From a new essay on the Homiletic & Pastoral Review site:
Mary’s “yes” at the Annunciation achieves the central truths of the Incarnation, as it is here God becomes flesh and thus redeems the fallen children of Adam. Sections §457-60 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] provides four main consequences of Our Lady’s fiat.
The first is the reasoning from the forfeited goodness brought about by our disobedience: “The Word became flesh for us ‘in order to save us by reconciling us with God’”(1 Jn 4:10), who “loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:14); “the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world,” and he was revealed to take away sins. Then, quoting Gregory of Nyssa: “Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us” (§457).
The second reason (§458) is more epistemological in nature: the Son became human to manifest the otherwise invisible love of God to our senses. “The Word became flesh so that we might know God’s love: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him” (1 Jn 4:9).
Thirdly, the Word became flesh so as to become a model of holiness, a new model for the Beatitudes, and the norm of the new law. “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). “This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example” (§459).
Finally, “The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’” (2 Pet 1:4), to deify us, and elevate our human nature into God’s own life. Or as St. Athanasius put it most pithily: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God”(On the Incarnation §52 as at CCC §460).
While these four main reasons are treated so succinctly and systematically here, the effects of our Lady’s “yes” are difficult to extinguish. Without doubt, the Incarnation is a most extraordinary event. Yet, given its familiarity, have we forgotten what it accomplished? St. Paul writes that Our Lord came to “restore all things” (Eph 1:10). What did Our Lord restore? Why did God become a man? What do we celebrate at the Nativity? Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (cf. 1 Jn 3:8). We wish to enumerate, yet even more, reparative effects wrought by the Divine Physician.
Read the entire essay, which was written by Robert Wenderski.
Comments