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Good morning dearest father padre Angelo,
I wanted to ask you two questions regarding the Holiness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Can we say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the source of all holiness in the same way God the Father is?
Can we say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is absolute holiness, Holiness personified, in the same way God the Father is?
Thank you, I hope you will answer. Thanks again. 

Priest’s Answer

Dearest, 
1. We can certainly say that the Son of God and our Lord Jesus Christ is the source of all holiness. 

2. You ask me if we can say that Jesus is the source of all holiness in the same way as the Father is.
When it comes to this question, we have to make a distinction: as God, and as the Father’s only begotten Son, yes, without a doubt.

3. As man, He is certainly the source of all grace and holiness that we receive because Saint John tells us in his gospel that He came “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) and that “from his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace” (John 1:16). However, the grace that Jesus possesses as man is a created grace. The grace He possesses as God is, on the other hand, uncreated. 

4. In the Summa Theologiae, Saint Thomas asks himself whether the grace of Christ is infinite.
And this is his response: “a twofold grace may be considered in Christ; the first being the grace of union, which is for Him to be personally united to the Son of God, which union has been bestowed gratis on the human nature; and it is clear that this grace is infinite, as the Person of God is infinite.
The second is habitual grace; which may be taken in two ways: first as a being, and in this way it must be a finite being, since it is in the soul of Christ, as in a subject, and Christ’s soul is a creature having a finite capacity; hence the being of grace cannot be infinite, since it cannot exceed its subject.
Secondly it may be viewed in its specific nature of grace; and thus the grace of Christ can be termed infinite, since it is not limited, i.e. it has whatsoever can pertain to the nature of grace, and what pertains to the nature of grace is not bestowed on Him in a fixed measure; seeing that “according to the purpose” of God to Whom it pertains to measure grace, it is bestowed on Christ’s soul as on a universal principle for bestowing grace on human nature, according to Ephesians 1:5-6, “He hath graced us in His beloved Son”; thus we might say that the light of the sun is infinite, not indeed in being, but in the nature of light, as having whatever can pertain to the nature of light.” (Summa Theologiae, III, 7, 11). 

5. In regards to your second question, the same distinction applies: as God, He is holiness personified.
As man, He has grace. He has it in a perfect way, to the greatest possible extent. 

6. Saint Thomas also writes: “to have fully is to have wholly and perfectly. Now totality and perfection can be taken in two ways: First as regards their “intensive” quantity; for instance, I may say that some man has whiteness fully, because he has as much of it as can naturally be in him; secondly, “as regards power”; for instance, if anyone be said to have life fully, inasmuch as he has it in all the effects or works of life; and thus man has life fully, but senseless animals or plants have not. Now in both these ways Christ has the fulness of grace. First, since He has grace in its highest degree, in the most perfect way it can be had. This appears, first, from the nearness of Christ’s soul to the cause of grace. For it was said above (Article 1) that the nearer a recipient is to the inflowing cause, the more it receives. And hence the soul of Christ, which is more closely united to God than all other rational creatures, receives the greatest outpouring of His grace. Secondly, in His relation to the effect. For the soul of Christ so received grace, that, in a manner, it is poured out from it upon others. And hence it behooved Him to have the greatest grace; as fire which is the cause of heat in other hot things, is of all things the hottest.
Likewise, as regards the “virtue” of grace, He had grace fully, since He had it for all the operations and effects of grace; and this, because grace was bestowed on Him, as upon a universal principle in the genus of such as have grace. Now the virtue of the first principle of a genus universally extends itself to all the effects of that genus; thus the force of the sun, which is the universal cause of generation, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. i), extends to all things that come under generation. Hence the second fullness of grace is seen in Christ inasmuch as His grace extends to all the effects of grace, which are the virtues, gifts, and the like. (Summa Theologiae, III, 7, 9).

I wish for you to grow in grace as much as possible, I bless you and remember you in my prayers.
Father Angelo