March 5, 2006 The First Sunday of Lent

The Spirit Enables Us To Share In Divine Nature

In his general audience of May 27th 2005, Pope John Paul discussed the Holy Spirit’s role in the Incarnation. The Holy Spirit’s intervention in the Incarnation, His Holiness explained, brings about the supreme grace, called the “grace of union,” which is the source of every other grace.

Jesus is linked with the Holy Spirit from the first moment of His existence in time, as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed recalls: “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine.” The Church’s faith in this mystery is based on the word of God: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary, “and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). And Joseph is told: “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20).

The Holy Spirit’s direct intervention in the Incarnation brings about the supreme grace, the “grace of union,” in which human nature is united to the Person of the Word. This union is the source of every other grace, as St. Thomas explains (Summa Theologiae III, q. 2, a. 10-12; q. 6, a.6; q.7, a.13).

For a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit’s role in the Incarnation event, it is important to return to what the word of God tells us.

St. Luke says that the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and overshadow her as power from on high. From the Old Testament, we know that every time God decides to bring forth life, He acts through the “power” of His creative breath: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). This is true for every living being, to the point that if God “should take back His spirit to Himself, and gather to Himself His breath, all flesh [that is, every human being] would perish together, and man would return to dust.” (Job 34:14-15).

God has His Spirit intervene especially at the moments when Israel feels powerless to raise itself by its own strength alone. The prophet Ezekiel suggests this in his dramatic vision of the immense valley filled with skeletons: “The breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet” (Ezek. 37:10).

Through Grace We Partake of the Divine Nature

The virginal conception of Jesus is “the greatest work accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the history of creation and salvation” (Dominum et Vivificantem, n. 50). In this event of grace, a virgin is made fruitful; a woman, redeemed since her conception, conceives the Redeemer. Thus a new creation is prepared, and the new and everlasting Covenant initiated: A man who is the Son of God begins to live.

Never before this event had it been said that the Holy Spirit descended directly upon a woman to make her a mother. Whenever miraculous births occurred in Israel’s history, wherever they are mentioned, the divine intervention is related to the newborn child, not the mother.

If we ask ourselves what the Holy Spirit’s purpose was in bringing about the Incarnation event, the word of God gives us a succinct reply in the Second Letter of Peter, telling us that it happened so that we might “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

“In fact,” St. Irenaeus of Lyons explains, “this is the reason why the Word became flesh and the Son of God became the Son of Man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine son-ship, might become a son of God” (Adv. Haer. III, 19, 1).

St. Athanasius adopts the same line: “When the Word came upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Spirit entered her together with the Word; in the Spirit the Word formed a Body for Himself and adapted it to Himself, desiring to unite all creation through Himself and lead it to the Father” (Ad Serap. 1, 31).

These assertions are repeated by St. Thomas: “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting us to be partakers of His divinity, assumed our human nature so that, having become man, He might make men gods” (Opusc. 57 in Festo Corp. Christi, 1), that is, partakers through grace of the divine nature.

The mystery of the Incarnation reveals God’s astonishing love, whose highest personification is the Holy Spirit, since He is the Love of God in person, the Person-Love: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). The glory of God is revealed in the Incarnation more than in any other work.

Quite rightly we sing in the Gloria in excelsis: “We praise you, we bless you . . . we give you thanks for your great glory.” These statements can be applied in a special way to the action of the Holy Spirit, who, in the First Letter of Peter, is called “the spirit of glory” (1 Peter 4:14). This is a glory which is pure gratuitousness: It does not consist of taking or receiving, but only of giving. In giving us His Spirit, who is the source of life, the Father manifests His glory, making it visible in our lives. In this regard, St. Irenaeus says that “the glory of God is the living man” (Adv. Haer. IV, 20, 7).

If now we try to look more closely at what the Incarnation events reveals to us of the mystery of the Spirit, we can say that this event shows us primarily that He is the gracious power of God who brings forth life.

The power that “overshadows” Mary recalls the cloud of the Lord which covered the tent in the desert (cf. Exodus 40:34) or filled the Temple (1 Kings 8:10). Thus it is the friendly presence, the saving closeness of God who comes to make a covenant of love with His children. Look into: www.domini.org/tabern/arkcovnt.htm wonderful article on the Ark of the Covenant!

It is power in the service of love, which is exercised under the sign of humility: Not only does it inspire the humility of Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, but is almost hidden behind her, to the point that no one in Nazareth can foresee that what “is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20). St. Ignatius of Antioch marvelously describes this paradoxical mystery: “Mary’s virginity and her birth were hidden from the prince of this world, as was the death of the Lord. These are the three resounding mysteries that were accomplished in the quiet stillness of God” (Ad Eph., 19, 1).

Every Child Should Be Accepted As The Spirit’s Gift

The mystery of the Incarnation, seen from the perspective of the Holy Spirit who brought it about, also sheds light on the mystery of man.

If in fact the Spirit works in a unique way in the mystery of the Incarnation, He is also present at the origin of every human being. Our being is a “received being,” a reality thought of, loved, and given. Evolution does not suffice to explain the origin of the human race, just as the biological causality of the parents alone cannot explain a baby’s birth. Even in the transcendence of His action, God is ever respectful of “secondary causes” and creates the spiritual soul of a new human being by communicating the breath of life to him (cf. Gen. 2:7) through His Spirit who is the “giver of life.” Thus every child should be seen and accepted as a gift of the Holy Spirit.

The chastity of celibates and virgins is a unique reflection of that love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). The Spirit, who gave the Virgin Mary a share in the divine fruitfulness, also ensures that those who have chosen virginity for the Kingdom of Heaven will have numerous descendants in the spiritual family formed of all those “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

(Reprinted from: L’Osservatore Romano, English edition, June 3rd, 1998.)

The Foreshadowing of the New Era

The Light of the World…by William Hollmann Hunt

From the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes N. 39)

We do not know the time when earth and humanity will reach their
completion, nor do we know the way in which the universe will be
transformed. The world as we see it, disfigured by sin, is passing away.
But we are assured that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new
earth. In this new earth righteousness is to make its home, and
happiness will satisfy, and more than satisfy, all the yearnings for
peace that arise in human hearts. On that day, when death is conquered,
the sons of God will be raised up in Christ; what was sown as something
weak and perishable will be clothed in incorruption. Love and the fruits
of love will remain, and the whole of creation, made by God for man, will
be set free from the frustration that enslaves it.

We are warned indeed that a man gains nothing if he wins the
whole world at the cost of himself. Yet our hope in a new earth should
not weaken, but rather stimulate our concern for developing this earth,
for on it there is growing up the body of a new human family, a body even
now able to provide some foreshadowing of the new age. Hence, though
earthly progress is to be carefully distinguished from the growth of
Christ’s kingdom, yet in so far as it can help toward the better ordering
of human society it is of great importance to the kingdom of God.

The blessings of human dignity, brotherly communion and freedom -
all the good fruits on earth of man’s cooperation with nature in the
Spirit of the Lord and according to his command - will be found again in
the world to come, but purified of all stain, resplendent and
transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father an eternal and
universal kingdom: “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness
and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.” On this earth the
kingdom is already present in sign; when the Lord comes it will reach its
completion.

Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. III, Office of Readings, Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Your Kingdom Come

From a notebook On Prayer by Origen, Priest (Cap. 25: PG 11, 495-499)

The kingdom of God, in the words of our Lord and Savior, does not come for all to see; nor shall they say: Behold, here it is, or behold, there it is; but the kingdom of God is within us, for the word of God is very near, in our mouth and in our heart. Thus it is clear that he who prays for the coming of God’s kingdom prays rightly to have it within himself, that there it may grow and bear fruit and become perfect; for God reigns in each of his holy ones. Anyone who is holy obeys the spiritual laws of God, who dwells in him as in a well-ordered city. The Father is present in the perfect soul, and with him Christ reigns, according to the words: We shall come to him and make our home with him. Thus the kingdom of God within us, as we continue to make progress, will reach its highest point when the Apostle’s words are fulfilled, and Christ, having subjected all his enemies to himself, will hand over his kingdom to God the Father, that God may be all in all. Therefore, let us pray unceasingly with that disposition of soul which the Word may make divine, saying to ‘our Father who is in heaven: Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come… Note this too about the kingdom of God; It is not a sharing of justice with iniquity, nor a society of light with darkness, nor a meeting of Christ with Belial. The kingdom of God cannot exist alongside the reign of sin. Therefore, if we wish God to reign in us, in no way should sin reign in our mortal body; rather we should mortify our members which are upon the earth and bear fruit in the Spirit. There should be in us a kind of spiritual paradise where God may walk and be our sole ruler with his Christ. In us the Lord will sit at the right hand of that spiritual power which we wish to receive. And he will sit there until all his enemies who are within us become his footstool, and every principality, power and virtue in us is cast out. All this can happen in each one of us, and the last enemy, death, can be destroyed; then Christ will say in us: 0 death, where is your sting? 0 hell, where is your victory? And so, what is corruptible in us must be clothed in holiness and incorruptibility; and what is mortal must be clothed, now that death has been conquered, in the Father’s immortality. Then God will reign in us, and we will enjoy even now the blessings of rebirth and resurrection.

Deification

The introduction on St. Maximus and the quotes are from Volume II of the PHILOKALIA as translated and edited by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware and published by Faber and Faber.

The extreme importance of St Maximos the Confessor (580-662) for the Orthodox spiritual tradition is indicated by the fact that no other writer is assigned so much space in the Philokalia. A member of the aristocracy, after receiving an elaborate education St. Maximos served at first in the civil service, perhaps as secretary to the Emperor Heraklios. Around 614 he became a monk at the monastery of Philippikos in Chrysopolis (Scutari), close to Constantinople, subsequently moving to another monastery not far distant at Cyzikos (Erdek). In 626, at the time of the Persian invasion, he fled to Crete and eventually to Africa, where he remained for some years. From 633-4 onwards he played a leading part in opposing the heresies of Monoenergism and Monotheletism, and because of this he was arrested in 653 by the imperial authorities, brought to Constantinople for trial, and sent into exile. Further trials and condemnations followed; the last being at Constantinople in 662, after which he was flogged, his tongue was plucked out and right hand cut off. He died soon afterwards as an exile in the Caucasus. His memorial is observed in the Orthodox Church on 21 January, and also on the day of his death, 13 August.

In his numerous writings St. Maximos discusses almost all aspects of Christian truth, including the interpretation of Scripture, the doctrine of the incarnation, ascetic practice, and the Divine Liturgy. He insists upon the close link between dogma and prayer. When he opposed Monotheletism, this was not because of some technicality, but because such a view subverted the understanding of the full reality of man’s salvation and deification in Christ. The Monotheletes wished to reconcile the supporters of the Council of Chalcedon (451), who ascribed two natures to the incarnate Christ, with the Monophysites, who believed that He has only one nature; and so they proposed as a compromise the theory that Christ has two natures, the one divine and the other human, but only a single will. Against this St. Maximos maintained that human nature without a human will is an unreal abstraction: if Christ does not have a human will as well as a divine will, He is not truly man; and if He is not truly man, the Christian message of salvation is rendered void. What we see in Christ our Savior is precisely a human will, genuinely free yet held in unwavering obedience to His divine will; and it is by virtue of this voluntary co-operation of manhood with divinity in Christ, which restored the integrity of human nature, that we are enabled to make our own will freely obedient to the will of God and so attain salvation. St. Maximos’ teaching was confirmed after his death by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, meeting at Constantinople in 680-1.

“God made us so that we might become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1:4) and sharers in His eternity, and so that we might come to be like Him (cf. 1 John 3:2) through deification by grace. It is through deification that all things are reconstituted and achieve their permanence; and it is for its sake that what is not is brought into being and given existence.” p. 173

“A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to deification of human nature is provided by the incarnation of God, which makes man god to the same degree as God Himself became man. For it is clear that He who became man without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into the divine nature, and will raise it up for His own sake to the same degree as He lowered Himself for man’s sake. This is what St. Paul teaches mystically when he says, ‘…that in the ages to come He might display the overflowing richness of His grace’ (Eph. 2:7).

“Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfillment of all times and ages, and of all that exists in either. This encompassing and fulfillment is the union, in the person granted salvation, of his real authentic origin with his real authentic consummation. This union presupposes a transcending of all that by nature is essentially limited by an origin and a consummation. Such transcendence is effected by the almighty and more than powerful energy of God, acting in a direct and infinite manner in the person found worthy of this transcendence. The action of this divine energy bestows a more than ineffable pleasure and joy on him in whom the unutterable and unfathomable union with the divine is accomplished. This, in the nature of things, cannot be perceived, conceived or expressed.”

“The Lord gave clear evidence of His supreme power in what He endured from hostile forces when He endowed human nature with an incorruptible form of generation. For through His passion He conferred dispassion, through suffering repose, and through death eternal life. By His privations in the flesh He re-established and renewed the human state, and by His own incarnation He bestowed on human nature the supernatural grace of deification.” p. 246

While Adam Slept by…Laverne Ross

“Since the devil is jealous both of us and of God, he persuaded man by guile that God jealous of him (cf. Gen. 3:5), and so made him break the commandment. The devil is jealous of God lest His power should be seen actually divinizing man: and he is jealous of man lest through the attainment of virtue man should become a personal participant in divine glory.” Amen. Fiat!

“To reconcile us with the Father, at His Father’s wish the Son deliberately gave Himself to death on our behalf so that, just as He consented to be dishonored for our sake by assuming our passions, to an equal degree He might glorify us with the beauty of His own divinity.” p. 248

“And as in His providence He became man, so He deified us by grace, in this way teaching us not only to cleave to one another naturally and to love others spiritually as ourselves, but also, like God, to be more concerned for others than for ourselves…” p.263

“Everyone who does not apply himself to the spiritual contemplation of Holy Scripture has, Judaic-wise, also rejected both the natural and the written law; and he is ignorant of the law of grace which confers deification on those who are obedient to it. He who understands the written law in a literal manner does not nourish his soul with the virtues. He who does not grasp the inner principles of created beings fails to feast his intellect on the manifold wisdom of God. And he who is ignorant of the great mystery of the new grace does not rejoice in the hope of future deification. Thus failure to contemplate the written law spiritually results in a dearth (lack, an inadequate supply) of the divine wisdom to be apprehended in the natural law; and this in its turn is followed by a complete ignorance of the deification given by grace according to the new mystery.”

“A crown of goodness (cf. Ps. 65:11) is a pure faith, adorned with eloquent doctrine, and with spiritual principles and intellections, as if with precious stones, and set as it were on the head of the devout intellect. Or rather, a crown of goodness is the Logos of God Himself, who encircles the intellect as if it were a head, protecting it with manifold forms of providence and judgment - that is, with mastery of the passions that lie within our control and with patient endurance of those we suffer against our will; and who makes this same intellect more beautiful by enabling it to participate in the grace of deification.”

March 6, 1926

Only the most important thing was known about the Celestial Mama – that the Son of God was Her Son. The same will happen with the daughter of the Divine Will – the most important thing only will be known, so as to make the Divine Will known. A good which is not known has no ways to communicate itself.

As I was in my usual state, my always lovable Jesus came, and holding my hand in His, He drew me to Himself - up high, between Heaven and earth. Almost fearing, I clung to Jesus, holding on tightly to His most holy hand; and wanting to pour out my pain with Him, which so much oppresses me, I said to Him: ‘My Love and my Life, Jesus, some time ago You told me that You wanted to make of me a copy of my Celestial Mama; yet, almost nothing was known about Her, of the many seas of grace with which, in every instant, She was inundated by You. She said nothing to no one – She kept everything within Herself; nor does the Gospel say anything. It is known only that She was your Mama, and that She gave You, Eternal Word, to the world; but everything that passed between You and Her – the favors, the graces – She kept all within Herself. With me, then, You want the opposite – You want me to manifest what You tell me; You do not want the secret of what passes between You and me. I feel sorrow because of this; where, then, is the copy You want to make between me and my Mama?’

And my sweet Jesus, clasping me tightly to His Heart, all tenderness told me: “My daughter, courage, do not fear. Nothing was known about my Mama but that which it was necessary and sufficient to be known – that I was Her Son; that through Her I came to redeem the generations, and that She was the first one in whose soul I had my first field of divine actions. Everything else – the favors and the seas of graces which She received – remained in the sacrarium of the divine secrets. However, the most important, the greatest, the holiest thing was indeed known – that the Son of God was Her Son. This was the greatest honor for Her, which raised Her above all creatures. Therefore, since the greatest was known about my Mama, the lesser was not necessary.
The same will happen with my daughter: it will be known only that my Will had Its first field of divine action in your soul, as well as everything that is necessary in order to make known what regards my Will; how It wants to enter the field so that the creature may return to her origin, and how It anxiously awaits her into Its arms, so that there may be no more division between her and Me. If this were not made known, how could creatures long for this great good? How could they dispose themselves to receive a grace so great? If my Mama had not wanted to make known that I was the Eternal Word and Her Son, what good would Redemption have produced? A good which is not known, as great as it may be, has no ways to communicate the good it possesses. And just as my Mama was not opposed, so must my daughter not oppose what regards my Will. All the rest of the secrets - the flights you do in my Will, the goods you take, and the most intimate things between you and Me – will remain in the sacrarium of the divine secrets. Do not fear, your Jesus will content you in everything.”