On the Incarnation

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Today is a most blessed day in the liturgical year.  It is the day that all of humanity's salvation was put on its right path.  Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation (also known as the celebration of the Incarnation of Our Lord).

It is appropriate, then, to reach for a deeper understanding of how and why the Second Person of the Trinity became fully human while remaining fully divine.  It is necessary for faithful Christians to grasp this concept because perfect humanity could be the only vehicle for the salvation of fallen humanity.

Read and pray the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria:
The only-begotten Son proceeds from the very substance of God the Father, possessing all of His Begetter in His own nature.  He became flesh, according to the Scripture, blending Himself, as it were, with our nature by an inexpressible combination and union with this earthly body.  Thus He who is God by nature became, and is truly, a Man from heaven.  He was not merely "inspired," as some people imagine, who do not rightly understand the depth of the mystery.  He is, rather, simultaneously God and Man.  He unites in Himself things that are naturally opposed to one another and unable to be fused together.  And thus He enables man to share and partake in God's nature.

It is Christ who took on our sinful human condition and perfected what had been ruined in our first parents.  Only by that perfection are we able to enter Eternity.

It would be most prudent, then, to take some time during this day to offer fitting praise and adoration to our God who would not leave us in our sinful state, and who continually calls us to be like Christ, the Perfect Man.

God bless!

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