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God and His Love for Mankind
The almighty God is three divine persons – The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - in one God. This is called the Trinity and it is a mystery beyond human understanding.
Through a free act of His divine love God created the universe out of nothing. He created a man and a woman in God’s image and likeness, and He gave them all of creation to enjoy and take care of.
Out of His compassionate love God warned the man and woman not to sin. Sin was against God and against the very nature of mankind. However, the man and woman chose to sin anyway. This choice separated them from God, leaving them and all their descendants with suffering and death. Mankind was now fallen, broken and corrupt; destined for an eternity of suffering without love and without God. There was nothing mankind could do to fix this fallen state. Mankind needed a savior.
God’s love and compassion for mankind did not diminish when we sinned. God did not abandon us to death. He promised a savior. The first part of the Bible, the Old Testament, is all about the promised savior. Through the history, prophesy and prayers of the Old Testament, a Messiah, meaning Anointed One, was foreshadowed.
In the time of God’s choosing, God the Father sent His Divine Son to become a man. A sinless virgin woman named Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and she conceived in her womb a child, the Son of God.
They named Him Jesus. Jesus is fully God and fully man - a Divine Person with a human body and soul. When He reached 30 years of age Jesus began His public work of fulfilling God the Father’s will.
Jesus’s mission was to save us by reconciling us with God. He did this by offering His humanity in death. This is an all powerful and perfect offering to His Father made freely by the Son out of Love for His Father and all mankind. Being fully human, Jesus was able to stand in for mankind, and being full divine, His sacrifice was all powerful – eliminating all sin and restoring us to friendship with God. Not only this, but through the sacrifice of God become man, mankind may be partakers of the divine nature. All that Jesus did was so that we might know God's love.
On the third day after His death, Jesus rose from the dead. It is in His resurrection that Jesus demonstrated His victory over death. He shares that victory to all that come to Him seeking His love and mercy, so that we to will rise at the end of time and live forever in heaven with God and all the blessed.
Jesus also came to teach us about God and God’s plan for mankind. He did this through His words and by being our model of holiness.
Jesus formed His apostles to imitate Him and it is upon them that He established His Church. The Catholic Church, from the first century to this very day, is a divinely created union of all the men and women who received the redemption of their souls and forgiveness of their sins through the Sacrament of Baptism. The Church was promised the Holy Spirit by Jesus, who descended upon the disciples at Pentecost, 50 days after His resurrection. It is the Holy Spirit Who always dwells with the Church, making her holy despite mankind’s continued struggle with sin. It is the Holy Spirit which guarantees that the teaching of the Church is true and the Sacraments of the Church are effective.
There are many great ways to learn more about God and His Church. The Map of Life by Frank Sheed is a good way to begin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church can be found online and book form. It contains the best summary of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Most importantly, reading God’s inspired Word in the Bible is encouraged everyday.
You can reach out to any of our priests or our Director of Discipleship and Evangelization, Mike Denz, with any questions you may have.
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