The "Mission" or "Sending" of the Divine Persons

Our Lord says (John 8:16), that the Father sent him. God the Son is sent into the world. This sending or mission of a divine Person is not something done by command or even advice; this would seem to imply inferiority in the Person sent, and the divine Persons are coequal. For a divine Person to be sent means to begin to exist in a new way in the world or in the souls of human beings. God the Son is everywhere eternally; but when he became man, he began to be in the world in a new way, thatis, as man. This is what is meant by his being sent.

If we should take the word mission to include the divine proceedings of generation and spiration, then the mission or sending of divine Persons is something eternal. But ifwe limit the word, as we usually do, to signify the coming of the Son into the world, and the coming of the Holy Ghost into men’s souls by grace, then mission or sending means something temporal.

It is suitable that a divine Person should be sent, as newly existing in a rational creature. This sending is always byway of sanctifying grace.

The Person of God the Father is not sent. Sending or mission is from another, and the Father is not from another. The Son is from the Father, and the Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son. Hence only the Son and the Holy Ghost are sent.

Thus it belongs to the Son and to the Holy Ghost to be sent to dwell in us by grace. The Father is in us too, but not as sent.

The invisible mission or sending of a divine Person by grace into men’s souls is a fact in all who are in the state of grace and who are renewed or increased in grace.

The Holy Ghost came visibly on our Lord at His baptism by John; He also came visibly in the form of tongues of fire on Pentecost Day. And the Son came visibly when He was born of Mary. These visible missions or sendings are of greatest benefit, for man needs visible manifestations to help him understand invisible truths. Mission or sending of a divine Person is for man’ssanctification. The Son is sent visibly as the author ofsanctification; the Holy Ghost is sent visibly as the sign ofsanctification.

When the Person sending is designated as the principle of the Person sent, then the Son is sent by the Father only, andthe Holy Ghost is sent by the Father and the Son only. But when the sender is considered as the principle, not of the Person sent, but of the effect of the mission, then the sender is the Trinity itself.