Tuesday we reflect on the Incarnation

The incarnation is a deeply significant moment in history. The Celtic tradition was thoroughly woven through with the concept of the Cosmic Christ. That is, in the Celtic tradition:

• Christ has always existed and has always been a part of the Trinity (a central aspect of Celtic Christianity, which was deeply Trinitarian)

• Christ was around at creation, as reflected in the beginning of the gospel of John, one of the most influential biblical books in Celtic Christianity

• the incarnation was a moment when the ineffable Divine restricted that glorious Divine self into a human body, right from the moment of conception, so the full human experience could be had.

For us today, the incarnation enables us to see that Jesus brings God fully into our world. He lives among us, in our country, our city, our neighbourhood. His love and his light radiate everywhere. We are all being changed by this. Christian tradition says that God became human so that human beings might become divine. I beg as the last grace of this year that I may let that wonderful truth sink in.

The essence of the incarnation within Celtic thought is that the presence of God is among us. Slowly and mysteriously Jesus brings light into the web of human history. Slowly his light overcomes our darkness, so that eventually everyone is enlightened. Our part is to look and see the light coming and bath in its radiance. 

The Incarnation is no mystery, Jesus.
You make it easy to understand.
Because you walked our earth
we are to see the face of the Divine
in every person we meet:
the friend who betrayed
the family gathered for a meal
the welfare mother
the man on death row
the clerk in the store
the teenage thug on the corner
those my government calls enemy and trains me to kill.

Every time I love,
the mystery of the Incarnation happens.
Every time I love,
I birth you on earth, Jesus.
I fall on my knees and beg you, Jesus,
deepen my living of the Incarnation.

— Mary Lou Kownacki