Incarnation (Christianity)
In Christian theology, the Incarnation is the belief that the pre-existent divine person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who is also the Logos (Koine Greek for 'word'), was "made flesh" by being conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, who is also known as the Theotokos (Greek for "God-bearer" or "Mother of God"). The doctrine of the Incarnation then entails that Jesus was at the same time both fully God and fully human.
Quotes about
[edit]Bible
[edit]- And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us; and we saw his glory,
glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
- Gospel of John, 1:14-15.
Others
[edit]A
[edit]- A wonderful discovery has coloured our lives. An extraordinary event, the event of events: the ineffable, the unspeakable, the indescribable, the transcendent, the Almighty, the Exalted, the immensely unattainable, has come to dwell among us, has made himself small, fragile, palpable. For us!
And that is the mystery. The mystery of our faith: the incarnation, He who is the Absolute, He who is God becomes Emmanuel, God with us, God present among us. This is the discovery that has changed our lives, that makes us dance, makes us jump, makes us rejoice, makes us smile.
- q:it:Chiara Amirante, Alzati e rivestiti di luce. meditazioni per ricominciare ogni giorno. Città Nuova, Roma, 2005. ISBN 88-311-4293-3.
- The Incarnation accomplishes two things in us: the first is that it fills us with love; the second is that it makes us certain of our salvation.
- Angela of Foligno, Il libro, translation into Italian by Salvatore Aliquò, Città Nuova, Roma, 2009. ISBN 978-88-311-1443-1.
- The Word of the Eternal Father, who in his immensity encompasses all things, in order to raise mankind—fallen through sin—back to the heights of divine glory, chose to make Himself small by taking on our smallness, without relinquishing his own majesty.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas, Compendium Theologiae, in Compendio di teologia e altri scritti, Agostino Selva and Tito S. Centi (editors), UTET, Turin 2010, series Classici delle religioni, cover. ISBN 978-88-02-08265-3.
B
[edit]- What we call the incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth is only complete in the community of believers, who have and feel the mission to proclaim his event to the world and to propose it to the world again with their testimony.
- Hans Urs von Balthasar, La verità è sinfonica, translation into Italian by Riccardo Rota Graziosi, Jaca Book, Milano, 1974. ISBN 88-16-30220-2 (Google Books preview)
C
[edit]- The two main points of Christian doctrine against which the pagan opposition, and especially the Platonic polemic against Christianity, directed its weapons were the incarnation of the divinity and the resurrection of the human flesh. To the idealism of the Hellenistic Neoplatonists, bent on a mystical form, both of these doctrines, organically connected to each other, were a “stumbling block”. To believe that the divine nature could come into contact with matter was to contaminate it, because bodily matter is something negative and impure. As such, it is a vain illusion and absurd to hope that the fleshly body can become incorruptible and eternal through resurrection.
- q:it:Alessandro Chiappelli, La dottrina della resurrezione della carne, Tipografia della Regia Università, Napoli 1894. Ch. II, pp. 56-57.
D
[edit]- We are called to incarnate Jesus in our lives, to clothe our lives with Him, so that men may see Him in us, touch Him, recognise Him.
- Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Cercando Dio nel cuore dell'uomo: il piccolo mandato, Ancora, Milano, 1989.
G
[edit]- Christianity is not a thought, but the announcement of a Presence: the Incarnation is a fact that happened. Without the Madonna, we could not understand anything about religious meaning, Christian claims and the Church.
- Luigi Giussani, from the message for the pilgrimage to Loreto on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Communion and Liberation movement, 16 October 2004
- The Incarnation, which is the greatest good that God could do for man, is also his greatest glory.
- Prosper Guéranger, La Santa Messa (Explication de la Sainte Messe, text derived from the teachings of Dom Guéranger to the monks of Solesmes, 1906), translation into Italian by Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, 1985 (VI).
H
[edit]- Fragments of the schisms came back to his mind, passages from the heresies that had divided the Churches of the West and the East for centuries. Here Nestorius contested the title of Mother of God for the Virgin, since, in the mystery of the Incarnation, she had carried a human creature in her womb and not God.
- Joris-Karl Huysmans, Controcorrente, translation and foreword by Fabrizio Ascari, with a writing of Guy de Maupassant and Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Mondadori, Milano, 2019, ISBN 978-88-04-58916-7.
J
[edit]- In the Incarnation of the Son of God we see forged the enduring and definitive synthesis which the human mind of itself could not even have imagined: the Eternal enters time, the Whole lies hidden in the part, God takes on a human face. The truth communicated in Christ's Revelation is therefore no longer confined to a particular place or culture, but is offered to every man and woman who would welcome it as the word which is the absolutely valid source of meaning for human life.
- Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio § 12.
L
[edit]- In the time of Christ, multitudes shared the same fate, whereas today we do not share ours, but each suffer it on our own. It is one of the most dramatic visible symptoms of our time. A kind of prophet who must speak to the multitudes speaks on television, through the television image, finding each person closed in their own cell.
What would “incarnation” be like today? Incarnation was like that because man was visible and bound to a community that shared his sufferings; man was limited in his physicality, in his body, which was so important and valued in the Eucharist. And where would the divine be incarnated today? Perhaps on the “Internet”. :*Mario Luzi, La porta del cielo. Conversazioni sul cristianesimo, a cura di Stefano Verdino, Fabbri Editori, R.C.S., I Classici dello Spirito, Milano, 1998, p. 48.
M
[edit]- The soul must always remain in continuous awareness of God, submerged and drowned, so to speak, in the infinite abyss of his love, manifested to us in the Incarnation of his Divine Word, which “ad extra” was the greatest work that an almighty God could do, and the highest heavenly Intelligences remain astonished and almost beside themselves with admiration.
- Maria Maddalena Martinengo, Gli scritti, vol. 1, Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, Roma, 2006. ISBN 88-88001-40-9, p. 1137.
R
[edit]- The incarnation of God is the certainty that our flesh is holy in some of its roots, that our history is sacred in some of its pages. And looking at our brother, no one can say anymore: here God ends, here man begins, because Creator and creature are embraced. Finite and infinite are within us in a prodigious mixture of intensity of plans, of vigour of transformation. God became man so that man might become God.
- q:it:Ermes Ronchi, Sciogliere le vele. Commento ai vangeli festivi. Anno A, Edizioni San Paolo, 2004.
W
[edit]- Unhappiness: man's superiority over God. The Incarnation was necessary so that this superiority would not be scandalous.
- Simone Weil, L'amore di Dio, translation into Italian by G. Bissaca and A. Cattabiani, Borla, Torino, 1968.
Z
[edit]- The Incarnation becomes life only if we understand that, through us, the very life of God is at stake.
- Maurice Zundel, Quale uomo e quale Dio. Esercizi spirituali predicati a Paolo VI e alla curia romana, EMP, Padova, 1994.
- The Incarnation, therefore, does not mean that God descends to earth, where he was not, because he was already there. The Incarnation means that humanity becomes present to God, an eternally present God. It was man who was absent, not God who was not present.
- Maurice Zundel, Il volto di Dio nel quotidiano, EMP, Padova, 1989.
