What does the Church teach about Jesus Christ? Part Four

Let us start with a brief prayer for the victims of yesterday’s tragedy in New York City.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

In today’s post, we will continue to look at what the Church teaches about Jesus Christ in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Here again is the Nicene Creed from which the Catechism is basing its teaching on:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

Now the Creed goes right from the events at the beginning of Jesus' life  to the events at the end of Jesus' earthy life.   However, as we know, a lot happened in between!  However the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery are unique events in the life of Christ in that they shed light on his entire life, and that is why they only are highlighted in the Creed.  We read in #512:

Concerning Christ's life the Creed speaks only about the mysteries of the Incarnation (conception and birth) and Paschal mystery (passion, crucifixion, death, burial, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension). It says nothing explicitly about the mysteries of Jesus' hidden or public life, but the articles of faith concerning his Incarnation and Passover do shed light on the whole of his earthly life. "All that Jesus did and taught, from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven", is to be seen in the light of the mysteries of Christmas and Easter. 

However, all of Christ's life should be reflected on to learn the most about Jesus, and what he can teach us.  We read in #513:  According to circumstances catechesis will make use of all the richness of the mysteries of Jesus.

There are three R’s that the Catechism notes are a common thread to all of Jesus’ life:

1)      Revelation   We read in #516: Christ's whole earthly life - his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking - is Revelation of the Father. Jesus can say: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father", and the Father can say: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"  Only through Jesus is the true identity of God as Father revealed.  He can be known through natural means as Creator and origin of all things, but not as Father.  That only comes through Revelation.

2)      Redemption We read in #517: Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross  but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life:

·         - already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;

·         - in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;

·         - in his word which purifies its hearers;

·         - in his healings and exorcisms by which "he took our infirmities and bore our diseases";

·         - and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us   Everything in Christ's life has deep meaning and significance for us.  His whole life impacts our identity.  

3)      Recapitulation   We read in #518:  Christ's whole life is a mystery of recapitulation. All Jesus did, said and suffered had for its aim restoring fallen man to his original vocation.  Everything he did was for one purpose, saving us.

Christ’s life relates to us in three distinct ways the Catechism notes:

1)      His life was for us, as we can clearly see in the three R’s above.  We read in #519:  All Christ's riches "are for every individual and are everybody's property." Christ did not live his life for himself but for us.

2)      He is a model for us.  We read in #520: In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. He is "the perfect man”, who invites us to become his disciples and follow him. In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way.

3)      He lives his mysteries in us, and we live them in him.  We read in #521 “By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man."¹⁹³ We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his flesh as our model.   With Christ, we will share in joy, suffering, and glory, as well as love, abandonment, hunger, thirst, misunderstanding and everything else Christ experienced while on Earth.

So these are characteristics that are common to all of the mysteries of Christ’s life.  Everything in his life: his conception, his birth, his childhood, his Baptism, his preaching, his parables, his miracles, his death, and his resurrection, all share in the elements we discussed above.

In the next post, we will begin to look at the specific distinct mysteries of Christ’s life, and see what they tell us about him, and us.

Joseph, head of the Holy Family, pray for us.