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December 25, 2020Today we celebrate a chief element of our Christian faith: we celebrate the birth of Christ, and we celebrate not just the fact that Christ was born of Mary in Bethlehem, but also the reality that Christ is being born each day in our hearts. The mystery of the Incarnation is not just a static reality, it is a dynamic reality, for we are each day, as St. Augustine puts it, more Christ than we were the day before, as the grace of God operates more and more within us.
On this feast of the Incarnation, we gather as a community of faith in thanksgiving (“Eucharist”) to proclaim that the Word became flesh and dwelt (“pitched his tent”) among us! He dwelt among us both in his divinity as “our God” [Son of God] and in his humanity as “our brother” [Son of Mary]. One early Church writer, St. Ephrem the Syrian, states that Christ gave us divinity and we gave Christ his humanity. It is the doctrine of the “sacred exchange.” It reflects the constant Catholic teaching that the very purpose of the Incarnation is this: “Christ became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.” The classic form of this teaching was expressed by St. Athanasius in the early fourth century: “Christ became human that we might become divine.” This teaching was called deification or divinization (theosis) and is called today by many “divine-human communion.” We share in God’s very life. We “participate” in that life, and indeed that participation is the goal of human existence. That participation does not make us “God”, but it does make us “God-like”!
This participation in God’s life comes about through God’s grace within us. It is increased in a unique way at Mass. St. Thomas Aquinas went so far as to teach that “the proper effect of the eucharist is the transformation of man into God”! Wow! Let us never forget our dignity - and our destiny of being called to enter into a participation in God’s life that will never end in “the Life of the world to come. Amen.”
A most grace-filled Christmas to all of you!
