Chapter 7 — "The Good News: God Has Sent His Son"

OPENING PRAYER

The Gift of Story

Holy One, you have given us the gift of story in our lives, ways of understanding who we are, ways
of making sense of our world, of finding meaning and knowing how to respond to all that happens in
our lives.

Please show us where our stories fall short or are too narrow, where they exclude rather than
include, where they divide rather than unite.

Help us to see where a story we live out of may go amiss of what is real, where it allows us to
escape becoming whole, where it lets us live comfortably in fear.

Fill us with your story, the story of unity and compassion and love.

Fill us with images that energize us and give us hope and lead us to the fundamental truth that you
have tried to teach us all along: we are all one.

Amen.

—Judy Cannato (d. 2011)
Field of Compassion: How the New Cosmology Is
Transforming Spiritual Life (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2010), 23.

"THE GOOD NEWS: GOD HAS SENT HIS SON"
—CCC, Nos. 422–570
Who do others say you are?  Who do you say you are?

The primary question for Catholic Christians to answer is “Who do you say Jesus is?” Our answer to that question can frame our worldview of life.

Our primary source for learning about Jesus is the four Gospels, written “that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah [the Christ], the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:31).

Through the Gospels we learn about the Jesus who healed, exorcised demons, prayed, and performed miracles. He taught us about God—who is like an unconditional loving and merciful parent anticipating our return  home [Lk 15:11-32].

Jesus sought to restore people into right relationship with God and with one another. He proclaimed and invited us, individually and communally, to a new Way of Life he called the “Kingdom of God”—the Way of unconditional love, justice, peace, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, freedom, joy, selfless service, healing, and salvation.

Jesus challenged the oppressive and self-centered ways of the religious and political rulers of his time and, as a result, he was brutally beaten and crucified, he suffered, and died. However, soon after, his disciples experienced Jesus as “risen” from the dead, and they came to believe that Jesus was their Lord, the “Son of God,” the Christ and their “savior,” deserving of their devotion and allegiance. “God greatly exalted [Jesus] and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).

Jesus calls us to be his followers and his disciples and to live, proclaim, and share God’s “Kingdom” or Reign with others in our time and place. We can enter this Way of God through faith in Jesus the Christ, our baptismal initiation into the Church—the People of God, the Mystical Body of Christ—and a life in loving communion with all other People of God, leading to our eternal life with God. This is truly “Good News.”

Please read this week USCCA,Chapter 7, "The Good News: God Has Sent His Son" (pages 77–87), the CCC, Nos. 422–570 (pages 106–146), and the Compendium, Nos. 79–111
VIDEOS
"Who is Jesus" (Bishop Robert Barron)

"Why Did God Take On Our Humanity?" (Fr. Mike Schmitz)

"Who Jesus Truly Is" (Bishop Robert Barron)

"Why the Incarnation?" (Breaking the Habit)

"How Can Jesus Be Both God and Human" (Bishop Robert Barron)

"Jesus Christ: True God and True Man" (Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.)

"I Believe in Jesus" - CCC 422-455 (Fr. Daniel Mahan)

"The Son of God Became Man" - CCC 456-483 (Fr. Daniel Mahan)

"Born of the Virgin Mary" - CCC 484-511 (Fr. Daniel Mahan)

"Christ's Life" - CCC 512-570 (Fr. Daniel Mahan)
MUSIC

"Blest Be The Lord" (Dan Shutte)

"Holy Is His Name" (John Michael Talbot)
OTHER RESOURCES

"Draw Near" - A Video Guide to the Catholic Mass

"Mass: Structure and Meaning" (USCCB)

Parts of the Mass (USCCB)
REFLECT ON YOUR EXPERIENCE

How is Jesus an image of God for you?

How are you experiencing the ways of God’s Reign in your life?

How do you proclaim and share the “Good News” with others?
We encourage  and invite you to  spend time to reflect, pray, and write in your journal about what you have read, seen, heard, or experienced this week.  You can find some other questions you may wish to consider here.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, in now, and ever shall be.
Amen.