Rome...City of God?

[FCEGM]

Not bad, thanks for the word
surely when you say “the church” though you aren’t talking about the Catholic church.

Yes, most surely the Catholic Church is the Church spoken of. What? You come to a Catholic forum and expect Catholics to deny foundational doctrines!???

Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that neither in this mountain or in Jerusalem the father would be worshipped. That she ignorantly worshipped God, and didn’t even really know who he was. Alluding to the fact that the Samaritans, after the fall of the first temple, and with Jerusalem left in shambles, established a new mountain to worship God from and built a new alter, aside from God’s ordained city. Then ignorantly worhipping God not as the LORD of all creation, but only as the god of the land.
Which is somewhat quite along the same lines as what the Catholic chruch did not long after the fall of the 2nd temple. When they changed God from being the Holy One of Israel to being a notion of a Holy 'Three". I beleive it was Justin Martyr that first coined the phrase “trinitus” alluding to god’s threeness. Which was then embraced by other philosophical theologians. So since as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman salvation is of the Jews. Salvation must still only be to those who Beleive that Jesus is the Holy One, the Father that they worship in THE church.

Actually, the first time “Trinity” is employed in writing is with Theophilus of Antioch, circa AD 180; the written usage, however, most probably reflects the term already in use since it describes the actuality of what Christ revealed about Himself and His relationship to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. That, of course, is a topic for another thread. But, first you might find these articles helpful:

catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0512frs.asp

catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9704frs.asp

catholic.com/thisrock/1992/9207clas.asp

catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0501coff.asp

catholic.com/library/Trinity.asp

Regarding the Church: Christ founded only one Church, and the Protestant notion (whether a Protestant is a "“Oneness” believer or a believer in what Christ revealed of the true nature of God as taught by the Catholic Church) of a universal and invisible church that is composed of people belonging to whatever church suits their particular notion of the most authentic Christianity at the moment is absolutely refuted by the earliest Christian writers (and by the very founding of the Church upon the very visible person of St. Peter, the Rock).

So, as others have very well explained, the Catholic is already participating in eternal life, the life of the New Jerusalem, though “through a glass darkly”. Through the reality of Christ extending His Incarnation in the Body of His Church, His Bride, here and now, our Catholic faith and our practice of it allows us to embrace the presence of the Most Holy Trinity in our souls by grace and to live in hope for the fruition of all that we already have and are in our journey to Him.