O Admirabile Commercium: The true Christmas exchange
On Christmas we see how Christ “exchanges” his heavenly privilege for humanity.
By Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J.
Christ’s Church brings the Octave of Christmas to a close with her praising, “O admirabile commercium: O marvelous exchange! Man’s Creator has become man, born of a virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”1 This antiphon appears once in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). At the end of a surprisingly brief section on the mystery of Christmas, we learn that “to become ‘children of God’ we must be ‘born from above’ or ‘born of God.’ Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this ‘marvelous exchange’: O marvelous exchange!...” (CCC §526), and then begins the First Antiphon of Evening Prayer for January 1 just cited.
The Church clearly understands that the full significance of the Nativity of the Messiah in time is incomplete without simultaneously acknowledging the new life for those now born into eternity. On Christmas morning we see how in becoming a man, the Son of God “exchanges” his heavenly privilege for humanity. Only now can humans “exchange” their mortality and sniveling little selves for the great glories and perfections of heaven. St. Paul was the first to establish this language of Christ’s substitution, “…yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9; cf. 2 Cor 5:15-21). Here is the true exchange of Christmas: in becoming incarnate, assuming a human nature to himself, God grants to us in return a participation in his otherwise inaccessible divine nature.
The Catechism draws from some of the Tradition’s greatest saints to express this new way of Christian living:
The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature” [2 Pt 1:4]: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God” [Irenaeus, Aduersus haereses 3.19.1]. “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God” [Athanasius, De Incarnatione §54.3]. “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods” [Thomas Aquinas, Opusculum §57.1-4].2
This metaphor of the Son’s enfleshment exchanging God’s humanity for man’s divinity was arguably the most common image used in teachings on Christmas in the ancient Church. The great Church Fathers were almost unanimous in expressing the fact that at Bethlehem humanity sees not only God-made-flesh but also their own invitation to become God-like.
It no doubt sounds peculiar to our ear, but the early Church referred to this new divine agency in the human soul—what later medieval theologians would call “sanctifying grace”—as humanity’s “becoming gods,” as humanity’s deification (literally, “to be made god”). For in Christ, God has “put on” our flesh, living as a man, enabling men and women now to live in charity and in joy as does God.
This why I wish that more priests would say the prayer during the Mass OUT LOUD when they're mingling the water & the wine (I.e., "By the mingling of this water & wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.") I end up saying it to myself bc I so seldom hear it said anymore (I guess the priest is saying it to himself too, how do I know?). But, if people heard it at every Mass, it might start to sink in a bit more...Just a View from the Pew!
Posted by: gb | Saturday, December 04, 2010 at 11:08 AM