Joseph Hollcraft MA
Theological Foundations CCP 210
Week 5: October 4, 2007

VI: Sin at our Origin: The following of one’s desire; a refusal to love; disobedience (cf. Heb.4.6) to the Father’s will. Sin at the core is placing self at the center of all things. Satan’s self-centeredness is the language he communicates. There is no certainty to the origin of Lucifer’s fall.

1. The Fall of Adam: Adam and Eve experienced the preternatural gifts, the perfection of the natural and the immunity from suffering, death, and integrity. Man was entirely at peace, the natural habits conformed to the supernatural habits. The rift was sent into earthly paradise at the occasion of the temptation; the seducer reduced man to the natural law of death and subjected him to the laws of earthly suffering.

A. The chief loss in Adam and Eve’s folly was sanctifying grace, for this, we must be reborn. The body is born from the womb of man…the soul is born from the womb of God…in Christ we become a new creation.

B. Original Sin is the absence of grace to reach our destiny in the life of the Trinity. Therein lies concupiscence, the inclination to sin…Passion and imagination (picture-creative power that serves our senses--time) are a few of the natural traits theologians have noted that Satan has contorted.

C. The fallen race was in need of atonement. A restoration of divine sonship and a participation in the divinity of God. Moreover, he was in need of the strength to overcome the tempter and the seducer, “the father of lies and lord of filth.” Just as Christ made a point to reveal what he overcame, so we ought to consider what we overcome in our relationship with God…consider the titles of Satan discussed in class.

VII. The Incarnation (and the Redeemer): Son of God assumed human nature and became man to restore us back to God in our human nature. He became flesh to divinize flesh (CCC 461, 464)

1. Christ, the Eternal Word (Jn.1.1-13 ). The meaning of the Word (seen 330 times in NT) is threefold: (1) A powerful utterance of God that brought all things into being at the dawn of time (cf. Gn.3; Ps.33.6; Wis.9.1) (2) God’s eternal companion in Wisdom (prov.8.23; Sir.9), the craftsman who labored alongside God at creation (Wis.7.22) who remains a source for the life of the world and the (3) Word associated with the order and design of the universe.

A. Jn.1.1…“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God…” This verse demands a deeper consideration of the significance of “Word” as the second person in the Trinity. Consider the word of Hans Urs Von Balthasar: “The entire revelation concerning salvation is ordered to this manifestation of the Word, as to a central point-in a forward direction in the apostles and in the whole history of the church to the end of time, in a backward direction in the Old testament in word and in history, backward to the law and the prophets and even to the creation.”--Von Balthasar

B. Jn.1.1-1.5... The Word of God is not some abstract principle or an audible voice, but rather a Divine Person. This person once mediator of creation is now the mediator of our salvation through the incarnation.

a. John traces the author of eternity past where God the Son was with God the Father during creation. A direct allusion to the opening verse of the Bible where the Word Brings with it light, darkness, life and creation of days.

b. John’s direct implication is that the earth, once created through the Word of God, is now being renewed through that same word in Jesus incarnate.

1. Earthly reality is being graced through Christ.

c. Light and darkness…symbolic of the struggle between good and evil. Jesus himself is the true light, driving out death, deception, and the devil (cf. Mark). Other contrasts in the Gospel of John include: (1) flesh and spirit; (2) truth and falsehood; (3) heaven and earth; (4) life and death.

B. Our Lord as we meet him: Christ as the Son of God incarnate was revealed slowly over the course of his life: the first thirty years only revealed to a select few and the last three years slowly over the course of his ministry. The same could be said of catechesis and evangelization…considers the Gospels, more specifically Matthew.

a. Peter: “You are the Son of the living God” (Mt.16.16). Note the ecclesial and catechetical character of this affirmation of Truth.

C. Christ: God and man: His human nature was united to his divine nature. Mary’s own humanity gives Christ his humanity in the same manner that our mother gives ours. Christ’s divinity flows from being the second person of the Trinity. God comes to divinize the flesh.

a. 2 Peter 1.4: we are participator’s in God’s divinity but only by understanding his humanity—suffering (Rom.8.14-21; 1 Pet.4.13).

1. God offers us his Son as an opportunity of reaching into our own hearts—this is the joy—God was made human and yet retained his divinity! Christ in his divinity was Love; Christ in his humanity was obedience!

2. “Sin is not apart of being man rather a misuse of manhood” (Sheed, 94).

VIII. Paschal Mystery (Redemption): Christ’s work of redemption accomplished principally by his Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension, whereby dying he destroyed death and by rising, he restored life (CCC 1067). Atonement is reuniting man with God in divine sonship. What was wholly human in his suffering and death was wholly infinite…So it outweighs the sin of death and destruction (remember Satan is the lord of lies and death). Therefore, the actions of Jesus Christ are redemptive (cf. Word of the Week on Resurrection).

1. Jn.10.17-18: “other sheep will heed my voice…I lay down my life in my own accord.” Christ proclaims that the new covenant includes the Gentiles and they must heed her voice.

a. The Church receives her full life when her children are obedient to her rules and regulations…And enjoin themselves to the Cross!

2. Suffering entails the struggle (cf.Heb.5.8). Consider Christ in agony in the garden of Gethsemane. The angel was sent to comfort him—to “strengthen him.”

a. The Passion, Resurrection and Ascension are all necessary not only for Christ to achieve the fullness of Redemption, but also for man to understand his own participation in the Paschal Mystery. What is their relationship and how does it apply to our lives?

1. Paschal Mystery details the mystery in Which God passes through our midst to restore us back to life (recall discussion on the OT “Pascha”). Recalling the words of C.S. Lewis read in class: “He descends so as to reascend…He renounced life and was obedient unto the cross so that we might learn to constantly die to self.”

3. Truth, Life Union: Christ uttered the words that forever change our disposition in our Christian walk: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The seven “I Am” (Jn.8.58) titles of Christ echo the revelation of God’s identity in Exodus 3... “I am”: “…the bread of life” (Jn.6.48); “…the light of the world” (Jn.8.12)…the door” (Jn.10.9); “…the Good Shepherd” (Jn.10.11); “…the resurrection” (Jn.11.25); “…the way, the truth, and the life (Jn.14.6); “…the true vine” (Jn.15.1). Again, these titles of identity refer to his relationship with man and the world and to the HOW he will draw us closer to him!

a. Now, consider the titles: Way (this initial essence speaks to Christ as the “method”, which leads to the others, Truth, Life, and their context. The Last Supper discourse. Christ is the image of the invisible Father--sacramental

1. Way: Revelation of Truth! The way is not enough…It demands the teaching sacramental Church!

2. Truth: teaching Church…tradere (Kevane)

3. Life: Baptism, Eucharist, reconciliation. Birth, nourishment and renewal.

Homework Assignment: Reflecting upon Pope Benedict XVI, How are we to understand the Catholic Church as the Catholic Church as the Kingdom of God? In what ways can we personalize the Kingdom?