Our Need, Our Jesus the Messiah, Our Savior the Anointed

We need Jesus in his incarnation for our salvation as we confess and profess in the creed of our church. By the Holy Breath, He is the Child of the Father, our Jesus of the virgin Mary, wife of Joseph, for our salvation, especially through His passion and resurrection (Apostles Creed, Nicene-Constantinople Creed).

John Paul II was fascinated by the mystery of our redemption. Jesus is redeemer of us people (Redemptor hominis). His Mary is mother of our redeemer (Redemptoris mater). His Joseph is guardian of our redeemer (Redemptoris custos). Our mission is that of Him our redeemer (Redemptoris missio). Jesus our redeemer opens us to His merciful Father (Dives in misericordia) and to His life-giving Breath (Dominem et vivificantem). John Paul faced communism in Poland and in the world at large. He faced secularist humanism worldwide. He was concerned about the true liberation of us people, our true redemption. For him, liberation theology is truly redemption theology.

John Paul highlighted the church in the contemporary world and religious freedom. During the council, he was deeply involved in Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanae. Jesus is our way to be truly free human persons in community today (GS no. 22 and 24, DH no. 2-3 and 10-11). His Breath from His Father touches us together and singly to realize we are to be freely His children and so brothers and sisters among ourselves as His family of friends of Mary and Joseph.

Jesus is our captain in the battle of life and history. He is our comrade, our champion, our revolutionary. He makes us humbly trustful in His and our merciful Father and mercifully helpful to His brothers and sisters miserable in our heart and conscience and struggle. Especially through His passion and resurrection, His defeat and victory, He transforms our movement and flow from cruel to merciful. Mary and Joseph are His closest friends in His turning us from the isolation of enemies to His family of friends humbly trustful and mercifully helpful.

Thomas considers our redemption as an aspect of our salvation. Jesus saves us especially through His passion as merit of our good and as satisfaction of our evil and as sacrifice offering self for His Father and us His brothers and sisters and as redemption changing the movement and flow of our history and lives from cruel to merciful. Especially through His passion and resurrection, He saves us as sacrament revealing and gracing our lives and history (ST III, qq. 48, 49, 56).

Jesus our Savior is our wounded heart, our affection, our fire. He makes us His family of friends of Mary and Joseph (John 19, Haurietis aquas and Munificentissimus Deus of Pius XII). He walks with us, talks with us, breaks bread with us, missions us (Luke 24, Deus caritas est, Verbum Domini, Sacramentum caritatis of Benedict XVI, and Evangelii gaudium of Francis). Jesus is our good Samaritan (Luke 10), He sets us on fire (Luke 12). He is merciful friend to us cruel brothers and sisters and wants to make us His merciful family of friends of Mary and Joseph to the image and likeness of Him Child, Beloved Word, and His Father, His Lover, and His Breath, His Love.

Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well by Nicholas Columbel, via Wikimedia Commons.

Jesus changes our water to wine (John 2). He is our way and truth and life (John 14). We thirst, He gives us water from His well (John 4). We are blinded, He makes us see (John 9). We are deadened, He makes us live (John 11). He is the grain of wheat that dies to make us His field of wheat (John 12). He is the vine, we the branches to bear His grapes (John 15). He, humble of heart, rests and refreshes us (Matthew 11). He holds us in His heart and hands as His friends, His family of friends. By His Breath, He makes us His heart and His hands, offering self among and for and with us to His Father and helping His brothers and sisters (Chrism Mass homily of Benedict XVI, 2006).

Jesus is our need, our story, our song. Our Jesus the Messiah, our Savior the Anointed, yesterday, today, tomorrow, is forever (Hebrews 13).

Father Don