RCIA 11: The Incarnation 11: The Incarnation Our Lady of Guadalupe - - PDF document

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RCIA

11: The Incarnation

11: The Incarnation

Our Lady of Guadalupe

• Feast day: December 12
• Culminated in conversion of entire culture

– Idolatry and human sacrifice (Aztec Montezuma)

• Cortés, the Conquistadors, and evangelization

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11: The Incarnation

Our Lady of Guadalupe

• 12/9/1531: Mary appears to Juan Diego
• Read her words in the handout
• Bishop wants proof

– 12/12

• Roses blooming in dead of winter
• Tilma with the image of Our Lady
• Millions converted

– Almost all Aztecs baptized – Human sacrifice ceased

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11: The Incarnation

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a

• sign. Behold a young

woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” – Isaiah 7:14

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11: The Incarnation

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

• Christmas celebrates Jesus’ birth & incarnation
• Read Lk 2:4-11
• Read Lk 2:29-32

– Jesus came for all peoples – Became one of us so we might become children of God – Saved us from sin & reconciled us with the Father

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Adoration of the Shepherds (1622) by Gerard van Honthorst

11: The Incarnation

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

• Share the joy of Christ with others!

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11: The Incarnation

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

• January 1
• “Behold…[t]he Holy Spirit will come upon you,

and the power of the Most High will

• vershadow you; therefore the

child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” – Luke 1:31, 35

• Elizabeth’s greeting: “the mother
• f my Lord” – Luke 1:43

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11: The Incarnation

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

• A mother gives her child the nature that she

herself has

– So Mary gave her human nature to Jesus – A mother gives birth to a person, not a nature – “What was not assumed cannot be redeemed.” – St. Athanasius

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The Madonna and Child by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1609-1685)

11: The Incarnation

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

• Council of Ephesus (431 AD)

– Christ is a divine person with two natures – Mary is Theotokos: God-bearer

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11: The Incarnation

The Incarnation

• Incarnation: the coming to earth of the very

Son of God, through the womb of the Virgin Mary

– The coming together of God and humanity in the person of Jesus

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The Annunciation (Evangelismos) (1825) Orthodox style icon by anonymous

11: The Incarnation

The Incarnation

• Born in Bethlehem

– Reign of King Herod – Reign of Caesar Augustus

• Lived in Nazareth

– Learned the carpenter’s trade from Joseph

• Carried on public ministry
• Suffered and died under a

Pontius Pilate

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11: The Incarnation

The Incarnation

• Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of

God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith

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11: The Incarnation

The Incarnation

• Why assume a human nature?

– To save all men from sin and to reconcile us to God – So that all persons will know God’s love – To model holiness and the Christian life – To make it possible for us to partake in the divine nature

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Contemporary Jesus (2010) by Jerry Bacik

11: The Incarnation

The Incarnation

• The Incarnation is the crescendo of God’s

whole creation

– Creation comes to its full fruition through the Incarnation of Jesus in our universe

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11: The Incarnation

The Incarnation

• The heart of the Catholic

Faith is not an idea but a Person, who is true God and true man: Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

The Witness of Scripture

• “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word

was with God, & the Word was God” – Jn 1:1

• “And the Word became flesh and

dwelt among us” – John 1:14

• “Lord” substitutes for unspoken “YHWH”

– Used for both the Father and Jesus

• Like us in all things but sin (see Hebrews 4:15)

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

The Witness of Scripture (cont.)

• Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living

God” – Matthew 16:16

• Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”

– John 20:28

• Jesus:

– “Before Abraham was, I am” – Jn 8:58 – “The Father and I are one” – John 10:30

• Died and rose (many witnesses)

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The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1602) by Caravaggio

11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Catholic Doctrines about Jesus’ Identity

• Jesus has two complete natures, divine and

human, each with an intellect and a will

– Human soul – could grow and learn – He always knew He was God – Could penetrate secret thoughts of the heart

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Jesus in the Temple (1881) by Heinrich Hofmann

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Catholic Doctrines about Jesus’ Identity (cont.)

• Jesus is only one person, the divine Person

– Son of God, coequal with the Father – Same nature as the Father and the Spirit

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Catholic Doctrines about Jesus’ Identity (cont.)

• The human and divine natures of Jesus are

inseparably joined in the one divine Person

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The oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator at Saint Catherine's

• Monastery. The two different facial

expressions on either side emphasize Christ's dual nature as both divine and human.

11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Catholic Doctrines about Jesus’ Identity (cont.)

• Second person of the Trinity begotten, not made

– Not a creature or a lesser God

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

First Type of Heresy: Jesus is Not Human

• Gnosticism (1st c.) and Docetism & Manichaeism

(2nd and 3rd c.)

– Jesus’ body an illusion since matter is evil

• Monophysitism (5th c.)

– Divine nature absorbed Jesus’ human nature

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Second Type of Heresy: Jesus is Not Fully Human

• Apolinarianism (4th c.)

– Jesus’ human mind replaced by the divine mind

• Monothelitism (7th c.)

– Jesus had only a divine will, not a human will

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Third Type of Heresy: Jesus is Not Divine

• Ebionism (1st c.)

– Only a man who received the Spirit at baptism

• Monarchianism (2nd & 3rd c.)

– Jesus became Christ at baptism – Adopted by Father after His death

• Modalism/Sabellianism (2nd & 3rd c.)

– God adopted the roles of Father, Son, Holy Spirit

• Arianism (4th c.)

– Jesus was the first created being – Not of the same substance as the Father

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Fourth Type of Heresy: Jesus is Not Fully Divine

• Semi-Arianism (4th c.)

– Similar essence but subordinate to the Father

• Nestorianism (5th c.)

– Jesus was two persons with two natures – Second person of the Trinity “indwelt” in the person of Jesus (i.e., a God-bearing man)

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Triumph of the True Doctrine: Church Councils

• Six universal Church councils needed to determine

true doctrine

• Nicaea (325): Jesus consubstantial and coeternal
• Constantinople I (381): Jesus fully human
• Ephesus (431): two natures, one person
• Chalcedon (451): two natures unmixed,

inseparable

• Constantinople II (680): Jesus has two wills

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Modern Manifestations of these Heresies

• “Jesus in not human”

– New Age, some fundamentalist Protestants, some

• riginal communities
• “Jesus is not divine”

– Jehovah’s Witnesses (Jesus angelic being) – Christian Scientists (modern Ebionites) – Unitarians (deny Trinity and the divinity of Jesus) – Other variations as well

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Modern Manifestations of these Heresies (cont.)

• “Jesus in not fully divine”

– Nestorian Christian communities from old still exist – Unification Church (Sun Myung Moon) – Mormonism (can achieve divinity as God did)

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11: The Incarnation

True God and True Man

Why Does Correct Understanding of Jesus Matter?

• Denial of Jesus’ humanity

– Impossible for us to see him as our model of holiness

• r one who can understand, sympathize, console
• Denial of Jesus’ divinity

– Undermines His entire life and message – Understanding of need for a divine Savior collapses – No Trinity then

• Families cannot be modeled on Trinitarian life

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11: The Incarnation

The Touch of Jesus

• We can die without touch
• When Jesus walked the earth, “all the crowd

sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all”-- Luke 6:19

– His touch healed the sick, revived the senses, raised the dead, showed His humility – Touching Him healed the soul, cast away doubts

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11: The Incarnation

The Touch of Jesus

• Through Holy Communion we

touch Jesus and He touches us

– In His Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity

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11: The Incarnation

The Touch of Jesus

• Our bodies will be embraced by Jesus when we

receive our glorified bodies in Heaven

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11: The Incarnation

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