The title of this article is meant to be provocative. It may even scandalize some readers, just as the Cross of Jesus Christ was in the beginnings of the Christian era a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Today the foolishness of the Gospel no longer shocks us. It is trite to our ears and our eyes. We have grown used to the absurdity of an incarnate God-man nailed to a Cross for the salvation of the world from sin. Though millions still attempt to align their lives with the Gospel of the Lord, too often what passes for the Gospel is something paltry indeed. The incarnation is reduced to a one-off, an event that is essentially a complex legal mechanism being executed in time by the Godhead! All of these elements, needless to say, are indeed scriptural, but just as looking at a picture taken of a beautiful landscape pales in comparison to the vivacity of the lived experience of standing in that landscape, of smelling the air, feeling the breeze, and feeling the heat of the sun in that location, so is the Gospel of the vast amount of Christians today a Gospel which is merely a photograph of the Gospel, and not truly reflective of just how good the Good News promised in sacred Scripture actually is.
The scandal of this article's title still looms large though. What does it mean that Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, is Wisdom (re)incarnate? I mean exactly what I type. The Gospel promises this, not just to the Mother of God, but to all of mankind. All of us, Greek and Jew without distinction, are born into sin, and are by nature children of wrath, seeking after the passions and desires of the flesh (Ephesians 2:1-3), and not after God, our ultimate good and only true refuge and rest. We are created for God, in God, by God and live in his presence (Colossians 1:15-20). In him we live and move and have our being, as St. Paul says (Acts 17:28). All of us are born into a fallen world, a world marred by sin, a world deviated from the divine perfection it was intended to possess as the dwelling place of the glory of God. In light of the transgression of Adam, in whom we all die (1 Corinthians 15:22), it pleased God the Father to send his only-begotten Son into the world in order that the world may be saved (John 3:16), and far more than merely being saved, exalted.
Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7), uniting the uncreated with the created in a single person (St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians 7). By dying, Christ destroyed death, raising from the dead, becoming the first fruits of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20).
This supreme miracle and act of revelation is only the beginning however. The Spirit is poured out into all flesh in these last days. Through baptism, we die with Christ, and are resurrected in Him. The keyword is in Him. The power of the sacred sign of the sacrament saves us (1 Peter 3:21), destroying the old man, crucifying the old man in participation with Christ (Romans 6:6), to the extent that Paul can say that it is no longer him who lives, but Christ who lives in him (Galatians 2:20). The calling of God in the Gospel is unto participation in the divine nature shared by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:4), to the extant that Christ can pray that "The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." (John 17:22-23).
God has given us the greatest gift conceivable which is none other than Himself. We have not even begun to comprehend the riches of this grace which have been lavished upon us, but what the Scriptures do speak of make it clear that the sublime nature of these promises too often falls on deaf ears! God has blessed us with every blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), raising us up to be seated at the right hand of the Father, just as Christ sits (Ephesians 1:20, Ephesians 2:6). It is through adoption that we are adopted unto God the Father, so that we may truly call Jesus Christ not only our true God, but our Brother (Romans 8:29). Though in a certain sense God is the universal Father of mankind, and we are His children, in calling Christ the Son, the relation expressed is much more profound; it is a relationship of kinship, one that is expressing begottenness according to nature, just as how when Seth was born to Adam and Eve, Seth was said to be in the image of his father (Genesis 5:3). We too are created in the image of God and after his likeness (Genesis 1:26), and that image of God is Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:15). It is to the image of Jesus Christ that we are being conformed through the working of the Holy Spirit, we are to grow up into the maturity of Christ in every way, growing up into the Head (Ephesians 4:15), becoming one spirit with the Lord in uniting with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). Christianity in its essence is the imitation of God (Ephesians 5:1). We are mirrors covered in the filth of sin, and we pray that God cleanses us and makes us as white as snow, that we may reflect the radiance and glory of God in perfection, able to truly pray 'Our Father in Heaven...', His divine will being executed perfectly in heaven and earth from heart and not from deliberation. We are to belong to the Lord, and to become one flesh with Him. This is a great mystery, but it lies at the core of the Gospel (Ephesians 5:31-32). We ourselves by grace are called to be tabernacles for the Lord, keeping His words, and loving Him, and thus God will come and make His home within us (John 14:21-23)
What are we to make of all of this? In essence, as St. Maximus the Confessor wrote, "the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of his embodiment" (Ambiguum 7). Yes, you read that correctly. St. Maximus elsewhere in his Ad Thalassium 22 writes at length on this radical idea, the core of the Gospel. Through our participation in the virtues, God "is ever willing to become human" and does so in those who are worthy. "[T]herefore whoever, by the exercise of wisdom, enables God to become incarnate within him or her, and in fulfillment of this mystery, undergoes deification by grace, is truly blessed, because that deification has no end." Knowing this, let us put to death the old man that lingers on within us, knowing that we have already been born again, and that the seed of the Word gestates within us (1 Peter 1:23). Or to put it another way, the Emperor Justinian spoke well in his edict On the Orthodox Faith when he wrote “So he is the Son of God by nature, while we are so by grace” and “the true Son of God himself puts on us all so that we may all put on the one God”.
Therefore let us invite the Lord become once again incarnate within our flesh, and draw near to Him, so that at His coming, we may not be ashamed (1 John 2:28). And thus let us meditate on the radical love of God and "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." (1 John 3:1-3).
Knowing all of this, let us also appreciate the saints and the Blessed Virgin like never before, for they too are branches on the holy Vine in the garden of the Father. They are organically part of Jesus Christ through adoption, and shine forth with His radiant glory as images of Christ. When I look upon St. Francis of Assisi, or St. Catherine of Siena, or St. Isaac the Syrian, I do not see the old man, but the glory of Jesus Christ refracted through them, for they have died, and He lives ever anew in (re)-accomplishing the mystery of his embodiment. God is truly glorious in his saints, and all veneration and honor shown to the saints and the Blessed Virgin must be viewed in this light. With St. Francis in particular at the end of his life, when the angel appeared and the wounds of Christ appeared on his body, what did this signify other than perfect conformity, other than perfect (re)incarnation through divine grace? Was not the Virgin Mary herself the ultimate product of grace? This is the meaning of the immaculate conception. Mary, from the first moment of her existence, was preserved from falling into any and all sin. She remained, for the entirety of her earthly life until now where she reigns in the heavens with her Son, perfectly conformed to the image of God, who is Jesus Christ, a pure mirror of the Lord, one spirit with Him, wedded to the heavenly Bridegroom. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Strictly speaking, Mary never lived, only Christ did. This is not to say that there was not a historical person named Mary. This is not what we were saying. Mary never inherited the old man, but only was ever the new, never stained with sin. This makes her Christ her Brother, Spouse and later Son perfectly. The telos of Mary's existence is the same as all of ours, but hers was accomplished differently. But now we can see why St. Maximilian Kolbe referred to Mary as a quasi-incarnation of the Holy Spirit. Some have called this blasphemous, I say that it is necessitated by the data of Scripture, though we must remember that all of us are called to this wonderful calling in the heavenly places as members, brothers, spouses, and servants of Jesus Christ, who, at the end of the ages, will truly become all in all, uniting all things to Himself in subjection to the Father. Thus we will reign with Him forever and ever into eternity, seated on the throne of God (Revelation 3:21) as the true sons of God.
AMEN