Knowledge of Jesus: Day Five

Great Panagia, icon in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, downloaded from Wikipedia

Day thirty one at Fish Eaters.

Day thirty one at The Catholic Company.

Today's readings come from both Imitation of Christ and True Devotion. The Imitation of Christ starts us in a prayer of humility, we come as beggars to God and there is wonder: "But whence is this to me, that You should come to me? Who am I that You should offer Yourself to me?" The answer to these questions expresses a hidden joy that God is merciful, and that God loves us.

That wonder continues in the selection from True Devotion (which is omitted on The Catholic Company page). The "Incarnation is the proper mystery of this practice," of this devotion to Mary, wherein God the Son became dependent on Mary. Further, St. Louis de Montfort writes that Jesus became a "captive and a slave in the bosom of the divine Mary." This expresses the humility of Jesus coming to us "in the form of a slave" (Phil 2:6). It's true that an acceptable translation is that Jesus came to us "in the form of a servant." But Jesus is not a servant for hire, rather he came as a slave of love (which I discuss in a prior post). The term "divine Mary" (the translation of True Devotion by Montfort Publications drops the word "divine," probably to avoid misunderstandings) does not mean that Mary is a god or a divine being, but expresses her perfection by analogy, as we might say, "the meal was divine!" But it also expresses her participation with the grace of God, her cooperation with divine grace. In the eastern Church, this process is called theosis, where we are transformed by God and made divine, not in a metaphysical way, but rather by a transformation into the likeness of God. In a homily at World Youth Day in Toronto, Pope John Paul II said,

We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.

God's grace transforms us. In true devotion, we are asking God (and asking for Mary's intercession) to be transformed through Mary as a model or as the mold in which Jesus was formed. The goal is to form Jesus Christ within us and to be united in love with the Divine.

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Update suggested by a friend: St. Athanasius writes that theosis is "becoming by grace what God is by nature"