The Mind of Christ

I hear write a reflection on a verse from St. Paul. 

Note however, that I am not a professional Catholic Theologian, nor a priest; this is my best understanding of the faith and a work of my own spiritual reflection. Should what I say seem to conflict with what the Church teaches, then either I have erred or at least, I have not been adequately clear in my wording. In either case, it is the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church whom I consider authoritative above all else among human persons, only Divine persons being more authoritative than him, and so him, and those bishops who teach in union with him, and so those many documents produced by this great Magisterium, especially the Catechism, are all things I take to be more authoritative than anything I might say. Thus again, if what I say bellow seems inconsistent or in tension with what is present in those documents; know that this will be in my mind a mistake on my part; and that if you find such a tension, I advise you to favor what is written by the Church. 

That said, though I have no magisterial authority, the internet is a public forum of sorts, and so is not unlike a Pub or Agora, and it is not wrong for laymen to do their best to defend the faith as they understand it in those locations; so I do not think I sin merely by expressing my faith here; and since I have devoted a good bit of my time studying Catholic Theology, there is reason to hope that I have at least some degree of accuracy in articulating that faith, as it ought to have at least partly suffused into my mind, through osmosis if anything else. But it remains that the official magisterial sources are to be taken as the most authoritative expression of the Catholic faith. With that said, here is my reflection: 

Consider this Verse from St. Paul: 

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

- Phil 2:5-11 

This verse is about the mind of Christ. The mind which does not consider equality with God as something to be exploited, but which, with the whole self, is emptied to take on the form of a slave, being like men. The mind which, with the whole self, is humbled, and obedient to death, even one of great torment. 

It is those of this humble mind who God shall exalt, though none shall be exalted as high as Christ,  still we shall have a certain participation in his exaltation, through being united to him in his whole being, and so also then, in his mind. 

Thus we are called to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love others as our selves, for the law and the prophet hang on these; but as our righteousness must exceed that of the pharisees, so we must have a love like Christ. Thus Christ gave us a new commandment, to love one another as he has loved us, and he has said that if we love him, we will obey his commandments; and so surely if we love him, we will love others like him; and so surely we shall love with our whole self, as he has sacrificed his whole self, body, blood, soul, and divinity, upon the Cross; and so his whole self; heart, mind, soul and strength. 

Love comes from the heart, but awareness of love is in the mind, and as this is a blog post and a sort of reflection upon a scripture passage, and one particularly about the mind, so it is right to focus upon the mind. 

Indeed, 'heart' as is used in scripture is not truly all that different from mind, so likewise for soul and strength; each of these, as they are used, in some ways both imply and presuppose the other three. We are to love God with our whole being, including our body, and the soul is the form of the body, the principle of it's life, so that in life it cannot be separated from the body, such separation only arising at bodily death. So too God is the life of the soul, and in spiritual life the soul cannot be separated from God, it is only separated by spiritual death; which is mortal sin: sin of grave matter done deliberately i.e. with a deliberation with sufficient knowledge of and consent to the grave evil for the deliberate to be complete rather than incomplete or partial. 

This is spiritual death, and it was to save us from this that Jesus died on the Cross, that the pathway of repentance may remain open for us as long as possible; as long as least, as we remain bodily alive. Though when we die, the time for mercy ends for us; as the time for mercy shall end for all when the end times come, on the day of judgement. 

Consider again then the mind which loved God and us perfectly, the mind of Christ. Not that Christ had only one mind, but being one person, he had two natures, human and divine, and so he had two minds, his divine mind, and his human mind. It is on this account that scripture can say that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature before God and before Men; for though his divine mind is unchanging, his human body and mind can grow, and so can acquire the perfections of knowledge and stature; so that while the person of Christ already knows all, he does not yet know all in a human way; and it was in this way that the mind of Christ could grow. 

Paul here however speaks of Christ's mind even before the incarnation, and speaks of it as a mind which was within Christ, and as Christ himself said, the he and the Father are one, and he is in the Father and the Father is in him, and surely as they are one so there is one Divine Mind, and so it was this the One Divine Mind of the Father and the Son which was in the Divine Person of Jesus that Paul is here speaking of; though surely the human mind of Jesus was and is perfectly united to his divine mind in the hypostatic union. 

See then, that Jesus was humble even before the incarnation, because he had within him even then, the mind which did not deem his equality with God something to be exploited, something to be grasped at, something to lord over others with, but rather took it as an occasion to empty himself in obedience unto death on the Cross, this emptying being not only metaphorical, but literal; in how he moved St. Longinus to thrust his spear into his side, that water and blood might be poured out; symbolizing baptism and the Eucharist, but also the outpouring of his unquenchable desire for the salvation of mankind, his unquenchable desire for souls; already indicated in one of his seven last words when he had said: "I Thirst". 

For he thirst to quench our thirst for him, a thirst many are so parched as to not even know we have. Like he said to the woman at the well, if you knew to whom you spoke, you would ask him to give you water, and he would give you water that you will drink and never thirst again, for it would become in you a living fountain of water, springing up to Eternal Life. 

And this is Eternal Life, that we know God, and Jesus whom he has sent, and this water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sends to lead us into all Truth, and so into Jesus heart, for Jesus is the Truth, as he said: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me" That is, through his heart, in which the Father dwells. It was on Calvery, that place of the skull, that Jesus, having been thrust upon the Cross, itself thrust upon the place of the Skull, was pierced to the heart, and opened up for blood and water to outpour, which outpouring was with so much grace that it immediately covered St. Longinus on whom it fell, moving his heart and lips to say these words: "Surely this man was the Son of God!" 

Consider that it is the mind in a man which presents decisions to his heart. By the heart, which is to say, our deepest self, and the inmost seat of our will; we make our decisions; but we cannot decide except some course of action is present to us to elect, cannot choose except two or more be placed before us to select from; and it is in the mind that we consider our courses of action, that we conceive things and see them in mind as an idea (which comes from a great word for vision or sight) so it is in the womb of the mind that our courses of action come to us, in the eye of the mind that their hoped for outcome is brought about, and so it was this humble yet Divine mind that was in Christ, and in which the human mind of Christ grew from conception, to infancy, to childhood, to adulthood. It was in this Divine mind and into this human mind that the vision of all the suffering Christ was to bear was born and seen.

Yet, in immense love, the Divine and Human wills of Christ still moved to do what they saw and foresaw, that is to say, Christ in his unity of person still made this choice, to suffer for the sake of all, that they might have the opportunity to love God, and so also then for those who would come to love God through his sacrifice, that they might be saved, and so also and above all for the glory of God, that God's justice and mercy and love might so flow forth that it might be occasion for the brilliant celebrity and praise of God, it was for this love of all mankind, and above all, this love for the Father, that Christ was willing to do all he has done, and to suffer al the has suffered. 

This glory, that is, this brilliant celebration with praise, is what Christ had in mind in all he did, that the justice, mercy, and love of God the Father might echo out to all the earth, to all creation; before angels saintly and fallen, before men sinful and repentant, before God also, both Father and Spirit, that the glory God already had before the foundation of the world might be made manifest throughout creation; in the conception, gestation, birth, life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven of Jesus Christ, the only eternally begotten Son of God the Father. For as a human father is known most greatly as a father through the good works of his son; so is God the Father most greatly glorified as Father through all the good works of his Son, Jesus Christ: wherefore Christ said: "If you do not believe me, believe in my works; that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father". 

This was the mind that was in Christ, and so what Christ had in mind, and so what presented to Christ's heart his choice, and so what he chose from his heart. Through Christ's good work the Father glorifies Christ, and through Christ's being glorified, the Father too is glorified. So too does the Spirit glorify Christ, for he takes what is from Jesus and discloses it to the faithful (John 16:14) and so through glorifying Christ, does the Spirit glorify the Father; and in turn, the Father and Son glorify the Spirit, through their words about him in scripture, and through the Church's reflection and praise of him in his movements in our lives, which movement we knew happens and knew to look for, likewise on account of the deposit of faith, the words of scripture and tradition, and the Church's continual reflection upon and exposition of this deposit; which itself progresses through the Spirit aiding us, which Spirit aids us on account of being sent to do so by the Father and the Son. 

So then it was by the Spirit landing upon Christ as a dove that we come to hear from heaven the Words of the Father 'this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Listen to Him" words present both at his baptism, and at the transfiguration, a great manifestation of the Trinity. 

The Spirit bears witness to Christ, along with the blood and water flowing forth from his side on the Cross, and it is the Spirit through whom we shall receive the mind of Christ, hence after his resurrection, Jesus breathed upon the disciple and said 'receive the Holy Spirit, whoever's sins you forgive are forgiven, whoever's sins you retain, are retained' and the Sprit descended upon them like tongues of fire at Pentecost; thus as the Spirit anointed Christ at his baptism and his transfiguration, though in truth, had anointed him since his conception, for it was by overshadowing Mary that Jesus was conceived; so too then the Spirit has come to anoint the Church, the mystical body of Christ, his spouse, the pillar and bulwark of Truth which is Christ, the living temple made of living stones with Christ the chief cornerstone, the flock of Christ the good shepherd, the people of God. 

For as the mind of God is the very substance of God, and God dwelled in Christ, so Christ gave us the Spirit to dwell in us, through baptism, as we read from Peter's mouth in Acts 2:38 "Repent and be baptized every one of you, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" which is itself a reception of a gift Christ had promised before, when he had said, in John 14:16-17: " I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him,because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." So it is through baptism that we receive the Spirit, and through faith in the word of Christ and his Church regarding such things that we see and know the Spirit dwells within us through baptism. 

Now faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom 10:17) so that Faith too is a gift of God. It remains, in any case, that as it is by faith in Christ's word that we come too see the Spirit dwelling in us, so also it is by faith in Christ and his words that we come to take on the mind of Christ. So how do we come to have the mind that is in Christ? Faith. And how do we come by faith? Hearing Christ's words. How do we hear them? By them being preached to us by one who was sent by Christ; as St. Paul notes (Rom 10:14-15) but it is not just by being preached to, but by welcoming the message into our hearts, that is, by hearkening to it, by obeying the word we hear. 

How do we obey then? God's grace gives us the opportunity, but it is ours to choose, to take or not; and this now moves away from the domain of the mind and into the domain of the heart; not merely in how it relates to the mind, but in what is proper to it, and this lies outside the scope of this reflection; so that this begins a good place to end this reflection.  

That said, before I end, we can say at least this on the heart, that there is a profound mystery here. For the heart is the seat of the will, and so it is ours whether we shall choose; and yet it is also true that God and his grace operates and cooperates with us, and the mystery of the movement from operation to cooperation, of the first movement of the heart to cooperate with God, is a great and profound one. 

Indeed, one which has yet to be revealed, for as St. Paul says in 1 Cor 4:2-5: "I care very little, however, if I am judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not vindicate me. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God." If God shall reveal it then, then it has not yet been revealed; and so we cannot presume, this side of eternity, to have certain knowledge of it. What we do know Is that the truth of this mystery shall be consonant and consistent with all else that is taught by God through his Church, and God has perhaps already given many hints to this deep truth, just as he had given hints in the Old Testament to the Truth he was to Reveal of Himself in Christ in the New. So as God in the New Testament has revealed himself in full, so in the New Heaven and New Earth, he shall reveal us in full, but for now, as St. John says in 1 John 3:2 'what we will be has yet to be revealed' yet for those who are saved "We know, when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" but for now, we only know and see in part and not in full; as St. Paul says in 1 Cor 13:12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 

So then in this life we can never gain a full and complete knowledge and view of this mystery, but it is one worth pursuing, since what is in part may yet grow; until it is made in full.