A Year with the Catechism. Petroc Willey, Dominic Scotto, Donald Asci, & Elizabeth Siegel

only son” (501).

      Second, we see this because in the Scriptures we hear the voices of Father and Son expressing their unique relationship. The Father speaks of Jesus as the “beloved” Son (444), while Jesus distinguishes his own relationship to the Father from that of others (443). It is his Father who reveals to Peter this unique relationship. In a later part of the Catechism, CCC 571-591, we will see how Jesus expressed his unique claim to divinity in a number of ways.

      We can also see the unique application of the title to Jesus when we consider his role in relation to us. It is in Jesus, the only-begotten Son, preexistent and of one being with the Father, that we are able to be adopted as sons and daughters of the Father. It is precisely because Jesus shares in the fullness of divinity that, by his grace, we can be given a share in his own relationship with the Father. Jesus can make us partakers in the divine nature precisely because he is fully divine.

      Day 64

       CCC 446-451

      Lord

      As with the title “Son of God,” the title “Lord” — as a way of addressing Jesus — could be taken as a simple expression of human respect, an elevated way of saying “Sir.” When we read the Gospel accounts, then, not every instance in which Jesus is called “Lord” need necessarily be read as an act of faith in Jesus’ divinity (448).

      However, it is clear from the New Testament that oftentimes either Jesus himself, or those who address him, do mean much more than this (for example, Jn 9:38; 21:7). As we have seen, “Lord” is also the way of referring to the divine Name which God himself revealed (209). For the faithful Jew, wishing to honor the mystery of God’s Name expressed by the Tetragrammaton, “Lord” is the acceptable alternative (see Mk 12:29; Lk 4:12). Jesus is also addressed as Lord in this sense, of carrying the divine Name; and one of the earliest Christian proclamations of faith was simply “Jesus is Lord” (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:11; Acts 2:36; 10:36; Rom 6:23). We can see from these early New Testament texts how the belief in Jesus’ divinity is placed alongside the obedience of faith due to God the Father; thus we find it expressed that God is Father of the Lord Jesus (Col 1:3; 2 Cor 1:3). These expressions of faith were hammered out in the Councils of the Church by the successors of the apostles and have emerged into the forms of faith we have today in the Creeds.

      The Catechism concludes this section on the title “Lord” with a reminder of the prominent place it has in Christian prayer. The acclamation “Lord!” is a cry of adoring love. The Catechism reminds us — as it did with the section on the name “Jesus” (435) — that the Church believes as she prays. Her beliefs are expressions of her worship. We will further explore this principle when we read about the centrality of liturgical prayer (see 1124).

      Day 65

       CCC 456-460

      Why Did the Word Become Flesh?

      For the first time, the Catechism introduces a section by asking a question: Why did the Word become flesh? The content of the question is taken from John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It is as if the Catechism’s authors paused before the awesome reality of the Word, who is God, taking flesh, and asked: “How could this be? Who is this God of ours that he would stoop to the level of a creature and appear among us, in human form? Why would he do this?”

      The answer comes in four stunning statements of faith, each italicized in CCC 457-460. They appear in an ascending pattern, speaking first to the lowest state of the human person and taking us through to our highest calling.

      The only Son of God, the divine Word, became flesh first because of our sins, to save us from our misery and disintegration into death. He took our human nature in order to share in and rescue us from the distress of our poverty, pain, and death. In this he revealed the great love of God for us, who does not want anyone to perish. Jesus rescues us by changing us: as our true image, he calls us to live as he lives. The salvation he brings is not a surface-level change, but a radical call to holiness, to be perfect as the Father is perfect. And so the final goal of Word taking flesh is to raise us to live with God, in his eternity of joy, to share as sons and daughters in his own relationship with the Father. By his grace we come to know and love him as he is in himself.

      The truths we have contemplated transform our understanding of ourselves and others, providing us with the solid foundation for our Christian lives. Read CCC 1691 — the content of today’s reading is the substance of the opening to the part on the Christian life.

      Day 66

       CCC 461-463

      The Incarnation

      Today’s reading seems mainly concerned to impress upon us the absolute importance of this belief. “Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith” (463). Holding to this belief is what marks out the Christian. Veering from this belief, or losing a sense of its central place, marks the loss of authentic Christian faith.

      There are also important points in the phrase “the Word became flesh” clarified for us here. When the Church, following John 1:14, speaks of the Word becoming “flesh,” she intends us to think of more than just the bodily matter of our skin, our tissues, and so on. She means human nature as a whole, body and spiritual soul (461). CCC 470-478 will discuss this at length. In New Testament Greek, the word translated “flesh,” sarx, additionally carries the connotation of weakness, of helplessness, which is also communicated here in the quotation from the hymn in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Jesus humbled himself, he became a servant and “obeyed” death, receiving in himself all the effects of sin (461).

      Again, in the phrase “the word became flesh,” “became” is not to be understood as implying a change in God. As we have seen, God is unchangeably faithful and loving (see 214). He does not change. He does not take on a new character at the Incarnation. Rather, it was then that he “revealed his innermost secret” (221). The change brought about by the Incarnation is not in God but in human nature, which is lifted up and united to the Godhead, and brought into the presence of the Father, reconciled and redeemed through the work of Christ. And so the Church speaks of Christ “assuming” human nature, in the sense of adopting it, taking it on. In Christ, every aspect of my nature has been united to God; every element of my being has been adopted.

      Day 67

       CCC 464-469

      True God and True Man

      The readings for the next two days belong together. They are both concerned with the Church’s understanding of the Incarnation. Today we see how this understanding was fashioned in the crucible of history, with its personalities and Councils, and with all the struggles involved in grasping the full truth of how God has acted “far beyond all expectation” (422). Tomorrow, this same path is followed, but through a consideration of all of the elements that make up a full human nature, seeking to understand better how each is united to the divine Son of God.

      CCC 464 is a crucial paragraph: it summarizes the truth of the Incarnation. The Incarnation of the Son of God is “unique and altogether singular” — in other words, there is no comparison point we can make. Jesus is not simply the very greatest human being, or a human person filled with God’s grace and presence to an exceptional degree. The Lord Jesus is “one of the Trinity” (468) who assumed a complete human nature. The Catechism draws the implication very clearly: “Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death” (468). This means that when we read the pages of the Gospels, every sentence which has Jesus as the subject in reality has “one of the Trinity” as the subject. When we read, “Jesus called his disciples to himself and said …” this is “one of the Trinity” calling the disciples and speaking to them. When Jesus weeps, one of the Trinity weeps.

      Every