(We continue to benefit from Paul Peterson’s paper on the Incarnation. I hope you didn’t miss the first two sections that were offered here over the past two weeks; if you did, you’ll find them on our parish web site under my name.  As Paul concludes his reflections, he helps us to understand how the Incarnation allows us to become one again with God.  I invite you to reflect on his presentation; it will lead you even closer into the mystery of the Incarnation and its importance in our eternal destiny.)

 

If ever a saint was smitten by the incredible love revealed in the Incarnation, it was St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226).  St. Francis was repeatedly moved to tears when he thought of God’s limitless love and total self- emptying as revealed in the birth of Christ. This mystery of God’s humility and love in entering the world of humanity and of every other creature motivated Francis to especially celebrate the feast of Christmas.

St. Francis had a deep sense that because of the Incarnation everything was changed.  God’s entrance into the family of creation sent shock waves through the entire cosmos.  Because all creatures – minerals, plants, animals – were touched by the divine, they now possessed a new dignity and an elevated meaning.

St. Francis was named the patron saint of ecologists in 1979 because of his great respect for all of creation.  This love of creation flowed in large part from his profound understanding of the Incarnation and of the Creator’s all-inclusive love.  If we believe that the birth of Christ affirmed and elevated the dignity of all men and women, as well as the world of creation in general, should we not embrace a spirituality (a style of serving God) that corresponds to this vision?

Such a spirituality includes a reverence and love toward all people and all creatures.  And surely, it is not a spirituality of flight from the world, as if the world were evil and something to be rejected.  On the contrary, we know that St. Francis showed great respect and affection for each human being and for every creature, addressing all as “brother and sister” – as family.

He honored the world of creation further by writing the “Canticle of the Creatures,” which invites all creatures -“Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon,” water, fire, wind, earth, plants and flowers – to praise God.  He wished to worship God as an integral part of the symphony of creation.

Thus St. Francis’ advice is not to run away from creatures, but to draw close to them – to incorporate them into our prayerful journey to God.  According to the Franciscan mystic and theologian St. Bonaventure, St. Francis saw creatures as “a ladder” by which we climb to the God of love.  As Bonaventure put it, “Francis saw God’s Beauty imprinted in every creature, and the saint followed his divine Beloved everywhere, making from all things a ladder by which he could climb up and embrace God who is utterly desirable.”

Why did the Word become flesh?  In Paul’s mature theology in Ephesians and Colossians, he does not give the impression that Jesus Christ, the God-Man, arrived upon the scene because of Adam.  Jesus, not Adam, is the focal point of the plan of God.  Christ was intended by God from all eternity as the crown and goal of creation, and not simply as “a last-minute cure” to offset the sin of Adam.

This theological view has been the consistent view of Franciscans since the Middle Ages, championed especially by John Duns Scotus (1266-1308).  In Scotus’s view, the Word of God did not become flesh because Adam and Eve sinned, but because from all eternity God wanted Christ to be creation’s most perfect work, the model and crown of creation and humanity – the glorious destination toward which all creation is straining. In his view, the divine Word would have been incarnated in Christ even if the first man and woman had never sinned.  Another point made by Scotus is this: It was not Adam who was the pattern or blueprint that God used in shaping Christ. It was the other way around. Christ was the model in God’s mind from which Adam and Eve and the whole human race were created.

Christ would have come under any condition, but given the sin of Adam, the way he actually came was as the redeemer of the universe – a universe that was made for himself.  Just as the rebellion of our first parents had its repercussions on all of creation, so too does the coming of Jesus initiate the process of restoration not only of humanity, but also of all of creation to himself.

Closer to our own times, the Jesuit priest- anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881- 1955) and others have embraced the same viewpoint. “Christ is not an afterthought in the divine plan,” writes Chardin. “He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of all things.”

If we really adopt this teaching of St. Paul, expressed in Colossians 1: 15-17, that from all eternity God intended Christ to be the crown of creation, the perfect model of humanity and the glorious destination toward which all creation is striving, then what does this mean for us as we enter the third millennium?

It means that every human being finds his or her fullest meaning only in Christ.  As Saint Pope John Paul II points out in his encyclical Redeemer of the Human Race, Jesus is the key to understanding the meaning of human life. Christ, he asserts, “fully reveals human beings to themselves.” It is in and through Christ, the pope says, that humans acquire “full awareness of their dignity” and “of the meaning of existence.” Thanks to the Incarnation, we come to see our own body and humanity, and that of our sisters and brothers, as something embraced by God himself.

God became man that we may partake in the divine nature.  The sacred writer of 2 Peter wrote: “His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power.  Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire” (1:3-4).

This profound truth is repeated in 1 John 4:7-12:Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.  Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.  In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only son into the world so that we might have life through him.  In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as expiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.”

And how do we apply this vision of all things culminating in Christ to the role of Mary of Nazareth, his mother?  Surely, her role is pivotal.  She is the sublime entry point of the Word into the human family and the family of creation.  Mary’s generous response to God imitates God’s own self-emptying love.  Totally open to God, she says “yes” to the Creator’s plan of having the Word become flesh and the most perfect work of creation -and indeed the Savior of the World!

As we make our pilgrimage through this world – especially in times of doubt – we are tempted to ask what lies just beyond the face of reality.  Is it a blank void, or just some distant, disinterested god?  The mystery of the Incarnation reveals something very different, namely, a God who cares for us intimately and totally.  Seen in its fullest scope, the story of the Incarnation reaches its most dramatic chapter in the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.  There God’s ultimate gift of total love reveals itself most powerfully.

Certainly, the risen and glorious Christ, who gave his life for us without reserve, remains intertwined with the universe he entered 2,000 years ago.  The Irish poet, Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887-1916), had an intuition of this and expressed it magnificently in the following poem.  He saw Christ’s unconditional love behind every feature of the universe.

           

            “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”

 

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

 

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice – and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

 

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.

 

(I hope you found Paul’s reflections as inspiring as I did; they have drawn us even closer to the great mystery of the Incarnation that we will celebrate in just a few days at Christmas!  Merry Christmas to you and all of your loved ones!)