1. Holy Trinity - 4 The First Person The Father Almighty

2. Experience • Tell me about your father, or someone who is a father figure for you. • What do you call him? • What does he do for you? • What does he do when you disobey? • How does he show his love? • Would you like to introduce your friends to your father? • What else can you say about your father?

3. Discussion & reflection: • We believe in One God, The Father Almighty • What does it mean “Father?” • What does it mean “Almighty?”

4. Discussion & reflection: • What if someone said that calling God your Father was silly, sentimental nonsense? No god would/could be your father. • Malachi 2:10Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? • Theophilus of Antioch (2nd Century, Turkey) If I call him Father, I am claiming that everything comes from him…He is called Father because he comes before everything else.

5. Discussion & reflection: • John 1:12But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God… • Tertullian (2nd Century, North Africa) God is a perfect Father and a perfect Master. He is a Father in his mercy but a Master in his discipline. He is a Father in the mildness of his power but a Master in its severity. He is Father who must be loved with dutiful affection, but he is also a Master to be feared. He is to be loved because he prefers mercy to sacrifice…

6. Discussion & reflection: • What if someone says the Son is just like the Father? • Justin Martyr (2nd Century, Italy) Those who say that the Father and the Son are identical obviously don’t know the Father. The Father of the universe has a Son, who is God because he is the first-begotten Word of God.

7. Discussion & reflection: • Clement of Alexandria (c 150-215, Egypt) From the Son, we learn about the hidden cause of the universe – the Father. He is the most ancient and the most beneficent of all. He is indefinable, but he is to be worshipped with reverence, silence and holy awe and is to be worshipped above everything else.

8. Discussion & reflection: • What if someone asked you to explain what the Trinity does? • Ireneaus (2nd Century, France) The Father plans everything well and gives his commands, the Son does them and performs the works of creation, and the Spirit nourishes them and makes them grow.

9. Discussion & reflection: • Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the catholic faith. • Whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless perish eternally. • Now this is the catholic faith: • We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being.

10. Discussion & reflection: • What if someone said that God can’t help them? • Fulgentius of Ruspe (c.468-533, North Africa) The goodness and omnipotence of the Creator is just as great in making of small things and in great things.

11. Discussion & reflection: • Origen (3rd Century, Israel) • Nothing is impossible to the Almighty, nor is anything incapable of being restored by its creator.

12. Written reflection Name: Date: • What was most important to you in today’s lesson?