Catholics believe in one God and that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This Holy Trinity is three separate and unique persons with different roles and distinct origins and relationships with each other.
Because He is unbegotten and comes from nothing, God the Father is the First Person of the Trinity. He is not older or greater than the other persons of the Trinity.
Neither male or female, the First Person of the Holy Trinity is called Father because the Son is eternally begotten of Him. He is the Source or Creator of all things seen and unseen.
The Second Person of the Trinity is Jesus Christ. Eternally begotten and not made, He is the only Son of God. As the Word of God, Jesus is the perfect expression of the Father.
The Image of the invisible God, Jesus has the same essence and divine nature as the Father. By his Incarnation, He took on a second, human nature to be the Redeemer of mankind by his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
The Third Person of the Trinity proceeds from both the Father and the Son. The Advocate or Sanctifier is the eternal and mutual love breathed forth between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity.
The Holy Spirit is the Lord, the giver of life Who consoles, guides, and encourages Catholics, allowing the life of God to dwell within them while protecting the Church from teaching in error.
While each person of the Holy Trinity has a unique role, all three persons are always united and always working together as the same eternal God. This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Revealed by the Triune God Himself, the Blessed Trinity is the central mystery of the Catholic faith. Knowing the Trinity is essential to know who God is.
A communion between three persons:
Three persons who enter into the souls of the baptized:
After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3: 16-17
God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit:
A family of communication and image-making:
Distinct persons who are equally divine:
“The divine persons are really distinct from one another. ‘God is one but not solitary.’ ‘Father’, ‘Son’, ‘Holy Spirit’ are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: ‘He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.’ They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: ‘It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.’ The divine Unity is Triune.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 254
Each person of the Trinity has a different role:
Divine Persons distinguished by their relationship with each other:
Distinct persons with different origins:
On this feast day in which we celebrate God: the mystery of the one God. And this God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three persons, but God is one! The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God. But they are not three gods: it is one God in three Persons. It is a mystery that Jesus Christ revealed to us: the Holy Trinity. Today we pause to celebrate this mystery, because the Persons are not adjectives of God, no. They are real, diverse, different Persons; they are not — as that philosopher used to say — ‘emanations of God’, no, no! They are Persons. There is the Father to whom I pray with the Our Father; there is the Son, who gave me redemption, justification; there is the Holy Spirit who abides in us and inhabits the Church.
Pope Francis, Angelus Address, 30 May 2021
The persons of the Trinity are known by different names:
Different images depict the persons of the Trinity:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
A Church born from persecution:
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