Jesus said to him, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; henceforth you know Him and have seen Him."

Phillip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied."

Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me, Phillip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?"

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does His works."

"Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me; or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves." (John 14:6-11)

Monday, January 16, 2012

The Mysteries Of The Childhood And Hidden Life Of Christ - Blessed Columba Marmion, OSB

The mystery of the Incarnation can be summed up as an exchange, in every point admirable, between the Divinity and our humanity. In return for the human nature that He takes, the Eternal Word makes us partakers of His Divine life.

It is indeed to be remembered that it is we who give a human nature to the Word. God could have created, so as to unite it to His Son, a humanity fully established in the perfection of its organism, as was Adam on the day of his creation. Christ would have been truly man because nothing that constitutes the essence of man would have been lacking to Him; but in not joining Himself directly to us by a human birth, He would not have been, properly speaking, of our race.

God did not will to act thus. What was the design of Infinite Wisdom? That the Word should take from us the humanity to which He was to be united. Christ would thereby be truly "the Son of man "; He would be a member of our race: (Gal 4:4) ... (Rom 1:3), When at Christmas we celebrate Christ's Nativity, we go back through the centuries in order to read the list of His ancestors, His human genealogy. The successive generations pass before us till we see Him born of David's race, of the Virgin Mary (Mt 1:16).



As you know, God is by His nature infinitely generous; it is of the essence of goodness to diffuse itself: . Infinite Goodness is urged in an infinite manner to give itself. God is this boundless Goodness; revelation teaches us that there are between the Divine Persons, from the Father to the Son, and from the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, infinite communications wherein God finds the full satisfaction of this natural tendency of His Being to give itself.

But beyond this natural communication of Infinite Goodness, there is another, arising from God's love towards the creature. The fulness of Being and of Good that is God has overflowed beyond, through love. And how has this come to pass? God has chosen in the first place to give Himself in an altogether special manner to a creature by uniting it in a personal manner with His Word. This gift of God to a creature is unique: it makes of this creature chosen by the Holy Trinity the very Son of God, (Ps 2:7). It is Christ, it is the Word united personally and in an indissoluble manner to a human nature, like to ours in all things, excepting sin.

From us He asks this human nature. It is as if the Eternal Father were saying to us: Give Me your nature for My Son, and I, in return, will give to this nature, and, through it, to every man of good will, a participation in My Divinity.

For God thus communicates Himself to Christ only in order to give Himself, through Christ, to us all; God's plan is that Christ should receive the Divinity in its fulness and that we should draw, in our turn, from this fulness: (Jn 1:16).

Such is this communication of God's goodness to the world: DILEXIT DARET (Jn 3:16). This is the wonderful order that rules the exchange between God and humanity.

But who is it, out of all others, that God will ask to be a mother to this humanity to which He wills to unite Himself so closely, in order to make of it the instrument of His graces to the world?

We have already named her whom all generations declare blessed: the human genealogy of Jesus ends with Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth. From her, and through her from us, the Word asked a human nature, and Mary gave it to Him; this is why we shall henceforward see her inseparable from Jesus and from His mysteries. Wherever Jesus is found, we shall see her: He is her Son as much as He is the Son of God.

However, if Jesus everywhere remains the Son of Mary, it is above all in the mysteries of His Childhood and Hidden Life that He is revealed under this aspect; if Mary everywhere occupies a unique place, it is in these mysteries that her position as His Mother is most actively manifested outwardly and her divine Maternity shines forth most brightly. This incomparable dignity is the source of all the other privileges of the Virgin.

Those who do not know the Blessed Virgin, those who do not truly love the Mother of Jesus, run the risk of not profitably understanding the mysteries of Christ's Humanity. Christ is the Son of man as well as the Son of God; these two characters are essential to Him. If He is the Son of God by an eternal ineffable generation, He became Son of man by being born of Mary in time.

Let us then contemplate this Virgin at the side of her Son; in return she will obtain for us the power of entering more deeply into the comprehension of these mysteries to which she is so closely united.

I

In order that the exchange which God willed to contract with humanity should be possible, it was necessary that humanity should consent to it.

Let us transport ourselves to Nazareth. The fulness of times has come. God decreed, says St. Paul, to send His Son into the world in causing Him to be born of a woman. The Angel Gabriel, God's messenger, brings to the young Maiden the heavenly proposals. A sublime dialogue takes place whereon hangs the deliverance of the human race. The Angel first salutes the Maiden declaring her, in the name of God, "full of grace": Indeed, not only is she sinless, no stain has tarnished her soul,—the Church has defined that she, alone among all creatures, has not been touched by original sin;—but moreover, because He predestined her to be the Mother of His Son, the Eternal Father has lavished His gifts upon her. She is full of grace, not, doubtless, as Christ is to be, , for He is so by right and with the Divine plenitude itself; Mary receives all in participation, but in a measure which cannot be estimated, and in correlation with her eminent dignity as Mother of God. "Behold," says the Angel, "thou start bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus... He shall be called the Son of the Most High, and He shall reign in the house of Israel for ever." "How shall this be done," asks Mary, "because I know not man"? For she wishes to keep her virginity. "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word": (Lk 1:28, 31-35, 38).

In this solemn moment, the exchange is concluded. When Mary pronounces her , all humanity says to God by her mouth: "Yes, O God, I consent, so be it." And immediately the Word is made Flesh: At this instant, the Word becomes incarnate by the operation of the Holy Spirit; the Blessed Virgin becomes the Ark of the New Covenant between God and man.

When the Church sings, in the , the words that recall this mystery: , she obliges her ministers to bend the knee in token of adoration. Let us too adore this Divine Word made man for us in the womb of a Virgin; let us adore Him with so much the more love the more He humbles Himself in taking, as St. Paul says, "the form of a servant ": (Phil 2:7). Let us adore Him, in union with Mary, who, enlightened with light from above, bows down before her Creator become her Son; let us adore Him with the Angels marvelling at this infinite condescension towards humanity.

Let us next salute Our Lady, and thank her for having given Jesus to us. It is to her consent that we owe Him: (Collect for the office of the Circumcision.). Let us add our congratulations. Consider how the Holy Spirit by the mouth of Elizabeth, , saluted her on the morrow of the Incarnation. "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb !... And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord" (Lk 1:41-42, 45): Blessed, for this faith in God's word made the Virgin the Mother of Christ. What simple creature has ever received like praises from the infinite Being?

Mary refers to the Lord the glory of the marvels wrought in her. She sings within her heart a canticle full of love and gratitude. With her cousin Elisabeth, she lets the innermost feelings of her heart overflow; she sings the which, throughout the centuries, her children will repeat after her in praise of God for having chosen her out of all women: "My soul cloth magnify the Lord, because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid... because He that is mighty, hath done great things to me," (Lk 1:46, 49).

Mary was at Bethlehem, for the enrolment ordered by Caesar, when, says St. Luke, "her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn (Lk 2:6-7). "Who is this Child? He is Mary's Son, since he has just been born of her:

But she saw in this Child, a child like other children, the Very Son of God. Mary's soul was full of immense faith, which went far beyond the faith of all the just of the Old Testament; and therefore in her Son she saw her God.

This faith translated itself outwardly in an act of adoration. As soon as she looked upon Jesus, the Maiden-Mother adored Him with an intensity we cannot conceive.

To this intense faith, this deep adoration, were added the transports of an incommensurable love, a love both human and supernatural.

God is love, and so that we may have some idea of this love, He gives a share of it to mothers. The heart of a mother with her unwearying tenderness, the constancy of her solicitude, the inexhaustible delicacy of her affection is a truly divine creation, although God has placed in her only a spark of His love for us. Yet, however imperfectly a mother's heart reflects the divine love towards us, God gives us our mothers to take His place in some manner with us. He places them at our side, from our cradles, to guide us, guard us, especially in our earliest years when we have so much need of tenderness.

Hence imagine with what predilection the Holy Trinity fashioned the heart of the Blessed Virgin chosen to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word. God delighted in pouring forth love in her heart, in forming it expressly to love a God-Man.

In Mary's heart were perfectly harmonised the adoration of a creature towards her God, and the love of a mother for her only Son.

The supernatural love of Our Lady is not less wonderful. As you know, a soul's love for God is measured by its degree of grace. What is it that, in us, hinders the development of grace and love? Our sins, our deliberate faults, our voluntary infidelities, our attachment to creatures. Each deliberate fault narrows the heart, and strengthens egotism. But Our Lady's soul is of perfect purity; unstained by sin, untouched by any shadow of a fault, she is full of grace: Far from encountering in her any obstacle to the unfolding of grace, the Holy Spirit ever found her heart wonderfully docile to His inspirations, and therefore full of love.

What must have been the joy of the soul of Jesus to feel Himself loved to such an extent by His Mother! After the incomprehensible joy arising for Him from the Beatific Vision and from the look of infinite complacency wherewith the Heavenly Father contemplated Him, nothing can have rejoiced Him so much as the love of His Mother. He found in it a more abundant compensation for the indifference of those who would not receive Him. He found in the heart of this young Virgin a fire of undying love that He Himself further enkindled by His divine glances and the inward grace of His Spirit.

Jesus gave Himself to Mary in such an ineffable manner, and Mary corresponded so fully that after the union of the Divine Persons in the Trinity, and the hypostatic union of the Incarnation, we cannot conceive one greater nor deeper.

Let us draw near to Mary with a humble but entire confidence. If her Son is the Saviour of the world, she enters too deeply into His mission not to share the love that He bears to sinners. "O Mother of our Redeemer," let us sing to her with the Church, "thou didst bear thy Creator whilst remaining a Virgin, succour this fallen race which thy Son came to save in taking from us a human nature": "Have pity upon the sinners whom thy Son came to redeem" For, O Mary, it was to redeem us that He vouchsafed to descend from the eternal splendours into thy virginal bosom.