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John P. Brodeur Dr. Hildebrand Theology of Christ 213F 3 December 2009 Jesus Christ: Incarnate Love In the history of man, no single person has ever so extensively captivated hearts and minds like the person of Jesus Christ. His story has inspired billions, his teachings have intrigued the world, and his claims have repulsed not a few. His legacy is largely responsible for the character of Western culture, his message has caused the rise and fall of nations, and to this day his followers constitute the largest religious following in the world. It is little wonder, then, how his words to Peter have echoed for over two millennia in the hearts and minds of all mankind, Who do you say that I am? Despite the pressing need for each individual to understand this Jesus in relation to themselves, it is not a question to be taken lightly. The child who turns the pages of his illustrated bible, the teenager who sits in CCD classes and the adult who walks into Church on Sunday are all confronted with this question, and in each of these cases, the crucifix, hidden somewhere around the room, gives answer. There, in the depiction of Christs salvific act, the answer ushers forth: he is Love Incarnate. This description of Christ speaks to two natures. Before he is incarnate, before he is ever a man, Christ is Love. As Love, he is God, and as God, he is Love. His divinity is irreconcilably caught up in being Love, for as James tells us, God is love.1 He is therefore before all things and one with the Father, self-sufficient as God. The first time he was made manifest outside of himself was as the divine energy2 when he created the world. That moment revealed him to be utter self-gift: This primal love is gift-love. In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled;

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only plenteousness that desires to give. The doctrine that God was under no necessity to create is not a piece of dry scholastic speculation. It is essential.3 Indeed, the act of creation is an expressive act of Love, one which gives freely and without compulsion. Additionally, all of creation is made good because of this Love. Christ, then, does not love his creation because it is good. Rather, he himself as God is the cause and not the effect of goodness.4 Thus, in relation to man, Christ, as God, is the creator of creation, giver of life, and the gracious benefactor of the beatific vision. After man willfully rejected Loves invitation, Christs divine personhood takes on a human nature. This is the definitive act by which Christ shows the persistence of divine Love. As the cause of all goodness, Love is so unwilling to leave his creation corrupt that he unites his infinite nature to finite creation in order to wholly expend himself so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men.5 Self-gift remains undeterred even after mans rejection; he constantly seeks to impart good, such that he would become man in order to do so: For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.6 Love is not content to leave man unassisted and abandoned when there is still a means of him attaining the end he was created for. Is this not madness? To man, it must certainly seem so, but St. Paul confesses that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.7 Not only is Love wise and strong in acting this way, but he acts most fully and honorably this way:

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What you think to be improper and coarse is on the contrary godly and sublime, if you keep in mind the immensity of the mystery. For is it not an honor for the Almighty to humble himself, in the same way as the humble world would be ashamed to be exalted? Thus it is with Christ: he does not abandon the exalted reality of his divinity, which is immaterial and cannot be circumscribed; and yet it is his glory to abase himself in such a noble manner8 The true beauty of this definitive act of Love, his incarnation, is the free choice involved in accomplishing the restoration of everlasting life to man. St. Augustine reaffirms how it was not of necessity that God became man, but rather that he freely chose the most fitting way of healing our misery.9 Indeed, it is most appropriate for Augustine to exclaim, What greater cause is there of the Lord's coming than to show God's love for us?10 This is what Love does; this is who love is; he is so anxious to bestow goodness that he is willing to clothe his divinity with creation such that the incarnation becomes a visible, tangible proof of who Love is. Love is none other than he who became incarnate. Love and incarnation become inseparable, for Love would always and for all eternity continue to choose to become man so as to restore the gift by dying on a cross. This is love in its most radical form.11 This radical nature of Love is not only Christ himself but the very gift he wishes to extend to mankind. His invitation rings out strong and clear in the gospels: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.12 It is in Love, divine charity that eternal life is to be achieved. Such a love, coming from God, who is Love, enables us to return to him in an ecstasy of self-forgetfulness and to embrace our fellow-man in that same love, without becoming possessive or possessed by any human love. Achieving this, we fulfill Christ's supreme mandate of charity: Love one another as I loved you.13 To love another as Christ loves is not to love with ones own will but to love with the will of Christ, to actually be Love to others, to have a share in the very divinity of Christ. This gift also enables man to love God, for it is only by Gods love and with Gods love that man can truly love God. It is as St. Therese of Lisieux

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observed, In order to love you as you loved me, I need to borrow your very own love,14 and as Bernard of Clairvaux said, God is the cause of our loving God; the measure is to love Him without measure.15 By this gift of himself to man, Love has achieved a marvelous feat. No longer is mans love restricted to human love. The love which man can now love with is God himself. As such the love of God and the love of neighbor have become intimately woven together so much so that one cannot be accomplished without the other.16 If a man loves his neighbor with the love of God, namely if he wills for his neighbor to be in God, he is loving his neighbor the same way God is loved: he is allowing the love of God to enact good. Additionally, if a man loves God with the gift of God, he will end up loving his neighbor, because God has bound himself to the promotion of mans good by his incarnation. This is remarkably reflected in the dialogue between Peter and Christ in Johns gospel: Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep17 In the affirmation of his love for Christ, Peter is simultaneously accepting the responsibility to take care of his neighbor. By loving the body of Christ, he simultaneously loves its individual members with the same love. Furthermore, the charge to feed Christs sheep is a very particular one in regards to Peter. Here, Christ is charging him with the responsibility of feeding the faithful with the Eucharist, the Bread of Life. The sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist would become the primary means by which man could continue to abide in [Christs] love18 after his ascension, in accord with what he promised in John 6: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.19 In the Eucharist, man substantially encounters the incarnation, the ultimate assurance of and encounter with Love, Christ himself. It is the perpetual gift-giving of Love Incarnate, and the final, most generous, and most humble act of Christ. Love Incarnate comes to share himself

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with mankind in the form of bread as a means of nourishing him with the promise of eternal life. If we knew the gift of a God who is Love and who gives Himself to us as a Gift full of love! The Eucharist, said St. Bernard, is that Love which surpasses all loves in Heaven and on earth. And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love: It signifies Love, It produces love.20 Through this perpetual gift-giving of Love, in this sharing of divine life through the person of Christ, mankind has been made friends with God. Through the incarnation, the lasting proof of Gods love for man, Christ has poured himself out so completely that he continues to give of himself at every moment through the representation of Calvary, where Love exceeded the comprehension of mans standards and achieved the end of its Incarnation. If the child does not begin to catch a glimpse of this, if the teenagers mind fails to conceptualize this, if the adult in church is unable to recognize what is unfolding in front of her eyes, then the gifts which Christ is extending to them will go overlooked and unappreciated, and what a tragedy such a thing would be! As Love Incarnate, a Love radically committed to the good of humanity, Christ leaves mankind wanting for nothing. Oh, that all could know him, especially in that most intimate exchange of Love in the Eucharist!

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Notes 1. 1 John 4:8 (RSV). 2. Clive Staples Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), p. 175. 3. Ibid., p. 175. 4. Jordan Aumann, Thomistic Evaluation of Love and Charity, http://www.domcentral.org/study/aumann/charity.htm. 5. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, intro. by C. S. Lewis (New York: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1996), p.34. 6. John 3:16 (RSV). 7. 1 Corinthians 1:25 (RSV). 8. Christoph Schnborn, Gods Human Face: The Christ-Icon, trans. by Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), p. 234. 9. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/, III, 46, 3. 10. Ibid. 11. Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_benxvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html, 12. 12. John 15:9 (RSV). 13. Thomistic Evaluation of Love and Charity 14. Ibid. 15. Summa Theologica, II, 27, 6. 16. Deus Caritas Est, 15. 17. John 21:17 (RSV). 18. John 15:9 (RSV). 19. John 6:56 (RSV). 20. Christine Hernandez, The Supreme Love of the Religious Heart: Heart of Jesus, Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, http://www.piercedhearts.org/sctjm/sctjm_talks/supreme_love_religious_heart.htm.

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Bibliography Aquinas, Thomas. 1274. Summa Theologica. Grand Rapids, Missouri. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/. Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Intro. by C. S. Lewis. New York: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1996. Aumann, Jordan. 1978. Thomistic Evaluation of Love and Charity. http://www.domcentral.org/study/aumann/charity.htm. Benedict XVI. 2005. Deus Caritas Est. Vatican City State. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_benxvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html. Hernandez, Christine. The Supreme Love of the Religious Heart: Heart of Jesus. Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary. http://www.piercedhearts.org/sctjm/sctjm_talks/supreme_love_religious_heart.htm. Lewis, Clive Staples. The Four Loves. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960. Schnborn, Christoph. Gods Human Face: The Christ-Icon. Trans. by Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994.