Feast of the Transfiguration

Another Sunday to be thankful I am Catholic.  Three readings from the Bible; Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel; plus a Psalm and they all tie together. 

 

Father gave a great sermon on the Transfiguration and how the Apostles' faith needed a bit of strengthening before the upcoming trials.  And my advice if your priest doesn't give good homilies; pray for him. 

 

But the first reading from Daniel 7 got me to thinking about the Pentecostals. Several of my brothers and my sister have fallen into the United Pentecostal religion.  Fallen may seem a bit harsh, but consider this.  They no longer believe in the Trinity.

 

They believe in modalism or the different offices of God.  The God of the Old Testament was referred to as Father.  But then He changed modes or offices and became Jesus.  And the Holy Spirit is just a force, so we no longer have the Holy Trinity.  Of course this is just an recycling of the ancient heresy Sabellianism.

 

But anyway, I have spent many hours trying to understand their beliefs and help them understand the Truth.  I even studied the 60 questions for Trinitarians and answered each of them with Truth and cited Scripture to back it up. (I will have to dig up my answers and post them sometime.)  I never got an answer to that letter.  So often times certain parts of the Bible really strike me as so plainly teaching the Trinity that I have to pray for my brothers and ponder their disbelief.

 

Daniel and the second Letter of Peter did that for me today.

...I saw: One like a Son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven; when he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him, the one like the Son of man received dominion, glory and kingship;...

It just baffles me that men who study the Bible endlessly can gloss over such obvious teachings.  One cannot be present before himself. One cannot receive all dominion, glory and kingship from himself.  It is impossible.  Second Peter speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ receiving honor and glory from God the Father.  And of course the voice of the Father at the Transfiguration.  

 

I guess all that I am left to do is pray for them.  Pray that they will truly seek the Truth.