Catechism of the Catholic Church
519 All Christ's riches "are for every individual and are everybody's property." 187 Christ did not live his life for himself but for us, from his Incarnation "for us men and for our salvation" to his death "for our sins" and Resurrection "for our justification". 188 He is still "our advocate with the Father", who "always lives to make intercession" for us. 189 He remains ever "in the presence of God on our behalf, bringing before him all that he lived and suffered for us." 190
520 In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. He is "the perfect man", 191 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. 192
521 Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us. "By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man." 193 We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his flesh as our model:
We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus' life and his mysteries and often to beg him to perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church. . . For it is the plan of the Son of God to make us and the whole Church partake in his mysteries and to extend them to and continue them in us and in his whole Church. This is his plan for fulfilling his mysteries in us. 194
Notes:
English Translation of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America © 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.
