Expert: Tom Schott - 11/19/2006

Question
Today's gospel. Mark13. Jesus tells his disciples that the end of time will come to pass within "this generation" Taken literally we shouldn't be here.
Later he says "neither the angels nor the Son know the time,only the Father knows"
 Catholic teaching on the trinity tells us that there is only one God and Jesus ( The Son)is the third person. By definition therefore He must know what the Father knows and  that means He knows when the end of time will be. There appears to be major inconsistencies here.Your comments please.

Answer
Russell,

There are no inconsistencies. Catholics do not read the Scripture literally: "this generation" could be taken to mean the whole human race, considered throughout its whole history. Nor do we have to read "the Son" as meaning a member of the Trinity--a concept that would have been unknown to the human Jesus--but rather simply the words of that human Jesus, who often referred to  himself as "Son of Man." The import of today's passage in the gospel is that no one but God knows the when the end of time comes. The words the evangelist gives to Jesus simply underscore this fact.

(By the way, Christ is the second person of the Trinity, not the third.)

Deacon Tom