The risen Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life.”

Jesus is the way, the path to eternal life with the Father: “no one comes to the Father but through me.” To try another way is to ensure failure.

Jesus is the truth, the word of God. To seek the truth elsewhere is to “stumble and fall,” to deal in falsehood and lie.

Jesus is the life, the God who has “filled all ages with the words of a new song.”To live outside of Christ is to die.

Those who follow Jesus faithfully are a chosen race, “a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation.” They are chosen to “proclaim the glorious works” of God. They are priestly mediators “offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.”

They are consecrated to “the One who called you from darkness.” Built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ, they are a powerful community, descending from that early church where “the word of God continued to spread and the number of disciples ... enormously increased.”

When Jesus, who had suffered the death of the cross for mankind, had risen, He appeared as the one constituted as Lord, Christ and eternal Priest, and He poured out on His disciples the Spirit promised by the Father. From this source the Church, equipped with the gifts of its Founder and faithfully guarding His precepts of charity, humility and self-sacrifice, receives the mission to proclaim and to spread among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God.

Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 1965:5.