Incarnation

Excerpts from the book Come and See

The whole of Catholicism rests principally upon the Incarnation, the event by which God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. Saint John heralds this event in the opening lines of his Gospel, declaring,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father (1:1-3, 14).

Everything that the Catholic Church teaches and all of her liturgical practices declare the truth and beauty of God becoming man. Her liturgical calendar, for example, organizes the year into seasons and feast days based on the life of Christ, so that the passage of time becomes for us a series of lived faith lessons. The feast of Christ’s Nativity, or Christmas, is preceded by Advent, a season of prayerful reflection designed to help prepare our hearts to receive the Christ Child. Christmas, moreover, corresponds to the winter solstice, at which time the days begin to grow longer and brighter, signifying the light of Christ coming into the world. Six months beforehand, the Church celebrates the nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the herald of Christ. This corresponds to the summer solstice, at which time the days begin to grow shorter and darker, in fulfillment of the Baptist’s words, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

We come to know Jesus through the Church’s teachings. They define for us who He is, and who He is not. Non-Catholic Christians characteristically reject the Church’s teachings on Mary, for example, which they mistake as obstacles to knowing Christ. In reality, though, the exact opposite is true. Mary in her person, being at once Virgin and Mother, confirms who Jesus is. Her virginity verifies His divinity; her maternity verifies His humanity. Fundamentalists, who often berate Catholics for calling Mary the Mother of God, fail to realize that this title by design says more to us about Jesus than about Mary. The Church officially sanctioned its use, in fact, at the Council of Ephesus in 431 as a means of defending the truth of the Incarnation against the false teaching of Nestorius, who denied the Babe born to Mary was truly God.

Appearing to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus to halt his persecution of the Church, the Lord says not, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute my Church?”, but “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). This same Saul, transformed by this encounter into the Apostle Paul, would come to regard the Church as the Body of Christ, writing, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). The Church’s ministry is a continuation of Christ’s ministry; she is an extension of the Incarnation in that she gives eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and feet to Him again on earth.