God is a Trinity of Persons, revealed to us by Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity become man. Jesus taught us about God’s love for us and how we are to love God and each other. God made us in His image and likeness so that we can know Him and His love for us and so we can choose to love Him in return. Even though we sometimes turn way from His love, God always offers us His love and mercy.
The Blessed Trinity
The Blessed Trinity is the mystery of our Faith that God is three distinct Persons — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit — who are each fully and equally one God. This essential mystery of our Faith reveals to us not only God’s inner life but also how to love. In fact, love is at the very heart of who God is and who we are. Scripture tells us that God is love, and this truth is manifest in God’s life as Trinity. Therefore, when we love one another, we are reflecting the love that is God, His very Trinitarian life. This truth is beyond complete human understanding, but from the very beginning, God has desired to make Himself known to us. And, so, throughout Salvation History, God prepared us to know Him.
God’s Creation
We can come to know God and His goodness and love through His creation. God is the creator of all things, both visible and invisible, which He created ex nihilo, which is Latin for “out of nothing.” Unlike the way we create something, using pre-existing materials, God created out of nothing. He simply spoke and it was. This fact helps us know that God is all powerful, all knowing, the one, true God, and all good and loving. We can see evidence of the nature of God in the beauty of a sunset, the majesty of the stars in the night sky, and in all of the wonders of creation. Everything God makes is fundamentally good, and God reveals Himself to us through His creation.
God’s Image and Likeness
God made human beings in His image and likeness. That means that alone out all of creation we are like God. We possess an intellect, or the ability to know and understand the world around us, ourselves, and our Creator. We possess free will, or the ability to freely choose our actions. With free will comes the capacity for love. We are able to love God and one another, and we are able to be loved by God and each other. God calls us to love — to love Him above all things, and to love our neighbor as ourselves for the love of Him. He gave us dominion over His creation. We worship and glorify God in this life by being good stewards of the things He has made. God is a loving Father, and we are His children. He knows and cares for each one of us. As children of God, we possess bodies, like the animals, and immortal souls, like the angels. We are created different from animals because we have the ability to love and serve God. We have also been given the freedom to choose between good and bad. God is a loving Father and wants us to be happy. He knows that the only way we can be happy is to choose what is good and to say no to sin. The problem is that we often choose to sin. When we choose to disobey God, we hurt Him, our families, and ourselves. God offers His love and mercy to us as a free gift so that we can ultimately be happy with Him in Heaven for all eternity.
