WDTPRS – Lady Day: The very Feast of the Incarnation

Tanner AnnunciationThis is the very Feast of the Incarnation.

Today we celebrate that moment when our Lord elevated our humanity by taking our human nature into an indestructible bond with His Divinity.

In the Incarnation God opened for us the path to our “divinization”: His sharing of something of His own divine glory with us in the eternal happiness of heaven.

In the sin of our First Parents the whole human race sinned.  In justice, therefore, a human being had to correct the offense.  However, such a correction was entirely impossible for a mere mortal human.  Such a correction required the intervention of one who was both man and God.

In the Incarnation, the Word made flesh – made man – Jesus the Lord and Savior not only begins to save us from our sins in His earthly ministry, but begins also the mysterious revelation of man more fully to himself (cf. GS 22).

Part of the Lord’s mission was also to teach man more fully who He is in the beauty of His own Person.  However, He did not begin to do this only from the beginning of His public ministry.  He began this from the very moment of the Incarnation.

Remember: From the instant of His conception, the Word made flesh begins to teach man more fully who man is.

Light from Light sheds light on the dignity of man, God’s image, from the instant of conception, from man’s humblest beginning.

Here are the Collects for this beautiful Feast of the Annunciation, Lady Day.  Here are the “Opening Prayers” from both the older, traditional, Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and the newer, post-Conciliar, Ordinary Form.

You might discuss their differences, their respective strengths.

COLLECT (1962MR):

Deus, qui de beatae Mariae Virginis utero Verbum tuum, Angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti: praesta supplicibus tuis; ut, qui vere eam Genetricem Dei credimus, eius apud te intercessionibus adiuvemur.

LITERAL VERSION:

O God, who desired Your Word to take flesh from the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary the angel announcing it: grant to your supplicants; that we who believe truly in the Mother of God, may be helped in Your sight by her intercessions.

COLLECT (2002MR):

Deus, qui Verbum tuum in utero Virginis Mariae
veritatem carnis humanae suscipere voluisti,
concede, quaesumus,
ut, qui Redemptorem nostrum
Deum et hominem confitemur,
ipsius etiam divinae naturae mereamur esse consortes
.

LITERAL VERSION:

O God, who wanted Your Word to take up
the truth of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
grant, we beseech,
that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man,
may also merit to be the sharers of His divine nature
.

This is of new composition, though there is a reference here to Letter 123 Ad Eudociam Augustam – “De monachis Palaestinis” of St. Pope Leo I, “the Great” (+461).

“Fides enim catholica sicut damnat Nestorum, qui in uno domino nostro Iesu Christo duas ausus est praedicare personas, ita damnat etiam Eutychen cum Dioscoro, qui ab unigenito Deo Verbo negant in utero Virginis matris veritatem carnis humanae susceptam.”

NEW CORRECTED ICEL VERSION:

O God, who willed that your Word
should take on the reality of human flesh
in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
grant, we pray,
that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man,
may merit to become partakers even in his divine nature
.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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2 Comments

  1. MarkJ says:

    I have been thinking a lot lately about exactly what God meant when He said “Let us make man in our image”. Not presuming to know the mind of God, I have come to believe that He was referring mainly to His Divine Image as manifested in the Incarnate One, Jesus our Lord. Jesus is the center of Creation, the raison d’être of our existence, planned by God from all eternity. I have heard it said before that “in our image” refers to God’s spiritual nature, but why not also His physical nature in Jesus?

    Just a line of thought to contemplate on my favorite solemnity, the feast of the Incarnation, which I was fortunate to celebrate at 7:15 this morning at St. Anne’s church in San Diego, low Mass 1962 TLM. The silence was extraordinary…

  2. Justalurkingfool says:

    For The Annunciation:

    The Canticle of Mary

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xnMUoajaIEg

    Our daughter, Holly, was Baptised as “Holy”, by
    Father Louis Angella. Two to three years later she
    would play or sing herself to sleep singing this, as
    my wife and I, through teary eyes, held each other
    marveling at the beautiful song she chose to sing.

    It is just about the happiest moment of the times
    that I shared with my wife.

    Perhaps her heart may soften someday and together
    all our whole family could sing this with “Holy”, and
    her parents, arm in arm?

    Karl

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