“On the feast of St. Giovanni renamed Francis of Assisi, Oct 4”
The amazing Biblical number three (3).
Super Max, we are sooo proud of you! You now have a Catholic/Christian service bank and are ready to do great things. Read the directions at the bottom.
For the rest of us:
As to the quiz question to win your prize, Grandpa Steve was absolutely right: red, yellow and blue are the primary colors. After all, God LEADS the Science that we follow; you just have to be careful of the godless and ignorant who claim to know more than the Godhead Who created the universe. But both the number “3” and “13” have spiritual significance.
Max, you are loved by your family AND your God. Did you know EVERYTHING but God has been “made”. The angels, the stars; only God has ALWAYS been, long before He created trillions of cockroaches, spiders and icky stuff your sisters may not like too much, Max. The billions of stars and planets, plants and animals too were made by Him. By the billions…But…
But ONLY two humans were made, in the beginning, to populate the 3rd planet from the sun in this amazing 553,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles wide universe.
I will leave it to Grandpa Steve and Grandma Donna to explain the avian~honey connection that led to Kevin and Lisa, and then you. heh heh heh. Birds and the bees, yup.
As well as the massive expanse of the 553 sextillion mile wide universe. Made all for man to come to be with the Father. Sadly, too many today think we are the center of the universe; centuries ago, Galileo had to confront the idea that humans and earth were the center of the solar system. Turns out, he was right! The sun, NOT the earth, is the center. God designed and built it that way.
Most importantly, our loving God the Chief Scientist wants everyone to live happily forever. And to get us there, He has planted neat clues along the way. He uses substances like bread and wine; He uses numbers, colors, objects, to get us to focus on Him and Forever.
Some truths come by inspiring writers and prophets; the work of the Spirit, signified possibly by the yellow (balloon) color.
In fact, we know Father God (represented by the blue color balloon) planted over 600 clues throughout time pointing to His forever existent Son’s coming of age: being conceived, which we by tradition believe happened on March 25th, in the Gregorian calendar. The red color for:
He would shed His blood for all.
Or maybe the Son is the color of the Sun and the Spirit the color of red for the Confirmation and tongues of fire on Pentecost. Either way…
This is a heaven question to ask God, the THREE persons in the ONE Godhead. AS you grow up, Max, you will learn and someday teach YOUR kids and grandkids this and other Eternal Truths:
God is a Triune or 3 Persons in the ONE God. 3 in 1.
Some smart people (theologians) think Mother Mary frequently flew to Fatima, Portugal on the 13th of each month, six times in 1917 to remind us about both the Trinity (1 God in 3 persons) and/or the date of His Son Jesus’ death:
Friday the 13th in the Hebrew month of Nissan. As well as events that would happen in the future IF we did not follow His directions thru her…three secrets et al were revealed to us by Mary through Sister St Lucia of the city named by a Catholic prince to honor his Muslim bride.
After all, WE live HIS Story: History.
Back to the three, what Grandpa Steve called PRIMARY colors.
Throughout the writers/prophets/apostles/Gospel books, what we call the Bible, the number 3 like many other numbers, has particular SIGNificance, a sign to all us life long learners of Truth. It signifies “completeness”. For example, the Trinity is Complete by itself. Nothing needs to be added. “The Seven sacraments were instituted by God to give us GRACE”, words Max you will be able to teach Max II or Donna your daughter.
The Primary Persons, our loving God, existing forever and to never have been born is something we cannot understand; not exactly like why can grandpas and Gmas give you ice cream late in the day and your mon and dad don’t. The secret, Max, is we grandparents can give you back to your parental units sugared up. But things we don’t understand doesn’t mean they don’t exist or aren’t true.
As to how God has always been Three and God, we just can’t figure it out while on earth but will know and see forever after we leave the planet: it will be revealed and we will better understand.
As this is summarized to you, we are all praying for your great grandma Elaine, who has lived a very good and long life. God is in charge about how long we live on earth, how many summers. Grandma Elaine has spent over 90 Summers on earth. Noah of the Ark lived 600 years before he entered the Ark (taking 120 YEARS to build) and then Noah lived 350 MORE years. Total 950, ten times as much as your grandma so far.
Once she goes to heaven, she will see, like Fr John Bradley just discovered, or this writer’s wife and mom of 11 kids did 9 yrs ago, Who and What God is about. Great news: “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard…” Look this up.
Want to see a miracle?
When you mix all three colors together, you get white, the sign of purity, light. 3 become 1! People also use triangular glass, called a prism, to “break up” the colors IN white light. This picture is of sunlight through the window hitting the kitchen floor.
God is the pure white light, and often we hear of Christ the Light and other comparisons. Next, you take any 2 of the 3 PRIME colors and you get three more: Blue+Yellow becomes Green. Yellow+Red becomes Orange. Red+Blue becomes Violet/Purple. These are called “secondary colors” since they each involve two of the primary colors. Indigo is a fascinating read but always…
…..Remember, God designed His earth, His creation for man not man for creation; once the angels were in place, God set His sights on us.
ROYGBIV letters stand for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo/Deep Blue and Violet, the colors of an object we see in the sky after a rain.
Max, you see these “prismatic” colors as part of another symbol God uses and some humans misuse, we call the Rainbow. In History, is did NOT rain on the earth until the massive rains and pangean reformation of the world from below and above happened with 8 shipmates.
Noah and his three sons, and their wives, were the 8 who survived to continue the human race. Some scientists posit the earth was covered by a huge water vapor “canopy” (NOT a greenhouse) that created a worldwide tropics. Once the “heavens opened up”, with the first rains, humanity’s longevity began to decline from the 700-900 yr lifespans. Part of the reason was exposure to cosmic and solar rays formerly protecting humans via the canopy before Noah’s time. Even Noah’s lifespan demonstrates this. A religio-scientific theory for a different post and day.
With the rainbow, a conundrum is the 7th color; the color Indigo is seen differently, at times, by Sir Isaac Newton and others. Below is the link you can wander through about that mystery seventh rainbow color. Since 7 IS also the number of completion, such as days in the week, number of whole notes, colors of the rainbow and so many more examples. But, Newton contends it is the 7th:
“There is speculation that Newton only included indigo in his color spectrum in order to have seven colors. This is the result of an occult belief that you needed seven colors for them to be able to combine and create white. Other’s believe Newton only used indigo because he was following the age-old pattern of sevens: the seven days of the week, the seven main planets in our solar system, etc.However, as Newton was a renowned scientist, many believe that he was correct in his findings. Theories that support Newton consider the wavelength of indigo. On the visible color spectrum, each of the seven colors has a specific range of wavelengths. Indigo’s rests around 425–445nm (nanometers). This is a typically smaller range than other colors. Red, for example, rests at around 625–740nm, and green rests at 520–565nm. While there are such colors with a larger range, however, not all are so large. Yellow rests at 565–590nm, which is only a 25nm span, and 5 off from the 20nm span of indigo. These details support the idea that Newton possibly noticed indigo had a large enough wavelength to be considered its own color.” For the longer version and more mystery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo#Classification_as_a_spectral_color
So, Max, you are being taught to love Jesus and His Church, as the Son of God. But He is God AND God’s Son. Tough to understand as St Monica’s kid found out when trying to dissect the Trinity. You hear the words at Mass, from your family, and can see the splendor in the world St Francis of Asissi did “survey”. Always be willing to smell the roses.
Through the ages, saints and sinners have tried to describe the Trinity. St Patrick used a 3 leaf clover in Ireland to try and explain the Trinity to the Druids and other peoples of the British Isles.
But, though He loves us eternally, God used an angel as a small boy and a bucket, according to tradition to explain to St Augustine Who the Trinity is. “”The great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate [about the Holy Trinity], endeavoring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity. (Hat tip to Horvath)
 Augustine meets a boy on the beach |
The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are doing?”
“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile.
“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine.
The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”
The Saint was absorbed by such a keen response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished.
Some say that it was an Angel sent by God to teach Augustine a lesson on pride in learning. Others affirm it was the Christ Child Himself who appeared to the Saint to remind him of the limits of human understanding before the great mysteries of our Faith.
Through this story, the sea shell has become a symbol of St. Augustine and the study of theology.
This painting of St. Augustine is part of the outside murals in the Augustinian monastery of Quito, Ecuador. It was done by Miguel de Santiago in 1656.”
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A great story for you. Grandpa and grandma can tell you it as can your mom and dad. But it proves we humans, especially our parents are gifts to us, but they don’t know everything. And about the three colors that make the perfect light:
The number 3 is used over 400 times in the Bible. It pictures completeness, though to a lesser degree than 7.
The examples are numerous, so we will cite a few: the 3 righteous patriarchs before the flood were Abel, Enoch and Noah. After the deluge there was the righteous “fathers” Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (later renamed Israel).
There are 27 books in the New Testament, which is 3 x 3 x 3, or completeness to the third power.
Jesus prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest. He was placed on the cross at the 3rd hour of the day (9 a.m.) and died at the 9th hour (3 p.m.). There were 3 hours of darkness that covered the land while Jesus was suffering on the cross from the 6th hour to the 9th hour.
Three is the number of resurrection. Christ was dead for three full days and three full nights, before being resurrected. Just as Lazarus was dead for 3 days so Jesus could show the Father’s glory in bringing him back to life.
Noah had three sons (Gen 6:10) & Job had three daughters (Job 1:2; cf. 42:13)
The Ark of the Covenant contained three sacred objects: ‘The gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant” (Heb. 9:4).
Solomon’s Palace of the Forest of Lebanon was designed with windows “placed high in sets of three facing each other. All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other” (1 Kgs 7:4-5).
Likewise, in John’s vision a triple entrance way marked all four sides of the city of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:13).
David “bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground” (1 Sam 20:41) and Daniel regularly prayed three times a day giving thanks to God (Dan 6:10, 13).
Israelite men were required to appear before the Lord three times in a year: “Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles” (Deut 16:16). Jesus answered Satan’s threefold temptation by citing three scriptural passages Matt 4:1-11).
Paul experienced three shipwrecks (2 Cor 11:28) and prayed three times to the Lord for the removal of his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7-8).
The number three appears often in measurements of time as well. For example, Moses and Aaron petitioned Pharaoh, “Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God” (Exod 5:3; cf. Exod 3:18; 8:27).
The fleeing Hebrews went three days without finding water in the Desert of Shur (Exod 15:22). When the Hebrews had traveled from Mount Sinai for three days, the people began to complain (Num 10:33-11:1).
When the Hebrews neared the Jordan River they were informed, “Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you for your own” (Josh 1:11; cf. 3:1-4).
The men of Timnah were stumped by Samson’s riddle for three days (Judg 14:14) and King Rehoboam gave Jeroboam and the delegation of Israelites a three day waiting period as he considered their petition for less stringent royal demands (1 Kgs 12:5; cf. 12:12).23
In the New Testament Jesus told the Jewish populace at the Temple, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:16), a fact that his disciples later recalled (v. 22).
A three-month period also figures in some matters. Moses’ mother was able to conceal her baby for three months (Exod 2:3; cf. Acts 7:20; Heb 11:23) and the ark remained at the house of Obed-Edom for three months (1 Chron 13:14).
In keeping with this the third month is often mentioned as one in which some significant action or event took place. Thus three months after Judah visited the supposed shrine prostitute, he learned that she was really his daughter-in-law Tamar who was pregnant with his child (Gen 38:24).
Asa’s reforms were celebrated in Jerusalem in the third month of his fifteenth year of reign (2 Chron 15:10). Support for the priests of Hezekiah’s day was gained by means of a tithe which began “in the third month and finished in the seventh month” (2 Chron 31:7).
Ezekiel received a message from the Lord concerning the fate of Egypt in the third month of the eleventh year of his exile (Ezek 31:1) and the Lord revealed through Amos, “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away” (Amos 4:7).
In the New Testament record Jesus’ mother Mary visited Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, and stayed for three months (Luke 1:56). Paul stayed in Ephesus for three months and “spoke boldly” in the synagogue there (Acts 19:8), and subsequently stayed three months in Greece (Acts 20:3).
Still later after the ship that was carrying him to Rome to stand trial was wrecked in a storm, he and his captives stayed on the island of Malta for three months (Acts 28:11).
A common lie involves three different substances that combine In today’s world.
I call it the Algorean Heresy, name for the snake oil salesman who has made millions from a simple to refute lie. Al Gore, in rejecting God’s great gift of life that keeps the whole world alive, is a foot.
Like in the Trinity, you need all three entities to be complete and FEED the WORLD, God uses 3 things to create food, the basic sugars of life: water, mixed with sunlight energy and a trace teeny gas called carbon dioxide. With these 3, the world has survived for aeons. Or at least thousands of years.
Who knows the whole story but…God! And for the record, the amount of CO2 is teeeeeny: 1 air molecule of CO2 in every 2500 majority gas molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and argon. 1:2500. Did God create this scientific equation, of photosynthesis and aerobic respiration, as a guide to understanding His benevolence and infinite wisdom? Who knows. But it works. The misuse comes with people like Gov Newsom who wouldn’t know the Truth even if he was holding a dictionary open to the page
This is just a few! of the uses of 3. But most notably, my good Max is the ultimate Three is our Eternal God.
Sometimes God sends angels to us, like this narrative above of Augustine, a doctor of the Church. We celebrated the 3 good ArchAngels last week of September. Recall, Gabriel the announcer. Rafael the guide. And Michael the protector and controller of the disgraced fourth, lucifer.
As the devil found out, there is only room for ONE God. Each of the archangels, like ALL of God’s angels, good and bad, were tasked with special virtues. Some Catholic theologians, a noted exorcist for one, believes the rebelling angels still kept their virtue, their created “purpose” in their rejection of God, but instead of being a virtue, hell uses each as a vice to tempt humanity.
Max, continue your adventure thru life. Starting with your bottle of pennies and other coins, whenever you fill it up, with mom or dad’s help, take half of it and do something good, serving others. Again, only with mom and dad’s permission.
Serving others is the healthiest thing we can do on earth. Always:
BKind 4Give B4Given and most importantly, Help1Some1~2day…and more if you can. There are amazing stories about other numbers used in the Bible, but that will have to wait for another day. God bless.
lifeoutloudest 