Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: The adorable humanity of Christ

Monday, December 26, 2022

The adorable humanity of Christ - Love Incarnate

I hope you have all had a wonderful blessed Christmas!

As we spend this time in celebration with family, friends, food and presents. Let us not forget to spend some time in awe meditating on the meaning of God becoming a little baby out of love for us.

There’s many things we can meditate on, firstly, there’s the messianic prophecies in the Bible. Then there’s much beautiful typology in the Church Fathers that brings out the fulfillment of symbolism from the Bible and the birth of Jesus Christ. Examples of this are Jesus the New Adam born from the virgin earth of the Virgin Mary to recreate humanity, the link between the Eucharist and Bethlehem meaning “House of Bread” and Jesus in a manger (feeding trough), the gifts of the 3 kings symbolising the divinity, death and kingship of Christ etc.. even his being wrapped in swaddling cloths foreshadowed his death that he came to die for us and chose to experience out of love for us.

More specifically is the insight from majority of the Church Fathers on God becoming human to raise up our fallen humanity to share in His divinity - this is called the “Wondrous exchange”, and summarised by the old patristic expression of “God became man, so man could become gods” (Sts Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzus, Basil). This is further developed into the doctrine of Theosis which is also known as Divinisation - where through grace we are sanctified and divinised to share in the Divine Life of the Trinity (2 Peter 1:4).

Another beautiful thing I came across yesterday are these insights from St Thomas Aquinas on the Incarnation. The humanity of Jesus becoming a little child helps us to see the beauty of humanity, the innocence of babies and how God became “cute” or loveable as a little baby who we now worship and adore. All truly heartwarming and wonderful things to consider this Christmas, especially for those of you who are parents. The Eternal Invisible God now has a face and body just like ours.

The Incarnation shows is the dignity of our humanity and our own bodies. God is worshipped physically and our own bodies will be raised to immortality at the Resurrection. Our bodies will share in the glory of the Resurrected Jesus in the same manner that the Eternal Word of God shared in our humanity by being born as a helpless little baby in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. The closeness and tenderness of God was manifested in the birth of Jesus, but still continues in the Sacraments of the Church and through our communion with eachother in the Mystical Body of the Church.

God was willing to experience nakedness, cold, pain, helplessness, homelessness, persecution, rejection and death - all to have intimacy and union with you and me! All suffering is now redeemed and we can even experience God through suffering because it has now been transformed. God is always present to us and with us, no matter what - in our joys and struggles, in our relationships and loneliness. This is what we celebrate at Christmas, the miracle of God in the flesh - Love Incarnate.

O come let us adore Him! Christ the Lord, our Saviour and Redeemer.

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Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.