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Dear Parish Faithful,
Christmas
is actually the Feast of the Nativity/Birth of the Lord Jesus Christ,
which is actually the Feast of the Incarnation - of the Word becoming
flesh (JN. 1:14). As we draw closer to December 25, I would like to
provide everyone with a modest-sized anthology of excerpts from the
Fathers of the Church and contemporary theologians on precisely that
great Mystery. These texts will also include the Mystery of the
Motherhood of the Virgin Mary; for it is impossible to speak of the
Incarnation without including the Mother of the Incarnate One. The
Virgin Mary is bound to her Son (and God) in a manner wholly unique to
her incredible vocation. Se is the Mother of the Son of God who received
His flesh from her. We should marvel all the more, when we realize that
she was chosen for this vocation from all eternity. These texts are
meant to be deeply-pondered over (as the Theotokos pondered these things
in her own heart) in the hope that we continue to contemplate the
Mystery "hidden before the ages" with a sense of awe and prayerful
thanksgiving. And perhaps these texts will assist us in focusing our
dispersed minds and hearts that are driven to distraction by the other
attractions of the Season, on the Incarnate Lord.
This first text
from St. Nicholas Cabasilas (+14th c.) has become something of a
"classic" as it beautifully balances the divine initiative and the free
response of the Virgin Mary:
The Incarnation of the Word was not only the work of Father, Son and Spirit - the first consenting, the second descending, and the third overshadowing - but it was also the work of the will and faith of the Virgin. Without the three divine persons this design could not have been set in motion; but likewise the plan could not have been carried into effect without the consent and faith of the all-pure Virgin. Only after teaching and persuading her does God make her his Mother and receive from her the flesh which she consciously wills to offer him. Just as he was conceived by his own free choice, so in the same way she became his Mother voluntarily and with her free consent.
Here
is an excerpt from a homily by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, a very
prominent hierarch from 19th c. Russia. Met. Philaret was known and
respected not only as an excellent theologian, but also as a genuine
ascetic, and an outstanding preacher. In fact, he may be best known for
his superb homilies in which deep thought and a kind of exalted style
of expression combine to impart a sense of the majesty and holiness of
God in His activity toward the world. The following short text is
actually a small excerpt from a homily on the Feast of the Annunciation.
But the Incarnation actually occurs when the Son of God is conceived
in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Thus this passage bears witness to the
essential role that the Mother of God fulfills in the Incarnation, very
similar to what is found in the text above from St. Nicholas Cabasilas.
During the days of the creation of the world, when God uttered his living and mighty words: Let there be ... the Creator's words brought creatures into existence. But on the day, unique in the existence of the world, when Holy Mary uttered her humble and obedient "Let it be," I would hardly dare to express what took place then - the word of the creature caused the Creator to descend into the world. God uttered his word here also: You will conceive in your womb and bear a son ... he will be great ... and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. But again that which is divine and incomprehensible occurs - the word of God itself defers its action, allowing itself to be delayed by the word of Mary: How can this be? Her humble "Let it be" was necessary for the realization of God's mighty Let it be. What secret power is thus contained in these simple words: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your will" - that it produces an effect so extraordinary? This marvelous power is Mary's pure and perfect self-dedication to God, a dedication of her will, of her thought, of her soul, of her entire being, of all her faculties, of all her actions, of all her hopes and expectations.
The
following is from St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444), the great patriarch
of that thriving cosmopolitan city, and perhaps the Church's greatest
"Christologian" (if such a term actually exists). Or, we could say that
St. Cyril is one of the Church's greatest theologians who wrote with
exceptional penetration, depth and insight about the Person of Christ.
In the heat of a very polemical atmosphere, in which St. Cyril had to
defend the Church's understanding of the Person of Christ against the
inadequate, misleading, and even heretical teachings of one Nestorius,
St. Cyril was able to explain the union of the divine and human natures
in the one Person of Christ in such a convincing manner, that his
approach is to this day accepted as the criterion for Orthodoxy. He did
this by defending the term Theotokos for the Virgin Mary when
that term was attacked and rejected by Nestorius. If the Virgin Mary
gave birth to the Second Person of the Trinity - the eternal Word and
Son of the Father - then she must be granted the title of Theotokos, for
God was born of her in the flesh that He received from her.
His
most complete treatment of an Orthodox understanding of the Person of
Christ (Christology) may be in his major work known as On the Unity of Christ.
Below is just one excerpt from a book overflowing with endless insights
into the Mystery of the Incarnation. Notice how St. Cyril endlessly
develops the paradox of God becoming man, building on and extending the
Apostle Paul's pregnant phrase: "He was rich but became poor for our
sake, so that we might be enriched by his poverty" (II COR. 8:9) This
became one of the Fathers most cherished methods for explaining the
wonder of the Incarnation.
Christ is understood as the Heavenly Man, not as if He brought down His flesh from on high and out of heaven, but because the Word who is God came down from out of heaven and entered our likeness, that is to say submitted to birth from a woman according to the flesh, while ever remaining what he was, that is one from on high, from heaven, superior to all things as God even with the flesh. This is what the divine John says about him somewhere: "He who comes from above is above all" (JN. 3:31). He remained Lord of all things even when he came, for the economy, in the form of a slave, and this is why the mystery of Christ is truly wonderful.... Indeed the mystery of Christ runs the risk of being disbelieved precisely because it is so incredibly wonderful. For God was in humanity. He who was above all creation was in our human condition; the invisible one was made visible in the flesh; he who if from the heavens and from on high was in the likeness of earthly things; the immaterial one could be touched; he who is free in his own nature came in the form of a slave; he who blesses all creation became accursed; he who is all righteousness was numbered among transgressors; life itself came in the appearance of death. All this followed because the body which tasted death belonged to no other but to him who is the Son by nature. Can you find any fault in any of this ...On the Unity of Christ, p. 61)
Whatever age within the Church's life we turn to - the fifth, fourteenth, and nineteenth centuries as above - we hear the consistent and incredible teaching that the "Word became flesh ..." (Jn. 1:14) And this is a saving word through which we become the children of God.
