Consubstantial? What?

Last updated on: February 18, 2019 at 6:00 pm by Ben Hartford

Consubstantial? What? 2019-02-18T18:00:02-05:00 Ben Hartford

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Following this apostolic tradition (that of the apostles confessing Jesus Christ to be the Word), the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is “consubstantial” with the Father, that is, one only God with him. The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed “the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father”.

-Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 242

God The Father, God The Son, God The Holy Spirit.
Image by Peter Lomas from Pixabay

Image by Peter Lomas from Pixabay

Consubstantial comes from the Latin consubstantialis, which comes from the Greek homoousios, or “of one being”. It’s hard to understand how Jesus can be of one being and be begotten. But our un-perfected human minds don’t understand many things. Prayer and meditation can bring us closer to understanding, but from this sojourn on Earth, it will always be a mystery.

As to the word “begotten”…beget means to create by way of spawning or birthing. Which implies giving of oneself to create another. Made, on the other hand, implies gathering materials and constructing something. Granted, those materials God used to make us, were made by God; and God imbues in us a spark of divinity. But it is not the same as being of the essence of God.

And this is AWESOME. God made man and woman. God begot Jesus. And god begets Jesus. And God will beget Jesus. In other words God, in eternity, is always begetting Jesus. And, by definition of eternity, always has and will. Because Jesus calls us “brother” in his humanity, and calls God “Father” in his humanity and divinity, we are therefor sons and daughters of God. We only need to accept that and receive the graces through the Holy Spirit’s guidance and abundant life.

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