Our Witness
The Real Reason for the CCHS Advantage
April 11, 2008
Our Testimony
Central Catholic High School is a community of faith. As a Catholic and Marianist institution of education, we believe that it is vitally important to share that faith, so that you and others may have an eternal life of happiness after your natural death, an eternal life of happiness with God and all the saints.
In the beginning, God made all things good. But evil entered the world through the very free will that God gave human beings. We chose our own path instead of the one God willed for us. We were overcome by sin and death. The whole story of mankind from the Fall to the coming of the promised Mother of the Messiah was one tragedy after another.
But God never stopped loving us. He was always faithful, even when we were faithless. He never stopped working to build a people of faith and faithfulness. He built that people, that small remnant of believers, in the nation of Israel. When Mary, mother of Jesus the Christ, was born, that nation wasn’t even independent. It was nothing in the great kingdoms of earth, a conquered nation, subject to the Romans. But God sent His angel to declare that Mary was full of grace, and that, with her cooperation, the Son of God would become human in her womb.
How this happened, we don’t know. But we do know that the Son Mary gave birth to, Yeshua or Jesus, was truly God and truly man. Father Chaminade, our founder, never tired of reminding us that "Jesus Christ, Son of God, became son of Mary for our salvation." Jesus grew up in first-century Palestine. He learned the carpenter’s trade from His foster father, Joseph. He learned Torah, the Law of the Jews, and the Psalms and prophets, from his parents and his rabbi.
About the age of 30, Jesus went to the Jordan where His cousin, John, was baptizing. Baptism was a rite that symbolized repentance from sin. John was scandalized, because he knew that Jesus was not like the rest of us, Jesus was not a sinner. But Jesus insisted that He be baptized so as to change the meaning, the reality of baptism. In the Church, baptism would be the new beginning of life, a life won by Jesus’s redemptive death.
Jesus taught and healed. He worked many miracles, and many believed in Him. But in time, out of jealousy and perhaps fear of the Romans taking away their power, the leaders of the Jews plotted to kill Jesus. They had him arrested, convicted on trumped-up charges of treason, and executed by crucifixion, the worst form of legal murder. He was really dead–a lance opened his heart and blood and water came out.
But three days later people began saying that they had seen Jesus alive. The tomb was empty; there was no body. We know this is true because the Christian witnesses went to their own deaths rather than deny what they saw. Jesus is alive. And they realized that He was alive because you can’t keep God in the grave. Jesus is living, truly man and truly God.
We can have what Jesus has, all the riches of God. We must believe what Jesus taught (which He teaches today through the Church), and we must participate in the sacraments He gave, those means of touching Christ and His graces that involve Word and Sign. We must also do what He taught us: love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.
The Holy Spirit acts in our days to make human beings like Jesus Christ, and to empower human beings to act in the place of Jesus to bring others into life. Baptism brings us into Christ and makes us sin-free. Confirmation strengthens us and Eucharist nourishes us. When we sin after Baptism, we have Reconciliation to bring us back into union with Christ and the Church. When we are ill, Anointing brings us healing of spirit, soul and body. And for the building up of the Church, we have Orders (deacon, priest, bishop) and marriage, which continues the human race into new generations and symbolizes the union of Christ and the Church. We are not fully formed at Baptism; we have a mission to each other of encouragement and support. In our community, a special way to perform this obligation is membership in the Sodality of Our Lady of the Pillar.
We invite you to experience the freedom from domination from sin, the healing power of Christ, reconciliation with God and all human beings, and true peace of soul. Accept the freely given gift of grace in Christ. Contact us or your local Catholic parish for more information and for the joy of a Christian community walking together in faith.
