The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-01-09

1
the circumsion, into Egypt, through
the streets of Jerusalem, pointed with
its finger to the scourge, the crown
| of thorns, the nails, to the dreary
| Mount of Calvary, and never left Him
| till He lay in the arms of His broken
hearted Mother-a slain victim for
the sins of His people. In life He
loved men; in death, too, and after
| death, He loved them yet. This in
| finite love of God for His children
this longing, persistent desire to win
our love-is the explanation for the
Incarnation. 1t explains, in a word,
| that excess of love; it explains His
humiliation in taking upon Himself our
poor human nature; it made Him
| the eternal splendour and glory of
His Father-our brother.
Yet, sad to say this loving mys-
| terry of the Incarnation has been the
centre around which swung all the
most hateful and horrid heresies from
the beginning even till today.
BY the Incarnation is to be under
stood the mystery of the Word made
flesh; that the Son, the Second Person
of the Blessed Trinity, very God of
very God, assumed flesh in the womb
of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, or
took up human nature to Himself, and
made it, by hypostatic union with His
Divine Person His own nature, as
truly and as substantially so as His
Divine nature itself, so that since the
union He has in the unity of One Per-
son, two forever distinct but INSOFAR
able natures, the human and the Di-
vine; and perfect God and perfect
Man, He may with strict truth be
called either the Son of God or the
Son of Man, and since the Son of Man
| Is man, and the Son of God is God,
we may call Him alike God or Man,
since he is both in one Person. In
His Divine nature He is God; in His
human nature He is Man.
Such is the Incarnation, and no one
of it's essential principles but has been
denied by heretics. Some denied that
Christ had a real body, as the Doce-
tae; some denied His divinity, as the
Arians; some denied His two fold ma
ture, as the Monophysites; some de-
MED that He had two wills, as the
| Monothelites; others denied the unity
of the two natures in one Divine Per
son, as the HISTORIANS. Finally, the
heresies which deny or misrepresent
the grace of Christ, the Church, the
| Sacramento, regeneration, justifica-
ton, sanctification, and eternal life
are all heresies against the Incarna-
ton, for they all deny or misrepresent
| it's media and effects.
Whence comes this fierce contest
against this gracious, saving mystery?
| 1t comes from the arch-enemy of God
and man, who knows that in and by
the Incarnation fallen man can, by CO.
operating with the grace of Christ,
win the throne from which his pride
threw him; it comes from the envy of
| the DEVIL who hates those who bear
| the image Of Him who took away the
ancient curse blythe death of His Son.
And so thoroughly did Christ restore
man to more than his pristine estate
that His bride, the Church, unspotted
and unblemished, triumphantly sings:
20 felix culpa, quae talem &C tantum
meruit habere. Redemptorem. 20
happy fault, which merited to possess
such and so great a .Redeemer.
Though the devil, sin, heresy, and
hell may seem to gain, here and there,
passing victory-though Christ went
down to die in anguish, humiliation,
and pain unspeakable-He neverthe-
less arose triumphant over death and
hell, and "the stroke of our wound is
healed" Thus it is always with God;
we read His Divine plans and their
fulfilment. We see what Our Lord in
tended in His Incarnation, by looking
at what it produced. From the hand
full, so to speak, of noble souls who
loved the Babe of Bethlehem, from
the new faithful and among the faith
less many of His own, there sprang up
millions and millions of the purest,
noblest, finest of our race, who for
the love of Jesus gave their all, even
going down, dancing, to death in its
many and most horrid forms-attract-
ed to Him by a Divine, irresistible at
traction. The millions of red-robed
martyrs; the millions of white-robed
virgins, confessors, priests, monks,
and hermits; the immortal line of Ro-
man Pontiffs, from Peter to Benedict,
the glorious Hierarchy of Christ's holy
priesthood; the souls, innumerable and
unknown, of all ages, sexes, and condi-
tions whose names are in the Book
| of Life-those all testify to the fruit
full and ever-enduring effects of the In
carnation, and are proof that human
Iity's heart, at its best, yearns to love
the Beautiful and Good, the sweet
Babe Divine.
Let us, then, reconsecrate ourselves
and all those belonging to us to the
Incarnate God, and renew to Him, the
fond lover of souls, our promise of
loyalty, fidelity, and obedience to the
Church, our Mother; to His Vicar, our
Holy Father, Benedict XIV
| Irish Catholic.
L