The Franciscan tradition maintains that Christ is the primary lover of the infinite love of God—the whole reason for creation is Christ. Jesus, we might say, is the “big bang” of the human potential for God because in his unique person, he realized the created capacity for God. As the Christ, the Anointed One of God, Jesus is God-with-us, the human One who mediates our relationship with God for all eternity. What happened in Jesus, however, must take place in all humanity (and creation) in order for the fullness of Christ to be realized, that is, in order for transformation of all created reality in God to be fulfilled. We might say that Jesus is the Christ but Christ is more than Jesus because Christ is all of humanity and creation as we are intended to be in the risen One, Jesus the Word incarnate, who is our permanent openness to the mystery of God’s infinite love.
— from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective, by Ilia Delio, OSF
