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Views from the Choir Loft

Incarnation and Divinization

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · October 31, 2013

ALTHOUGH I HAVE some disagreements with Fr. Michael Casey’s book, Fully Human, Fully Divine: An Interactive Christology (Liguori, 2004), there are also passages in it that are extremely profound and rhapsodic in their chanting of the divinely beautiful Gospel. I would like to share one of my favorite passages with the readers of Views from the Choir Loft. — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

272 annunciation HE INCARNATION makes no sense without the corresponding doctrine of our divinization. God’s Son descended so that we might ascend, that we might share the divinity of him who humbled himself to share our humanity. In the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel (Jn 1:1–18), we see enunciated the three prime moments of Salvation History, as understood by the evangelist. “The Word was with God … the Word became flesh … and of his fullness we have all received.” Our participation in the life of God is an essential part of the whole project. Our vocation is to be receivers of the fullness of the Word made flesh. The extent of the resultant assimilation is indicated when the evangelist adds “grace for grace.” Here he employs the same preposition used in the Greek Bible to denote equivalence: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Everything the Word was by nature, we become by grace.

Each of the believing and reasoning members of Christ can truly say of themselves that they are what he is—even God’s Son, even God. But he is so by nature, they by association (consortio). He is so fully; they by participation. Finally, what the Son is by virtue of being begotten, his members are not only by a legal decree or by the giving of a name but by adoption…

There is a paradox involve in this doctrine: it is only by becoming divine that we begin to be fully human. Conversely, if we are not divinized we become subhuman—beings whose innate potential has been left unrealized…

That the divinization of human beings is a neglected doctrine powerfully reveals the impoverishment of Christian faith that we have allowed to occur. It is easy enough to reduce the mystery of God’s plan to a few “metaphysical and ethical crumbs” (Schleiermacher). Such oversimplification does not succeed in making Christianity more accessible to the ordinary person, but simply renders it banal and boring. . . . Religion is about the transformation of sinful humanity. This miraculous process can be protected and even sustained by ethical constraints and rational discourse, but its essential origin is elsewhere…

There is always the danger that theological and moral rectitude (orthodoxy and orthopraxy) loom so large on our religious horizon that relationship with God recedes into the background. In this age, more than in any other, we need the divine boldness to affirm that Christianity is not a matter of being good but of becoming God. It is only by the wholehearted acceptance of the truth that God’s Son fully shared our humanity that we can be emboldened to find in him our way towards an intense and transforming relationship with the God who exists beyond human experience.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Hymn by Cardinal Newman
    During the season of Septuagesima, we will be using this hymn by Cardinal Newman, which employs both Latin and English. (Readers probably know that Cardinal Newman was one of the world's experts when it comes to Lingua Latina.) The final verse contains a beautiful soprano descant. Father Louis Bouyer—famous theologian, close friend of Pope Paul VI, and architect of post-conciliar reforms—wrote thus vis-à-vis the elimination of Septuagesima: “I prefer to say nothing, or very little, about the new calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed (with no good reason) Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints higgledy-piddledy, all based on notions of their own devising!”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Introit • Candlemas (2 February)
    “Candlemas” • Our choir sang on February 2nd, and here's a live recording of the beautiful INTROIT: Suscépimus Deus. We had very little time to rehearse, but I think it has some very nice moments. I promise that by the 8th Sunday after Pentecost it will be perfect! (That Introit is repeated on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.) We still need to improve, but we're definitely on the right track!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Simplified Antiphons • “Candlemas”
    Anyone who desires simplified antiphons (“psalm tone versions”) for 2 February, the Feast of the Purification—which is also known as “Candlemas” or the Feast of the Presentation—may freely download them. The texts of the antiphons are quite beautiful. From “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium” you can hear a live excerpt (Mp3). I'm not a fan of chant in octaves, but we had such limited time to rehearse, it seemed the best choice. After all, everyone should have an opportunity to learn “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium,” which summarizes Candlemas.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Catholics in America have been the heirs of a sentimental and subjective hymn tradition that, for some reason or other, has taken a deep and fast hold on the fancy of the average person.”

— Fr. Francis Brunner (1953)

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