Praised be Jesus and Mary, we're continuing our reflections on Franciscan spirituality today, specifically on what they call dogmatic Christocentrism and we're going to look at Christ today as the mediator of creation, of grace, and of glory.
To the question, why does Jesus Christ exist?
One can respond by asking, well, why do angels, human beings, why does anything exist?
If to the question, why does Jesus exist, we respond with St. Paul saying that Christ is the glory of God, paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 3:23.
So Jesus exists for the glorification of the Trinity, basically.
If that's true, then we respond to the second question about everything else existing, echoing what St. Paul says, who says, we are of Christ.
So we belong for, we exist for Him, essentially, again, that's 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 3:23.
So why does Jesus Christ exist?
For the glory of God.
Why do we exist?
We exist for Christ.
In Him all things were created, says the Apostle, things visible and invisible, all things were created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, Colossians 1 verses 15-17.
So Christ Himself exists because of an absolutely gratuitous free gift of God and we exist because of Christ's mediation.
That's why He's called the mediator of creation.
There's no other way, there's no other mediator than Jesus.
In time, we know Jesus comes after Adam, but He's also greater and more perfect than Adam.
The first intention of God, which is to will Christ, is preceded in time by humble means which are ordered to that end.
So just like the inanimate world comes before the organic world, just like the vegetable world precedes the animal world and once that's all created, God creates man, whom the inferior creation must serve, so too it is with the arrival of Jesus.
He doesn't arrive at the beginning of time, but He arrives in what the Apostle calls the fullness of time, in Galatians 4:4, after all the other creatures are already here.
Just like in a liturgical procession, the most important person in the procession is where?
It's the one at the last place, the last person in the procession.
So too the most important creature, Jesus, in His sacred humanity, He comes after all others.
The 5th century Greek Bishop Synesius of Cyrene says this, he says, it is for you, O Christ, that the Son, the sufficient source of life, completes its course.
It is for you that the rising moon scatters the darkness of the night.
It is for you that the earth produces its fruits.
So Christ is truly mediator of creation.
He's also, secondly, mediator of grace.
He's a mediator of grace because no creature is capable of reaching the supernatural world in their own forces.
We all have the need of the mediating action of Jesus Christ, whom St. John tells us is full of grace and truth at the beginning of his gospel, John 1:14.
Duns Scotus says that Christ is our head who merited infinitely.
So from Him and from His merits come every single grace.
The Blessed Trinity communicated to Jesus Christ the divine life in a unique and a superabundant way.
It was unique because the grace of the hypostatic union is a singular and incommunicable grace.
It's only for Him.
It's a grace by which the person of the Word assumed a human nature to Himself.
Jesus is both a creature of God and He's the Son of God by nature at the same time.
And the divine life was communicated to Him in a superabundant way because to the humanity of Christ, to His created soul, was given what Blessed John Duns Scotus calls the highest or supreme grace, which is the communication of the divine life in such a fullness, says Scotus, that God Himself couldn't communicate it in a greater way, says Scotus.
And grace, like a river from Christ, flows into every other creature.
The Heavenly Father willed to give to the Church, to His mystical body, a human head from which the vital influx of grace flows to all the members of the body, as St. John says in, again, the prologue, he says, from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace, John 1:16.
St. Paul says that the Father, quote, predestined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved in Jesus, Ephesians 1, verses 5 and 6.
So grace, again, is like a divine river which goes out from the Trinity, communicates itself to the humanity of Christ, and from that humanity goes to Our Lady, and then to all creatures endowed with reason, to all those who don't refuse it.
The person who is united to Christ as a branch to the vine receives that grace and becomes a member of the one organism, the Church, of which Jesus is the head.
This is why we came into existence, that we could receive the grace, the communication of divine life, the gift of the fatherly love with which God loves us in Christ.
Grace comes only from Christ, who is God's Son by nature, and it assimilates us to Him, it binds us to Him, makes us divine sons and daughters by adoption.
So from all eternity, that's been the marvelous plan of God.
From all eternity, the mystical body of Christ has Jesus as its head, and it's not because of the sin of Adam, says the Franciscan school, it's because that was God's plan all along.
Sanctifying mediation of Christ doesn't have limits, it's universal.
St. Paul says, in Him, in Christ, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of life in Him, who is the head of every principality and power, Colossians 2, verses 10 and 11.
All rational creatures, meaning all men and angels, the whole mystical body, meaning the church triumphant, church militant, the church suffering, even Adam, before he sinned, were all under Christ the head, all of us.
We can't say that the only one, we can say that the only one who can really limit Christ's grace is sanctifying power, it's the one I see in the mirror every morning, that same person I see every single morning, who seems to get older every day, but hopefully gets closer to God through grace.
I'm the only one who can limit God's saving power, His sanctifying power.
Duns Scotus says, Christ's soul influences all the other souls, even the angels, even though these are superior to Him by nature, the angels, meaning they're superior to Christ's human nature.
The influence is according to the order of grace, not already according to the order of nature, and the soul of Christ is superior to the angels in grace, says blessed John Duns Scotus.
All that to mean that Christ is the mediator of grace.
And lastly for today, Christ is also the mediator of glory too.
He's a universal glorifier.
The works of God begin with Him, they're realized through Him and by Him, they're brought to their glorious end.
If nature is succeeded by grace and glory, then Christ the creator and sanctifier is succeeded by Christ the universal glorifier.
Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:8 says that Jesus is the Lord of glory.
In Christ Himself, in His last prayer, He synthesized this glorifying mission.
When He said at the Last Supper, He said, I glorify You, Father, on earth, having accomplished the work which You gave Me to do.
And now, Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory which I had with You before the world was made, John 17 verses 4 and 5.
So theologically speaking, it's not the Word of God as God that waits to be glorified, right, since He's already glorious in Himself.
It's Christ, the Word incarnate, who asked the Father for the glory that He had before the world was made.
In the divine plan, in the design of God, a plan that predestined Him to be the firstborn of all creatures, says Saint Paul.
The glory of God really is the end and the purpose of all creation, and the glorification of the creature itself, meaning us, is included in the glory given to God by His creatures.
So we don't just glorify God, He returns the favor.
He glorifies us, too.
By knowing, loving, and serving God, we give Him glory.
But it's these acts of knowledge, of love, and service done as adopted children of God and accomplished with His grace, it's these actions that admit us into God's eternal blessedness.
They are what glorifies us in the end.
And Jesus Himself, in Himself and for Himself, is the supreme glorifier of God, and at the same time, He's the universal glorifier of all creation.
So we will reach our glorious end through Him, and it's He who will glorify us as we strive to do toward Him on this earth.
Try to glorify Him.
That's how Franciscan theology understands Christ as the mediator of nature, of grace, and of glory.
So let's ask Our Lady for the grace to be more closely united to Christ the mediator so that we can become more like Him each and every day as we get older, hopefully we get younger in grace at the same time.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.

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Ave Maria.