Day 68: The Mystery of the Incarnation

Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception. CCC 478

In today's reading, the Catechism focuses on the mystery of the Incarnation. The above quoted paragraph is the best from today, quite fitting for our faith and witnessed to in the Scriptures. Jesus is fully God but also fully man. His human will and intellect is "perfectly attuned and subject to his divine intellect and divine will" just as the latter "he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit". Yet that love He has for us all comes from a human heart, courtesy of the mystery of the Incarnation. 

Some Christians seem to forget the implications of this humanity of Jesus, confusing veneration of images of the Divine-Man with idolatry. In a sense, depicting Christ in an icon or statue is no different than a photograph today. Jesus in his humanity is real and can be depicted just as the rest of us can be. The misunderstanding wrought by the iconoclasm heresy of previous years, enflamed anew by some Protestants, is simply in error. As the Catechism Companion, Vol I states:

The iconoclast heresy claimed there could be no images. Yet, because God truly became man, the human face and body of Jesus can be depicted (see CCC 476). To answer the iconoclasts, the Second Council of Nicaea in the year 787 proclaimed that in venerating an icon, a person is venerating not the image but the one who is portrayed (see CCC 477). (p. 140) 

The Catechism probably covers images in another section so will save further comment until then.

Christ Pantocrator mosaic from the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

True God and True Man: This icon shows Christ as Pantocrator, as Lord and ruler of all. Often holy images of this kind will use colors like red to symbolize Christ's true humanity (and his Passion), and blue or gold to symbolize his divinity. (See CCC 477). (p. 141)