The mystery of the Incarnation states that the Son, who has existed as God along with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever, took on human nature in the person of Jesus Christ.
When He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of his mother Mary, Jesus became fully human while remaining fully God at the same time.
By taking on human flesh, Jesus was able to demonstrate God’s love, to save man from his sins by dying on the Cross, to live as a model of holiness, and to allow man to become like God.
That Jesus lived among men, like man in every way except that He did not sin, is one of the central truths of the Catholic faith.
The Feast of the Annunciation was previously referred to as the Feast of the Incarnation.
A central doctrine for all Christians:
A mystery that should not be taken for granted:
Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings “the mystery of our religion”: “He was manifested in the flesh.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 463
Able to see the face of God:
Where eternity touches creation:
The Son always existed but did not always have a body:
And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
John 1: 14
Walking with us and living our lives:
God meets us where we are:
Jesus is true God and true Man:
Through the Incarnation God gave human life the dimension that he intended man to have from his first beginning; he has granted that dimension definitively-in the way that is peculiar to him alone, in keeping with his eternal love and mercy, with the full freedom of God-and he has granted it also with the bounty that enables us, in considering the original sin and the whole history of the sins of humanity, and in considering the errors of the human intellect, will and heart, to repeat with amazement the words of the Sacred Liturgy: “O happy fault… which gained us so great a Redeemer!”
Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, March 4, 1979
Why did Jesus become man?:
God desires a relationship with man:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Participating in the story of God:
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