Reflection IV
The humanity of Christ renders God visible, and above all-and it is in this that Divine Wisdom is shown to be “admirable”—it renders God passible.
Sin which destroyed the divine life within us demands a satisfaction, an expiation without which it would be impossible for divine life to be restored to us. Being a mere creature, man cannot give this satisfaction for an offence of infinite malice, and, on the other hand, the Divinity can neither suffer nor expiate. God cannot communicate His life to us unless sin be blotted out; by an immutable decree of Divine Wisdom, sin can only be blotted out if it be expiated in an adequate manner. How is this problem to be solved?
The Incarnation gives us the answer. Consider the Babe of Bethlehem. He is the Word made flesh. The humanity that the Word makes His own is passible; it is this humanity which will suffer, will expiate. These sufferings, these expiations will belong, however, to the Word, as this humanity itself does; they will take from the Divine Person an infinite value which will suffice to redeem the world, to destroy sin, to make grace superabound in souls like an impetuous and fructifying river: Fluminus impetus laetificat civitatem Dei (Ps 65:5).
O admirable exchange! Do not let us stay to wonder by what other means God might have brought it about, but let us contemplate the way wherein He has done so. The word asks of us a human nature to find in it wherewith to suffer, to expiate, to merit, to heap graces upon us. It is through the flesh that man turns away from God: it is in becoming flesh that God delivers man: Beatus auctor saeculi Servile corpus induit Ut carne carnem liberans Ne perderet quos condidit (Hymn for Lauds at Christmas.)
The flesh that the Word of God takes upon Himself, is to become the instrument of salvation for all flesh. O admirabile commercium!
Doubtless, as you know, it was necessary to await the immolation of Calvary for the expiation to be complete; but, as St. Paul teaches us, it was from the first moment of His Incarnation that Christ accepted to accomplish His Father’s will and to offer Himself as Victim for the human race: Ideo ingrediens mundum dicit: Hostiam et oblationem noluisti: CORPUS autem aptasti mihi… Et tune dixit: Ecce venio… ut faciam Deus voluntatem tuam (Heb 10:5, 7. Cf. Ps 39:8). It is by this oblation that Christ begins to sanctify us: In qua voluntate sanctificati sumus (Heb 10:10).. It is from the Crib that He inaugurates this life of suffering such as He willed to live for our salvation, this life of which the term is at Golgotha, and that, in destroying sin, is to restore to us the friendship of His Father. The Crib is certainly only the first stage, but it radically contains all the others.
This is why, in the Christmas solemnities, the Church attributes our salvation to the temporal Birth itself of the Son of God. “Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the new Birth of Thine Only-begotten Son in the fiesh may deliver us who are held captive by the old bondage under the yoke of sin” (Concede quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut nos Unigeniti tui nova per carnem nativitas liberet, quos sub peccati jugo vetuita servitus tenet. Collect for the Mass of Christmas Day.). This is why, from that moment, “deliverance, redemption, salvation, eternal life,” will be spoken of constantly. It is by His Humanity that Christ, High Priest and Mediator, binds us to God; but it is at Bethlehem that He appears to us in this Humanity.
See, too, how from the moment of His Birth, He fulfils His mission. What is it that causes us to lose divine life?
It is pride. Because they believed that they would be like unto God, having the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve lost, for themselves and for their race, the friendship of God. Christ, the new Adam, redeems us, brings us back to God, by the humility of His Incarnation. Although He was God, He annihilated in taking the condition of the creature, in making Himself like unto men; He manifested Himself as man according to all appearances (Phil 2:6-7).. What a humiliation was that! Later, it is true, the Church will exalt to the highest heavens His dazzling glory as the conqueror over sin and death; but now, Christ knows only self-abasement and weakness. When our gaze rests upon this little Child, Who is in no way distinguished from others, when we think that He is God, and that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, we feel our souls deeply moved, and our vain pride is confounded in the face of such abasement.
And what besides pride? Our refusal to obey. See what an example of wonderful obedience the Son of God gives. With the simplicity of little children, He yields Himself up into the hands of His parents; He allows Himself to be touched, taken up and carried about; and all His Childhood, all His Boyhood and Youth are summed up in the Gospel in these few words which tell how He was subject to Mary and Joseph: Et erat subditus illis (Cf. Lk 2:51).
And next there is our covetousness “the concupiscence of the eyes” (1 Jn 2:16), all that appears, glitters, fascinates and seduces; the essential inanity of the passing trifles that we prefer to God. The Word is made flesh; but He is born in poverty and abjection. Propter nos egenus factus est cum esset dives (2 Cor 8:9). “Being rich, He became poor.” Although He is “the King of ages” (1 Tim 1:17), although He is the One Who drew all creation out of nothing by a word, and has only to open His hand to fill “with blessing every living creature” (Ps 144:16), He is not born in a palace; His Mother, finding no room in the inn, had to take refuge in a stable cave: the Son of God, Eternal Wisdom, willed to be born in destitution and laid upon straw.
If with faith and love we contemplate the Child Jesus in His Crib, we shall find in Him the Divine Example of many virtues; if we know how to lend the ear of our hearts to what He says to us, we shall learn many things; if we refiect upon the circumstances of His Birth, we shall see how the Humanity serves the Word as the instrument to instruct us, but likewise to raise us, to quicken us, to make us pleasing to His Father, to detach us from passing things, to lift us up even to Himself.
“Divinity is clad in our mortal flesh… and because God humbles Himself to live a human life, man is raised towards divine things”: Dum divinitas defectum nostrae carnes suscepit, humanum genus lumen, quod amiserat, recepit. Unde enim Deus humana patitur, inde homo ad divina sublevatur (S. Gregor. Homil. I, in Evangel.)
Reflection V
Thus from whatever side our faith contemplates this exchange, and whatever be the details of it that we examine, it appears admirable to us. Is not this child-bearing of a virgin indeed admirable: Natus ineffabiliter ex virgine? (Antiphon for the Octave of Christmas). “A young Maiden has brought forth the King Whose name is Eternal: to the honour of virginity she unites the joys of motherhood; before her, the like was never seen, nor shall it ever be so again” (Genuit puerpera regem, cui nomen aeternum, et gaudia matris habens cum virginitatis honore, nec priman similem visa est, nec habere sequentem. Antiphon for Lauds at Christmas.) “Daughters of Jerusalem, why do you admire me? This mystery that you behold in me is truly divine” (Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis. Antiphon for the Feast of the Expectatio partus virginis, Dec. 18).
Admirable is this indissoluble union, that is yet without confusion, of the divinity with the humanity in the one Person of the Word: Mirabile mysterium: innovantur naturae. Admirable is this exchange, by the contrasts of its realisation: God gives us a share in His divinity, but the humanity that He takes from us in order to communicate His divine life to us is a suffering humanity, “acquainted with infirmity,” homo sciens infirmitatem (Is 53:3), that will undergo death and, by death, will restore life to us.
Admirable is this exchange in its source which is none other than God’s infinite love for us. Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum Unigenitum daret (Jn 3:16). “God so loved the world as to give His Only-begotten Son.” Let us, then, yield up our souls to joy and sing with the Church: Parvulus natus est nobis et filius DATUS est NOBIS. And how is He given? “In the likeness of sinful flesh.” This is why the love that thus gives Him to us in our passible humanity, in order to expiate sin, is a measureless love: Propter NIMIAM caritatem suam, qua dilexit nos Deus, misit Filium suum in similitudinem carnis peccati (Antiphon for the Octave of Christmas).
Admirable, finally, in its fruits and effects. By this exchange, God again gives us His friendship, He restores to us the right of entering into possession of the eternal inheritance; He looks anew upon humanity with love and complacency.
Therefore, joy is one of the most marked characteristics of the celebration of this mystery. The Church constantly invites us to it, remembering the words of the angel to the shepherds: “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy… for this day is born to you a Saviour” (Lk 2:10-11). It is the joy of deliverance, of the inheritance regained, of peace found once again, and, above all, of the vision of God Himself given to men: Et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel (Is 7:14; cf. Mt 1:23).
But this joy will only be assured if we remain firm in the grace that comes to us from the Saviour and makes us His brethren. “O Christian”, exclaims St. Leo, in a sermon that the Church reads during this holy night, “recognise thy dignity: Agnosce, O Christiane, dignitatem tuam. And made a partaker of the divinity, take care not to fall back from so sublime a state” (Sermo I de Nativitate).
“If thou didst know the gift of God” (Jn 4:10), said our Lord Himself. If thou didst know all that this Son is Who is given to thee! If, above all, we were to receive Him as we ought to receive Him! Let it not be said of us: In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt (Gospel for the Mass on Christmas Day). “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” By our creation, all of us are “His own”; we belong to God; but there are some who have not received Him upon this earth. How many Jews, how many pagans have rejected Christ, because He has appeared in the humility of passible flesh! Souls sunk in the darkness of pride and sensuality: Lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.
And how ought we to receive Him ? By faith: His qui credunt in nomine ejus. It is to those who—believing in His Person, in His word, in His works,—have received this Child as God, that it has been given, in return, to become themselves children of God: Ex Deo nati sunt.
Such is, in fact, the fundamental disposition that we must have so that this “admirable exchange” may produce in us all its fruits. Faith alone teaches us how it is brought about; wherein it is realised; faith alone gives us a true knowledge of it and one worthy of God.
For there are many modes and degrees of knowledge.
“The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his Master’s Crib,” wrote Isaias, in speaking of this mystery (Is 1:3). They saw the Child lying in the crib. But what could they see? As much as an animal could see: the form, the size, the colour, the movement,—an entirely rudimentary knowledge that does not pass the boundary line of sensation. Nothing more.
The passers-by, the curious, who approached the stable-cave saw the Child; but for them He was like all others. They did not go beyond this purely natural knowledge. Perhaps they were struck by the Child’s loveliness. Perhaps they pitied His destitution. But this feeling did not last and was soon replaced by indifference.
There were the Shepherds, simple-hearted men, enlightened by a ray from on high: Claritas Dei circumfulsit illos (Lk 2:9), They certainly understood more; they recognised in this Child the promised Messias, long awaited, the Exicctatio gentium (Gen 49:10); they paid Him their homage, and their souls were for a long time full of joy and peace.
The Angels likewise contemplated the New-born Babe, the Word made Flesh. They saw in Him their God; this knowledge threw these pure spirits into awe and wonderment at such incomprehensible self-abasement: for it was not to their nature that He willed to unite Himself: Nusquam angelos, but to human nature, sed semen Abrahae apprehendit (Heb 2:16).
What shall we say of the Blessed Virgin when she looked upon Jesus? Into what depths of the mystery did her gaze penetrate— that gaze so pure, so humble, so tender, so full of bliss? Who shall be able to express with what lights the soul of Jesus inundated His Mother, and what perfect homage Mary rendered to her Son, to her God, to all the states and all the mysteries whereof the Incarnation is the substance and the root.
There is finally—but this is beyond description—the gaze of the Father contemplating His Son made flesh for mankind. The Heavenly Father saw that which never man, nor angel, nor Mary herself could comprehend: the infinite perfections of the Divinity hidden in a Babe… And this contemplation was the source of unspeakable rapture: Thou art My Son, My beloved Son, the Son of My direction in Whom I have placed all My delights (Mk 1:2; Lk 3:22)…
When we contemplate the Incarnate Word at Bethlehem, let us rise above the things of sense so as to gaze upon Him with the eyes of faith alone. Faith makes us share here below in the knowledge that the Divine Persons have of One Another. There is no exaggeration in this. Sanctifying grace makes us indeed partakers of the divine nature. Now, the activity of the divine nature consists in the knowledge that the Divine Persons have the One of the Other, and the love that they have One for the Other. We participate therefore in this knowledge and in this love. And in the same way as sanctifying grace having its fruition in glory will give us the right of seeing God as He sees Himself, so, upon earth, in the shadows of faith, grace enables us to behold deep down into these mysteries through the eyes of God: Lux tuae claritatis infulsit (Preface for Christmas).
When our faith is intense and perfect, we do not stay to look only at the outside of the mystery, but we go deeply into it; we pass through the Humanity to penetrate as far as the Godhead which the Humanity at the same time hides and reveals; we behold divine mysteries in the divine light.
And ravished, astounded at such prodigious abasement, the soul, vivified by this faith, falls prostrate in adoration and yields herself up entirely to procure the glory of a God Who, from love for His creature, thus veils the native splendour of His unfathomable perfections. She can never rest until she has given all, in return, to fill up her part in the exchange that He desires to contract with her, until she has brought herself wholly into subjection to this “King of Peace Who comes with so much magnifcence” (Antiphon at Vespers on Christmas Day) to save, sanctify and, as it were, to deify her.
Let us then draw near to the Child God with great faith. We may wish to have been at Bethlehem to receive Him. Yet He is here giving Himself to us in Holy Communion with as much reality although our senses are less able to find Him. In the Tabernacle as in the Crib, it is the same God full of power, the same Saviour full of tender mercy.
If we will have it so, the admirable exchange still continues. For it is likewise through His Humanity that Christ infuses divine life into us at the Holy Table. It is in eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, in uniting ourselves to His Humanity, that we draw at the very wellspring of everlasting life: Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, habet vitam aeternam (Jn 6:55)…
Thus, each day, the union established between man and God in the Incarnation, is continued and made closer. In giving Himself in Communion, Christ increases the life of grace in the generous and faithful soul, making this life develop more freely and expand with more strength; He even bestows upon such a soul the pledge of that blessed immortality of which grace is the germ and whereby God will communicate Himself to us fully and unveiled: Ut natus hodie Salvator mundi, sicut divinae nobis generationis est auctor, ita et immortalitatis sit IPSE largitor (Postcommunion of Christmas Day). This will be the consummation, magnificent and glorious, of the exchange inaugurated at Bethlehem in the poverty and humiliations of the Crib.
Source: http://www.catholicpamphlets.net/
