Question: I was thinking about all the mysteries of the Rosary, and realized that the Joyful, Luminous and Glorious all show forth both the humanity and Divinity of Jesus. But I am wondering if the Sorrowful Mysteries reveal to us how in his sinless humanity, Jesus suffered his passion and death without the assistance of his divinity in obedience to his Father, in order to atone for Adam’s original sin and open the gates of heaven to us and show us how to unite our sufferings to his redemptive sacrifice on the cross. Could you please comment and correct where I am wrong?
— Name, location withheld
Answer: Precision is necessary when speaking of the hypostatic union. It is true that Jesus took to himself a human nature that could obey the Father and suffer. As God, Jesus could not suffer and there is one divine will, so it would not be possible that Jesus, as God, could differ with his Father. However, we ought not divide in Jesus what is ultimately one. Jesus is one person with two natures and, as such, it is problematic to say that one nature did not assist the other, except in a very poetic sense. The Medieval theologian Cassian said, “We are saved by the human decision of a divine person.” In other words, the two natures are both at work contributing what pertains to them, but they are mysteriously united in the one person, who is Jesus. The working of the two natures together in the one person of Christ is called “theandric action.”
