OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
91. Of the three divine Persons, the second became man, which is the Son.
92. The Father did not become man.
93. The Holy Spirit did not become man.
94. Only the Son became man, who, having become man, is called Jesus Christ.
95. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who became man to redeem us and to give us an example of life.
Although the three divine Persons are one and the same God, only one Person became man.
Example: a finger of the hand can have a ring without the other fingers having it.
The Son of God, in becoming man, did not cease to be God.
Jesus Christ is true God and true man.
Jesus Christ has only one Person, which is Divine. He has no human person.
Jesus Christ, as man, subsists only inseparably united to the Person of the Son of God.
96. Christians have the following reasons for the divinity of Jesus Christ:
1º The prophecies of the Sacred Books concerning His Person.
2º The miracles performed by Jesus Christ in confirmation of His divinity.
3º The resurrection of Jesus Christ after His death on the Cross.
4º The purity of His Doctrine and Morals, worthy only of God.
5º The foundation of the Church and its stability through the ages, in spite of the persecutions of its enemies.
JESUS CHRIST IS GOD
In Jesus Christ all the prophecies concerning the promised Messiah were fulfilled.
Our Lord Jesus Christ clearly manifested and proved with great miracles that He was the true God.
Christian doctrine is most pure, its dogmas are not contrary, but superior to reason; and its morals teach man to fulfill his duties to God, to his neighbor and to himself; to practice charity, to deny himself and to restrain concupiscence.
The Christian who commits an evil deed practically ceases to be a Christian.
Some poor fishermen, whom Jesus named His Apostles, were the ones in charge of preaching this doctrine, so contrary to human passions.
In the rapid spread of Christianity one clearly sees the finger of God and not the work of men.
Innumerable martyrs shed their blood for the Christian religion, in such a way that only God could give them the strength of spirit and even the joy, which they showed in the midst of the greatest torments.
Jesus Christ is God, and the religion taught by Him is divine and the only true religion.
97. In Jesus Christ there are two natures, one divine and the other human; two wills, one divine and the other human; and two understandings, one divine and the other human.
He has a divine nature because He is truly God; He has a human nature because He is truly man.
Divine nature means to be divine, and human nature means to be human.
Jesus Christ has, therefore, the divine being and the human being, but not the human person.
The divine and human natures are united in the Person of the Son of God.
The union of the Person of the Son of God with human nature is called hypostatic union.
Jesus Christ has body and soul like other men.
He has two understandings: one divine and the other human.
He has two wills: one divine and one human.
As God, He is equal to the Father; as man, He is lesser than the Father.
Although He is God and man, there are not two, but only one Jesus Christ.
98. In Jesus Christ there is only one Person, who is divine, because He is the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and there is only one memory, which is human, because Jesus Christ, as God, has no need of memory, for He has all things present and can forget nothing.
He is one by unity of Person.
Just as the soul and the body are one man, so also God made man is one Jesus Christ.
In God there are three Persons and one nature; in Jesus Christ there is one Person and two natures.
The body of Jesus Christ is to be adored by reason of the Divine Person to which it is united.
Any part of His body also deserves adoration. For example: the Heart, His most precious Blood, His divine Face.
Jesus Christ is the only Son of God the Father, because He alone is His Son by nature; we are children of God by creation and by adoption.
Jesus Christ is our Lord, because He is God and has created and redeemed us, giving as a price His own blood and life.
9. Jesus means Savior
Jesus saved us from sin and from the captivity of the devil.
101. Christ means anointed.
Jesus was anointed with the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
ARTICLE III
WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE POWER AND GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT; BORN OF HOLY VIRGIN MARY
Jesus Christ, as God, has always existed; as man, He came into existence from the moment of the Incarnation.
The word Incarnation means that the Son of God became man.
103. The Son of God became man by taking in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary, by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit, a body like ours and a soul like ours.
The Son of God was conceived and born, not like other men, but by the supernatural and miraculous working of God.
104. The Father of Jesus Christ is only the Eternal Father.
Jesus, as God, has only Father. As a man, He has only a mother.
St. Joseph was not the father of Jesus; but he was considered as such because he was the husband of Mary.
105. The mother of Jesus Christ is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
106. Mary Most Holy was always a virgin.
Mary is the only one among all women who is mother and virgin.
If this cannot be done in the natural order, it is quite possible in the divine order, for God can do all that he wills.
Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger.
The Son of God became man to redeem us and to give us an example of life.
To redeem us means to free us from sin and eternal death, and to merit glory.
Jesus redeemed us by dying on the Cross.
To give us an example of life means to teach us the way of heaven.
He taught us the way to heaven with words and deeds.
With works He did it during His whole life; and with words during the last three years of it.
The year in which we are now, tells us how long ago the Son of God became man.
Christians began to count the years since the coming of Jesus Christ.
From Adam to Jesus Christ passed 4000 years [take that “with tongs”].
He was born in the portal of Bethlehem on December 25.
The Holy Gospel says that Jesus grew in age, wisdom and grace before God and man.
In this way we too should strive to grow.
Jesus Christ, during His mortal life, taught us the way to heaven by example and word, confirming His doctrine with miracles.
Jesus lived on earth thirty-three years.
The first thirty years were spent at home.
When he was old enough to work, he took up the humble occupation of a carpenter.
Jesus spent the last three years of His life preaching the Holy Gospel.
He clearly manifested that he was the Son of God; and he proved it by performing great miracles.
He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb; He cured all kinds of diseases, and even raised the dead.
The greatest of all miracles was to resurrect Himself.
Jesus chose twelve men, almost all ignorant fishermen, to accompany Him as His dearest disciples and intimate confidants, during the time of His preaching; these were the twelve Apostles.