The Word of God, once born in the flesh—such is his kindness and his goodness!—is always willing to be born again spiritually in those who desire him. In them he is born as an infant, fashioning himself in them according to their virtues. He reveals himself to the extent that he knows one is capable of receiving him. He diminishes the revelation of his glory, not from selfishness, but because he recognizes the capacity and resources of those who desire to see him.
Nevertheless, in the transcendence of his mystery he always remains invisible to all. For this reason the apostle Paul, reflecting on the power of the mystery, said: Jesus Christ, yesterday and today; he remains the same for ever. For he understands the mystery as ever new, never growing old through our understanding of it.
Christ is God, for he has given all things their being out of nothing, yet he is born as man by taking to himself our nature of flesh endowed with intelligent spirit. A star glitters by day in the East and leads the wise men to the place where the incarnate Word lies, in order to show that the Word contained in the Law and the Prophets surpasses in a mystical way all knowledge derived from the senses and to lead the Gentiles to this full light of knowledge. For surely the word of the Law and the Prophets, when it is understood with faith, is like a star that leads those who are called to recognize the Word incarnate by the power of grace in accordance with his decree .
This is the reason that God became a perfect man, altering nothing of human nature except to take away sin, which was never natural anyway. His flesh was set before the voracious gaping dragon as bait to provoke him. His flesh would prove deadly for the dragon, for it would utterly destroy him by the power of the Godhead hidden in it—although for our human nature it would restore its original grace. Just as the devil had poisoned the tree of knowledge and spoiled our nature by our taste of it, so too, in presuming to devour the Lord’s flesh, he himself is completely corrupted and destroyed by the power of the Godhead hidden within it.
The great mystery of the divine incarnation remains a mystery for ever. How can the Word made flesh be substantially that same Person who is wholly with the Father? How can he who is by nature wholly God become by nature wholly man without lacking anything in either nature, neither the divine by which he is God nor the human by which he became man? Faith alone grasps these mysteries. Faith alone is truly the substance and foundation of all that exceeds knowledge and understanding.
Wednesday from January 2 to Epiphany