads us to this week’s Gospel readings, John 20:19-23, John 15:26-27, and John 16:12-15. Although John 20:19-23 is the primary Gospel reading for this Pentecost Sunday, I am including the alternate Gospel readings as well, as they thread together the importance of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, as well as the still crucial reason we still need the Holy Spirit to this day.
We receive a few key lessons from these Gospels:
*Christ bestows the Holy Spirit up on the apostles and gives them the authority to forgive sins in His Name and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
*That not everything God may reveal to us is contained in Scripture
*The Holy Spirit guides us in our salvation through Christ and sharing the Gospel.
The first two bullets, along with a few other passages the Gospels and letters from St. Pau, have led to confusing, sad – and I think, unnecessary – divisiveness among Christians. There is no hiding that we have one Catholic Church, yet we also have 30,000 sects of competing Christian theology, most of which proclaim “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture is the only source of authority from God); and that Catholics have it all wrong about apostolic succession, the Church as the keeper of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, the role of priests, and so on.
Thankfully – and though this is often disputed, yet is clearly beyond dispute – the early Church fathers were blatantly consistent in teaching the Gospel we still believe today, our relationship with the triune God, and the role of the Church in safeguarding Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
And though there is already enough back-and-forth between Catholics and Protestants about what is and is not truth, I refer once again to the early Church fathers: They received their authority from the first apostles; and the apostles received theirs from God, who empowered them with the Holy Spirit. And this is why we celebrate Pentecost: It signifies the official birth of the Church. And now 2000 years later, through centuries of progress mixed with turmoil, the Catholic Church still stands as a universal force for upholding Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, all while being guided by the Holy Spirit that Christ promised to us.
What’s more, if we trust that Christ died and resurrected for our salvation, then we must also trust the authority he gave to the apostles, who allowed the Holy Spirit to help them preserve against many odds, against many splintered factions during early Christianity, and build the only, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church that has no other agenda except to lead us to Christ and help us grow a relationship with him through the Sacraments.
May the Holy Spirit continue to guide our Sacred Tradition and keep us in accord with truth.