Every Introduction course always has its off-topic tangents, and Catholicism 101 is no different. On Sundays, we'll delve into some aspects of Catholicism that we might not otherwise get to. These areas are kind of up to my whim, but they will usually focus on unusual parts of Catholicism.
The Catholic Church tries to avoid two extremes when it comes to Jesus's life. The first is seeing Jesus as merely the greatest human who ever lived. Catholicism teaches that Jesus wasn't adopted by God because of his actions, but was always (and always will be) the Son of God. Christians are "adopted" by their baptism. Catholics believe they are born as humans, then adopted by God through Baptism. However, they believe Jesus was always divine and always the Son of God. His human side has a beginning, just like ours, at the Annunciation (when Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a son), but his divine nature is eternal.
The other extreme is seeing Jesus as some sort of hero. Some scholars try to make Jesus out as the hero of humankind. Heroes are those who go first so others can follow. For example, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity, but he didn't have to be. Someone else could have come along later and done the same thing. Catholicism teaches that no one else could ever repeat what Jesus did (save the human race through his sacrifice). Only Jesus, the God-Man could pull it off, since he's the only person to have been both human and divine.
In the eyes of the Church, overemphasizing Jesus's humanity to the detriment of his divinity is just as bad as downplaying his humanity to exalt his divinity.
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