doctrines, concerning Mary’s motherhood and virginity, appear to be opposites. In fact, they are two sides of a single coin, both of them affirming Christ’s uniqueness and divinity.
The Council of Ephesus, in AD 431, solemnly declared that Mary was the Theotokos, the Mother of God (495). While this is a title given to Mary, the declaration primarily says something about Jesus. The cross-reference to CCC 466 explains the truth about Christ that is confirmed here: that Jesus is a single divine Person, God the Son who took to himself a complete human nature drawn from the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Person whom Mary carried in her womb was the divine Son. The title preserves for us the mystery of the Incarnation.
The virginity of Mary (496-498) and her perpetual virginity (499-501) both affirm the unique nature of Jesus. Jesus had no earthly father; Joseph is his earthly foster father. The proclamation of Mary’s virginity protects the truth that Jesus is the consubstantial Son of the Father.
The virginity of Mary is a historical truth; her miraculous conception of Jesus is a given fact of history. As we saw with the affirmation of the essential historical veracity of the Gospels (126), and as we will see with the miracles of Jesus (548) and his bodily resurrection (639), the Church holds firmly to the historical truths of these events — and seeks to answer any objections to their historicity (498, 500). They are not only symbolic of deeper spiritual truths.
However, all of these historical events do also carry rich spiritual significance. We see this in the next section of the Catechism, which concerns the meaning of Mary’s virginity in God’s plan (502-507). The Church wants us to develop those “eyes of faith” (502) that can begin to perceive why God acts as he does, that can “read” the meaning of the events around us in the light of God’s plan for our adoption into the mystery of his eternal love.
Day 72
CCC 512-513
The Mysteries of Christ’s Life
In today’s reading the Catechism makes the important observation that the only two points about Christ that are mentioned in the Creed are his sending from the Father in the Incarnation and his return to him in the events of the Paschal mystery. The focus for the Church’s catechesis on Christ, therefore, will always be on these two topics.
The Gospels, as we know, give us much more than this, though they, too, have a clear focus on the last three years of his time on earth, and a particular concentration on the final week of his earthly life. There is much that is “hidden” in the life of Jesus.
The Catechism notes that these two points in the Creed, however, provide all the “light” (512) we need to understand everything else in Jesus’ life. You may have noticed that the Catechism is often helpful in providing this guidance as to which doctrines and teachings shed light on other beliefs that we hold (for example, 89, 388). It is helping us to remember to read the faith as a unity, as a single coherent set of teachings that make sense to us together, as one whole. The Catechism is also reminding us by this that there is a hierarchy of truths. This does not mean that some teachings are truer than others; it is rather that some are more fundamental and essential and that they help us to understand the other truths (see 11, 90, 199, 234).
In the celebration of Christ’s life in the liturgical year these two teachings are marked by Christmas and Easter. In the liturgy we celebrate the great truths that we proclaim in the Creed. And it is again these great feasts and seasons that shed light on the rest of the Church’s liturgical year. “Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance” (1168).
Day 73
CCC 514-521
Christ’s Whole Life Is Mystery
The essence of today’s section lies in the opening two paragraphs. The Catechism first distinguishes mystery from curiosity (514). Curiosity is only appropriate for earthly matters — it can lead to mild interest. The revelation of God’s mystery, on the contrary, concerns the “divine sonship and redemptive mission” of Christ (515), and the only appropriate response to this is our wholehearted belief and commitment — to believe that Jesus is the Christ and God the Son so that through this belief we may have life in his name (see also 203, 430). The Gospels reveal this mystery. The materials in the Gospels were selected for this reason, so we read the Gospels for the sake of deepening our belief in Jesus and to ground our lives securely on his loving and saving presence.
CCC 515 explains how this revelation of Christ’s mystery occurs: through Christ’s humanity which is a sacrament. The Gospels record Jesus’ “deeds, miracles and words,” which lead us to recognize that we are in the presence of the invisible reality of the divine Son and his work. The word “sacrament” is taken from the Latin sacra, “sacred,” and applied to Jesus’ humanity it means that his humanity was both the sacred sign and the sacred instrument of his divinity.
Because Jesus is the divine Son who assumed our humanity, everything he says and does reveals God. CCC 516-518 explain three aspects of this: Christ’s whole earthly life is revelation of the Father, is redemptive, and recapitulates human life, restoring it to its “original vocation” (518). Recapitulates means that, as the “head” (in Latin, caput) of the human race, Jesus represents us, living human life in all its “stages” and dimensions as it is meant to be in God’s plan. We can now join ourselves to Jesus, becoming members of his Body, with Jesus as our true head. Then it is not only we who live the Christian life, but Jesus himself who, as our head, lives in us (519-521).
Day 74
CCC 522-534
The Mysteries of Jesus’ Infancy and Hidden Life
How do we now live the new life of Christ? How do we join ourselves to his redemptive work? Or, to put this in a better way: How does Christ join us to himself in and through our daily life, inviting us to respond, so that we can benefit from his having assumed our humanity and united it to his divinity? The Catechism begins to walk us through the answer to this question, starting from Jesus’ infancy and hidden life. Everything in Jesus’ life, we remember, is revelation of the Father, is redemptive, and is a recapitulation of human life and history for the sake of its restoration. This includes those early years and the times before Jesus began his public ministry.
The first thing you may have noticed is that he accomplishes this through the work of the liturgy and the sacraments. Look through these paragraphs and notice all of the sacraments, the feasts, the seasons, and the holy days. This is where his life is communicated to us now. This is where the grace to live the new life in Christ flows out upon us.
The second place where he joins himself to us is in the most ordinary events of “daily life” (533). When we are poor (525), are called to “become little” (526), are persecuted (523, 530), are learning obedience to our parents (532), are living out our family life (533) — and also when we learn that the Father’s call invites us to a response that takes us beyond all earthly loyalties and commitments (534), since Jesus living in us is, above all, always about his “Father’s work.”
In these ways, then, we become “sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity” (526).
Day 75
CCC 535-540
