Sep 27 Wed
Being reborn by God’s grace. How could anyone earn the privilege of being taken up by the Word co-eternal with the Father, into unity of Person, and of being the only-begotten Son of God? What good quality should he have to deserve this? What should he do, to come to this indescribable excellence? Surely it was no action of any man, but the action of the God.
Imagine a –hypothetical– human being not yet existing. At the moment he was conceived, this man is assumed by God the Word, in a unique and indescribable way. At that moment, three things happened simultaneously, (a) the hypothetical man was made real by the Holy Spirit from Mary’s flesh and in Mary; (b) a human soul was likewise created and infused; and (c) the Word assumed that human –body and soul– to come into being as the only Son of God!
Now, the Word was both, a son of man and the Son of God: man –a son of man– according to the nature that was assumed; the Son of God because of the only-begotten God who assumed him; only One Person.
Let us see, God certainly knew beforehand that he was going to make these things happen. So, Jesus was predestined, so that he, who was to be –according to the flesh– a son of David, should nevertheless remain the Son of God because he was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary.
We, humans, somehow share in this predestined elevation of human nature. It is so great, so high, so exalted that there is no greater height left to which we could be raised.
Moreover, God could not throw itself down lower than he did, for he took on a human nature, with all its weaknesses, and finally he died on a cross. As He, the One, was destined to be our Head, so we, the many, are destined to be his members.
Let God’s grace reign, as it does reign: the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, the one Son of God, the one Lord. As there were no previous merits in that human nature that was assumed by the Word of God, and was born in Bethlehem, so too all of us, the members of His Body, can be led to rebirth by God’s grace.
St Augustine on the Predestination of the Saints
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