Monday, December 21, 2009

Could the love of God do more for man?

"When men adore Christ, they truly adore God. Christ is Emmanuel, that is, God-with-us. In Christ we can, so to speak, see the face of God. It is His human face, it is true. But even this vision is a foretaste of the beatific vision of God which is the inheritance of all those who are members of Christ's Body, the Church. It is their inheritance because Christ is the perfect Mediator between God and me. He stands between God and men - He mediates between them - because He brings God's gifts to men and He takes men to God. As man, He is the perfect Mediator because He occupies a position midway between God and men. As man He is not God, and so He stands below God. But as a man possessing the fullness of grace, knowledge and power, He stands above men. He is thus in a perfect position to mediate between God and men. And this is what Christ is doing ceaselessly for men in and through His Body, the Church.

The Incarnation is God's answer to the misery of men without God. God stoops to man to raise him to Himself. 'And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all things to Myself.' Man has only to accept freely Christ as his Mediator. Not even Christ saves a man against his will. Because man is proud, God has stooped down to him. Since man is disobedient, God has given him the example of the perfect obedience of Christ. A man is ignorant and in error, God has given him Christ, the perfect Teacher. Could the love of God do more for man? 'By this hath the charity of God appeared toward us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him'."

-- My Way of Life: The Summa Simplified for Everyone by Walter Farrell, OP, STM, & Martin J Healy, STD

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