CCC 423 We believe and confess that Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade, who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man. He ‘came from God’,¹ ‘descended from heaven’,² and ‘came in the flesh’.³ For ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. .. And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.’⁴

CCC 447 Jesus ascribes this title to himself in a veiled way when he disputes with the Pharisees about the meaning of Psalm 110, but also in an explicit way when he addresses his apostles.⁵ Throughout his public life, he demonstrated his divine sovereignty by works of power over nature, illnesses, demons, death and sin.

CCC 520 In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. He is “the perfect man”,⁶ who invites us to become his disciples and follow him. In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way.⁷

CCC 557 “When the days drew near for him to be taken up [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.”⁸ By this decision he indicated that he was going up to Jerusalem prepared to die there. Three times he had announced his Passion and Resurrection; now, heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus says: “It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.”⁹

CCC 609 By embracing in his human heart the Father’s love for men, Jesus “loved them to the end”, for “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”¹⁰ In suffering and death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the salvation of men.¹¹ Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death: “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”¹² Hence the sovereign freedom of God’s Son as he went out to his death.¹³

CCC 616 It is love “to the end”¹⁴ that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life.¹⁵ Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”¹⁶ No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.

CCC 730 At last Jesus’ hour arrives:¹⁷ he commends his spirit into the Father’s hands¹⁸ at the very moment when by his death he conquers death, so that, “raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,”¹⁹ he might immediately give the Holy Spirit by “breathing” on his disciples.²⁰ From this hour onward, the mission of Christ and the Spirit becomes the mission of the Church: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”²¹

CCC 1085 In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father “once for all.”²² His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that Christ is – all that he did and suffered for all men – participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life.

CCC 1269 Having become a member of the Church, the person baptized belongs no longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us.²³ From now on, he is called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and to “obey and submit” to the Church’s leaders,²⁴ holding them in respect and affection.²⁵ Just as Baptism is the source of responsibilities and duties, the baptized person also enjoys rights within the Church: to receive the sacraments, to be nourished with the Word of God and to be sustained by the other spiritual helps of the Church.²⁶

CCC 1337 The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love.²⁷ In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; “thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament.”²⁸

CCC 1380 It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us “to the end,”²⁹ even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us,³⁰ and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love:
The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease.³¹

CCC 1524 In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ, received at this moment of “passing over” to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”³² The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father.³³

CCC 1694 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord.³⁴ Following Christ and united with him,³⁵ Christians can strive to be “imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love”³⁶ by conforming their thoughts, words and actions to the “mind. .. which is yours in Christ Jesus,”³⁷ and by following his example.³⁸

CCC 1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment.³⁹ By loving his own “to the end,”⁴⁰ he makes manifest the Father’s love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”⁴¹

CCC 2843 Thus the Lord’s words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end,⁴² become a living reality. The parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord’s teaching on ecclesial communion, ends with these words: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”⁴³ It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.

1 Jn 13:3.
2 Jn 3:13; 6:33.
3 1 Jn 4:2.
4 Jn 1:14,16.
5 Cf. Mt 22:41-46; cf. Acts 2:34-36; Heb 1:13; Jn 13:13.
6 GS 38; cf. Rom 1 5:5; Phil 2:5.
7 Cf. Jn 13:15; Lk 11:1; Mt 5:11-12.
8 Lk 9:51; cf. Jn 13:1.
9 Lk 13:33; cf. Mk 8:31-33; 9:31-32; 10:32-34.
10 Jn 13:1; 15:13.
11 Cf. Heb 2:10,17-18; 4:15; 5:7-9.
12 Jn 10:18.
13 Cf. Jn 18:4-6; Mt 26:53.
14 Jn 13:1.
15 Cf. Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2, 25.
16 2 Cor 5:14.
17 Cf. Jn 13:1; 17:1.
18 Cf. Lk 23:46; Jn 19:30.
19 Rom 6:4.
20 Cf. Jn 20:22.
21 Jn 20:21; cf. Mt 28:19; Lk 24:47-48; Acts 1:8.
22 Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27; 9:12; cf. Jn 13:1; 17:1.
23 Cf. 1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 5:15.
24 Heb 13:17.
25 Cf. Eph 5:21; 1 Cor 16:15-16; 1 Thess 5:12-13; Jn 13:12-15.
26 Cf. LG 37; CIC, cann. 208 223; CCEO, can. 675:2.
27 Cf. Jn 13:1-17; 34-35.
28 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740.
29 Jn 13:1.
30 Cf. Gal 2:20.
31 John Paul II, Dominicae cenae, 3.
32 Jn 6:54.
33 Cf. Jn 13:1.
34 Rom 6:11 and cf. 6:5; cf. Col 2:12.
35 Cf. Jn 15:5.
36 Eph 5:1-2.
37 Phil 2:5.
38 Cf. Jn 13:12-16.
39 Cf. Jn 13:34.
40 Jn 13:1.
41 Jn 15:9, 12.
42 Cf. Jn 13:1.
43 Cf. Mt 18:23-35.