Part Vb: The Creed: Part II

At the center of the creed stands the event that changed all of history, that shattered the course of the universe, the hinge upon which all of creation turns. We read that God chose to enter the world-for us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. We bow at this point, because this is the mystery that gives meaning to our lives, that gives us the possibility of salvation, the mystery that is also at the very heart of the mass. By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. The mind rebels at this. We are tempted to say that perhaps God only appeared to be man. Perhaps his humanity was swallowed up by his divinity. But the creed is insistent--Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, at a very real time, in a very real place, to a very real woman, is truly both God and man. Thus Mary appears in the creed--at this most critical juncture in history. It is in her that divinity and humanity come together and the Christ is born. At this mass, we hope to become like Mary, carrying Christ in our bodies--as we receive His flesh and blood unto our lips, His teaching into our minds, and His grace into our souls.

The inevitable consequence of the incarnation is the crucifixion. Christ came into this fallen world to bear the guilt of our sins, so that we might be reconciled with God. The crucifixion is the perfect sacrifice, which all of the sacrifices of the old law served to foreshadow. It put an end to the need for any other sacrifices. Indeed, the temple in Jerusalem, where the Jewish sacrifices had been offered, was destroyed just a few years later, never to be rebuilt. But this one pure sacrifice, sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world, needed to be made present in every place and time, so that every man could share in the redemption won by Christ. For this reason, Christ instituted the holy mass, which the apostles and their successors brought to every corner of the world. Thus, when we stand before the altar, we stand, as it were, at the foot of Gethsemenie, gazing up upon the cross, receiving the streams of grace that flow down from His wounded hands and pierced side.

The crucifixion is not a moment of defeat, but of ultimate triumph, for when Christ died upon the cross, He died to rise again, but He slew sin and death forever. The glory of the crucifixion, hidden upon the cross, shines forth in the resurrection. He rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures, and ascended into heaven. Christ's return into heaven is not a reversal of the incarnation, but is rather its fulfillment. For He returns to heaven not as He descended, but with the human nature that He assumed from the Blessed Virgin Mary. He descended as God, but He ascends as one of us, while remaining fully what He was before. He ascends that we might follow Him back to that place from whence He came the loving embrace of the Father, the fullness of joy, the eternity of heaven. Leaving He does not forsake us, for He is to return again in glory to judge the living and the dead. This second, glorious, coming of Christ is something that we anticipate in the mass, as well. Although His glory is veiled behind the species of bread and wine, He comes to us, and we ask Him to have mercy on us when He judges the world, so that we might be able to enter into his kingdom that will have no end.

©Theodore Book, 2007, reprinted with permission