Tagged - Loving Jesus +

Gen over at Real Clear Religion recently "tagged" me to respond to the "Christ Meme". The rules are as follows:

Those tagged will share 5 things they love about Jesus and must tag 5 other bloggers. Those tagged must provide a link in the comments box here with their name so that others can read them.

I have seen this "Christ Meme" elsewhere, and I doubt that there are five bloggers left who have not been so tagged, but first things first: 5 things I love about Jesus (that are hardly original):

(1) Jesus gave us a human face. The Torah was not enough, the prophets weren't enough. We needed the "Word made flesh" [John 1,14] in order to engage in positive mimesis and "catch", or better yet, fall in love with the God Who first loved us; and our neighbor as ourself.

(2) Jesus gave us full proof of God's love for us in that He went to the horrible center of human sin, offered Himself up there "for all time a single sacrifice for sins" [Hebrews 10,12], and showed once and for all that it was not God's nature that was bloodthirsty. Rather, it is the nature of fallen humanity that is. His Resurrection (and its effects) the true vindication of God's nature; namely, that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" [Romans 5,8].

(3) Jesus did not leave us with a fading memory of a hero; He gave us His "one holy Catholic and apostolic Church" and a faithful Vicar to shepherd us through the ages. In the "source and summit" of the Catholic Church, the Holy Eucharist, we are given His body, blood, soul, and divinity -- the Real Presence of Our Lord -- in this eternal sacrifice of the Mass. In the Sacraments Jesus through His Church provides all that every human being on earth needs to get to Heaven.

(4) Jesus gives us His Mother to be our Mother, and she, His perfect disciple, points us toward her Son. The Marian Church is not over against the Petrine Church; they are one and the same for all eternity.

(5) Jesus, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity (circling back to No. 1, above) shows us, reveals to us in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and through the Magisterium how to live, die, and be born again into Trinitarian life with the one, true God. Through infused grace, we can take part in obeying the Two Great Commandments (Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself) through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. His law of love is perfect freedom.

Now, I tag:

(1) Aramis, my fellow Mass'keteer

(2) The Fair Maiden Dawn Eden

(3) The Musical Monkster

(4) Henry Karlson, and

(5) YOU, gentle reader ...