It Is Through The Flesh That Man Turns Away From God; It Is In Becoming Flesh That God Delivers Man

Sin which destroyed the divine life within us demands a satisfaction, an expiation without which it would be impossible for divine life to be restored to us. Being a mere creature, man cannot give this satisfaction for an offense of infinite malice, and, on the other hand, divinity can neither suffer nor expiate. How is this problem to be solved? The Incarnation gives us the answer. Consider the babe of Bethlehem. He is the Word-made-Flesh. The Word asks of us a human nature to find in it wherewith to suffer, to expiate, to merit, to heap graces upon us. It is through the flesh that man turns away from God; it is in becoming flesh that God delivers man. The flesh that the Word of God takes upon himself, is to become the instrument of salvation for all men. - Blessed Columba Marmion

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God From God And Light From Light, Entered Into Human History Through The Family

The only-begotten Son, of one substance with the Father, "God from God and Light from Light", entered into human history through the family: "For by his incarnation the Son of God united himself in a certain way with every man. He laboured with human hands... and loved with a human heart. Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one of us and, except for sin, was like us in every respect". If in fact Christ "fully discloses man to himself", he does so beginning with the family in which he chose to be born and to grow up. We know that the Redeemer spent most of his life in the obscurity of Nazareth, "obedient" (Lk 2:51) as the "Son of Man" to Mary his Mother, and to Joseph the carpenter. Is this filial "obedience" of Christ not already the first expression of that obedience to the Father "unto death" (Phil 2:8), whereby he redeemed the world? - Blessed Pope John Paul II, Letter to families, 1994