The Person of Jesus Christ: "I AM" (Jn 8:58)

Jesus is not merely a man who shows us a "way" along which we may travel, as if one path is as good as another; nor does he simply utter a "truth" which we may or may not accept; nor does he merely talk of a manner in which we may find "life," as if it is one item among others which we might gather up and store away for ourselves. Rather, the Person of Jesus himself is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). It is not as if Jesus has gathered these gifts from outside of himself, and then simply passes them on to us for our own benefit. It is the Person of Jesus, the Son of the living God, who is the Gift. Christ is Life Itself.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting from Sts. Irenaeus, Athanasius and Aquinas, explains the manner in which we share in the gift of God's own life: "The Word became flesh to make us 'partakers of the divine nature' (see 2 Pt 1:4): For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God. For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods" (No. 460).

When St. Athanasius wrote that "the Son of God became man so that we might become God," it is to be understood in the sense that, through Christ's salvific and redemptive act, we are graced by virtue of Baptism with a share in the divine life of God. Nevertheless, it is the Person of Jesus who calls us to enter into communion with himself, and thus receive the Gift of himself, that we might become a son of God and share in his Divinity. As our Holy Father reminds us, Lent is a journey into God, it is a way of travel not to some "place," but into a state of existence infused with supernatural life -- what we term as sanctifying grace.

Yet the lenten journey is not simply walking in "some" subjective direction. Rather, it is a specific direction in which we ourselves, body and soul, accompany Jesus, truly existing in and through him, at one with him. It is an existential action, formed in the fires of passionate love, in which we fervently and truly commend our spirits unto Christ. Our own life is our gift, however small it is, given back to the limitless Gift Himself: our Savior who poured out his own blood upon the wood of the cross: the forever infinite and incomparable gift to humankind.



Thanks to F. K. Bartels, Catholic Online
See article here.