The Incarnation - from the Baltimore Catechism No. 4
77. Did God
Abandon Man after Adam
Fell into Sin?
God did not Abandon
Man after Adam Fell into
Sin, but promised to send into the World a Savior to free
Man from His
Sins and to reopen to Him the Gates of
Heaven.
God could have Abandoned
Man and allowed the Human Race to
Suffer the Just
Penalty of never seeing Him face-to-face in
Heaven. In His Infinite
Love and Mercy,
God took Pity on Adam and his descendants, and gave them the
chance of Salvation through the promised Redeemer.
78. Who is the
Savior of all Men?
The Savior of all Men is
Jesus Christ.
Not all Men are Saved, but all who attain
Salvation do so through the Merits of
Christ.
That Jesus Christ is the promised Savior,
can be proved from the Prophecies of the Old Testament which are fulfilled in
Him; from His own testimony, which is worthy-of-belief; and from the
Miracles He worked in proof of
His Divine Mission, especially His Resurrection.
The name "Jesus" means Savior.
"Christ", a Greek word meaning "Anointed", signifies Jesus' Three-fold
Office of King, Priest,
and Prophet, because, of old, Kings, Priests, and
Prophets were Anointed.
79. What is the Chief Teaching of the
Catholic Church about Jesus Christ?
The Chief Teaching of the Catholic Church
about Jesus Christ is that He is
God made Man.
80. Why is Jesus Christ God?
Origin of the Son
God the
Father possesses Two (2)
Internal Divine Activities or
Processions
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| 1. Knowing
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Act of Intellect
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Generates
(not made, not created)
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The Son of God,
Second Person of the Holy Trinity
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| 2. Willing
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Act of Will
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| "Generation" is the
production of one living-being from another, both having the Same Nature. |
Jesus Christ is God because
He is the only Son of God, having the
same Divine Nature as His Father.
Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity, Who from Eternity
Proceeds by True Spiritual Generation from the Father.
We believe Jesus Christ is God because
God Himself revealed this Truth:
First, through the Prophets of the Old Testament
who foretold that the promised Redeemer would be
God;
Second, through Christ Himself,
Who claimed to be God and confirmed
His own testimony by the Holiness of
His Life, by the fulfillment of
His Prophecies, and by the
Miracles He worked in
His Own Name and by His Own Power,
especially His Resurrection.
A Miracle is something that is not according to the usual-course of Created Nature,
surpasses the power of all creatures, and consequently can be produced only by the Power of God.
The Senses must be able to observe a Miracle
if It is to have the Value of a Proof for us.
Only God can be the Principal Cause of a
Miracle because a Miracle surpasses the
power of all creatures. God sometimes uses Creatures as
instruments in performing Miracles.
Since God, Who is
All-Truthful, is the Principal Cause of a
Miracle, it cannot be worked in support of a
Lie.
The following are some of Christ's Miracles:
He restored Sight to the
Blind,
cured Lepers in an instant,
walked on the waters of the sea,
multiplied the loaves and fishes,
raised the Dead to Life, and finally,
rose from the Dead Himself by
His own Divine Power.
81. Why is Jesus Christ
Man?
Jesus Christ is Man because
He is the Son of the
Blessed Virgin Mary and has a Body and
Soul like ours.
Although Christ's Conception and
Birth were Miraculous,
He, like other Men, came into the World
as an Infant, having Mary for His
Mother. Since His origin from the
Blessed Virgin is True Generation, Mary
is the Mother of Jesus Christ,
Who is God, and
she is therefore truly the Mother of
God.
Christ, like other Men, ate, drank,
became tired, slept, and walked through Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.
Christ, as Man, was the
Most Perfect of all Men.
He was endowed with Human Intelligence
and Free Will, but He was free from all
Ignorance and Error, from all
Sin and Imperfection.
The Human Soul of Christ could
Suffer as well as His Body. For example,
Christ was Sorrowful unto
Death. In the Garden of
Gethsemane
He said to His Disciples:
"My soul is sad, even unto death. Wait here and watch with Me"
(Matthew 26:38).
82. Is Jesus Christ more than
One (1) Person?
No, Jesus Christ is only One (1)
Person; and that Person is the
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
It is Heresy to say that there are Two (2)
Persons in Christ.
83. How many Natures has Jesus
Christ?
Jesus Christ has Two (2) Natures: the
Nature of God and the Nature of
Man.
There is a difference between Person and Nature. Human Nature
is composed of Body and Soul; in a
Human Person is found the Added Perfection which
makes each one an Individual, distinct from all others. A Human Person has
only One (1) Human Nature.
Christ is a Divine Person having the Nature of
God and the Nature of Man.
Christ proved He had both the
Nature of God and the Nature of
Man by doing some things that only God could do, and other things
that Men do.
It is Heresy to deny the Divine Nature
of Jesus Christ by accepting Him
as merely a Perfect Man; it is also
Heresy to deny His
Human Nature.
The following is the defined teaching
of the Church: "I also believe in the Son of God, the
Word, begotten of the Father in eternity, before all time . . . born in time of the Holy Ghost from Mary, ever virgin; born with a
rational soul; having two nativities, one eternal of the Father, the other in time, of His Mother".
(Leo IX, April, 1053.)
84. Was the Son of God always
Man?
The Son of God was not always Man, but
became Man at the time of the Incarnation.
85. What is meant by the Incarnation?
By the Incarnation is meant that the Son of God,
retaining His Divine Nature, took to Himself a
Human Nature, that is, a Body and
Soul like ours.
The Union of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity with
Human Nature is called the Hypostatic Union.
86.
How was the Son of God made Man?
The Son of God was conceived and made Man
by the Power of the Holy Ghost in the
Womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Conception of the Son of God in the
Womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary is attributed to the Power
of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity because the
Holy Ghost proceeds from the Love of the
Father and the Son, and the
Incarnation is a work of God's Great Love for
Mankind.
All Three (3) Persons of the
Holy Trinity performed the act of Divine
Power whereby the Incarnation took place. But
Catholic Faith teaches that only the Second Person
took to Himself a Human Nature.
87. When was the Son of God conceived and
made Man?
The Son of God was conceived and made Man
on Annunciation Day, the day on which the Angel
Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that
she was to be the Mother of
God.
We commemorate this event when we say the Angelus.
The Miraculous Privileges accorded the Blessed Virgin
Mary by Almighty God testify to
her position as the Most Exalted of
God's Creatures.
Mary, the Mother of
God, remained a Virgin not only in the conception of
Christ but also in His
Birth and during the rest of her life.
Because of her consent to accept the Office of
Mother of the Redeemer, and also because of
her Merits in intimately sharing the
Sufferings of her Divine
Son for the Salvation of Mankind,
the Blessed Virgin is given the Title of
Co-Redemptrix of the Human Race.
After her Death, the
Body of the Blessed Virgin, reunited with
her Soul, was Miraculously
taken up into Heaven. The Church observes
this event in the Feast of the Assumption.
Special Veneration, called Hyperdulia, is given to the
Blessed Virgin, because of her
Excellence which far surpasses that of all the
Saints and Angels.
88. Is Saint Joseph the father
of Jesus Christ?
Jesus Christ had no Human
father, but Saint Joseph was the Spouse
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Guardian, or
Foster Father, of Christ.
God the Father is the only True Father of
Jesus Christ.
Christ was the only Child
of Mary. The brothers and sisters of Christ
mentioned in the Bible were cousins.
Saint Joseph's High Dignity,
Grace, Holiness, and
Glory have their source in the fact that he was the
husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the
Foster Father of the Son of God.
Saint Joseph is the Patron of the Universal
Church.
Mystici Corporis Christi -
Encyclical of Pope Pius XII
on the Mystical Body of Christ
75. Now the only-begotten Son of God embraced us in
His Infinite Knowledge and undying
Love even before the world began. And that He might give a visible and
exceedingly beautiful expression to this Love, He
assumed our Nature in Hypostatic Union: hence - as Maximus of Turin
with a certain unaffected simplicity remarks - "in Christ our own flesh loves us". But the
Knowledge and Love of our
Divine Redeemer, of which we were the object from the first moment of His Incarnation,
exceed all that the Human Intellect can hope to grasp. For hardly was
He conceived in the Womb of the Mother
of God, when He began to enjoy the
Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of
His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him,
and He embraced them with
His Redeeming Love. O marvelous condescension of Divine Love for us!
O inestimable dispensation of boundless Charity! In the Crib, on the
Cross, in the Unending Glory of the
Father, Christ has all the
Members of the Church present before
Him and united to Him in a much clearer and more
Loving manner than that of a mother who clasps her child to her breast, or than that with which a man
knows and loves himself.
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