Week 9: Passages 446-495

Our assignment this week: read passages 446-495.
We finish our look at the titles of Jesus with:

IV. Lord
In the Greek translation of the Old Testament YHWH is translated as “Lord”. In the New Testament this becomes a title for Jesus. The title “Lord” indicates his divine sovereignity. To invoke Jesus as Lord is to believe in his divinity. Christian prayer is full of the title Lord:
“The Lord be with you”
“Through Christ our Lord”
“Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!”

Article 3 –“He Was Conceived By The Power of the Holy Spirit, And Was Born of the Virgin Mary”
I. Why Did the Word Become Flesh?

1. In order to save us by reconciling us with God.



2. So that we might know God’s love.



3. To be our model of holiness.



4. To make us partakers of the divine nature.

II. The Incarnation

“Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of the
Christian faith: ‘By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which
confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.’ Such is the
joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings ‘the
mystery of our religion’: ‘He was manifested in the flesh’”. (CCC 463)

III. True God and True Man
Jesus is not part God and part man, or some strange mixture of the two. He became true man while remaining true God. During the first centuries the Church had to defend this truth against numerous heresies:

• Gnostic Docetism- denied Christ’s humanity.



• Nestorian heresy – regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s son.



• Mononphysite heresy – believed that the human nature of Christ ceased to exist when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it.

And after the Council of Chalcedon the Church needed to affirm (and here I am quoting because I’m not sure I understand what the CCC is talking about!) that:

“’there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one
of the Trinity.’ Thus everything n Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to
his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his
suffering and death: ‘He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ,
is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity.’” (CCC 468)

IV. How is the Son of God Man?
Christ’s human nature was “assumed” not absorbed. He had a human soul with a human intellect and will, and this human nature belongs to the divine person of the Son of God.

“In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of
the Trinity:
The Son of God…worked with human hands; he thought with a human
mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved.
Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all
things except sin.” (CCC 470)

Christ’s human soul was endowed with human knowledge, he had to find out about things and learn all that one in the human condition can learn only from experience.
This human nature, not by itself but by union with the Word, showed forth all that pertains to God. Thus Jesus understood with his human understanding (through his divine nature) the eternal plans he had come to reveal.
This section is getting complicated- I’m having flashbacks of the passages on the Trinity!
Christ also had two wills: divine and human. They worked together, his human will was obedient to the plans his divine will had made with the Father.
Christ also had a human body, and therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed. It was decided at the Council of Nicaea II in 787 that its representation in holy images is legitimate. Isn’t that fun to know? Bring on the big plastic Jesus statues!
The individual characteristics of Christ’s body express his divine person, thus we can venerate is image.

Jesus loved us with a human heart and gave himself up for us. His Sacred Heart which was pierced by our sins and for our salvation is considered a chief sign and symbol of that “love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings without exception”(CCC 478).

Paragraph 2 Conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit and Born of the Virgin Mary

I.Conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit
At the Annunciation God’s promises and preparations are fulfilled, in “the fullness of time.” Mary was told that “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.” The mission of the Holy Spirit is joined with that of the Son. The Spirit is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and conceive the Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own. Thus the “Christ” is anointed by the Holy Spirit from the beginning, though this is revealed to men gradually.

II. …Born of the Virgin Mary

“What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about
Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.”
(CCC 487)

Mary was predestined to be Jesus’s mother. Many women of the Old Covenant prepared for Mary’s mission: Eve, Sarah, Hannah, Deborah, Ruth, Judith and Esther. God chooses those who appear powerless and weak to show his faithfulness to his promises.
To become mother of the Savior, Mary “was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role” (CCC 490).

“The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a
singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of
Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of
original sin.” (CCC 491)

At the Annunciation Mary responded with the obedience of faith. Free from original sin, she was able to give herself entirely to the divine work of her divine son.

“As St. Irenaeus says, ‘Being obedient she became the cause of salvation for
herself and for the whole human race.’ Hence not a few of the early Fathers
gladly assert…: ‘The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience:
what the virgin Eve bound through disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.’
Comparing her with Eve, they call Mary ‘the Mother of the living’ and frequently
claim: ‘Death through Eve, life through Mary.’” (CCC 494)

Elizabeth calls Mary, “the mother of my Lord” (CCC 495). The Church confesses that Mary is truly the Mother of God.

Questions for reflection:

• Is Jesus the Lord of our lives? How can we show our children Jesus' love for them?
• Do you honor Mary as Mother of God? How can we instill this devotion in our children?
• CCC 494 discusses Mary's obedience. Is this virtue we possess? How can we work on obedience in ourselves and in our children?