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Incarnation: God in human form and Mary in the contemplation of Balthasar
The Incarnation is the central mystery of Christian faith, in which the Eternal Word becomes God in human form. This Incarnation, contemplated by Hans Urs von Balthasar, reveals Mary as Mother and model for the believer who embraces the Incarnation in their own heart.God in human form: Mary and the mystery of the IncarnationIn the coming days, we will share some Christmas texts from the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, certainly not to be missed.Has the reader considered that God sent his Eternal Word into the world in the form of a child?Above all, it is important to understand what God wants to tell us through this new form of speaking. As always happens through his Word, he says something about himself. In everything that this child is and will become, as a youth, as a man, as a teacher and author of miracles, as one who remains silent before the judge, as one who is scourged, despised, and rejected, as one who cries out in the abandonment of God on the cross, as the dead and buried, as one who lives anew and eternally among the dead—in all this is the Word that God speaks, and speaks truly, about himself. If God is the truth par excellence, then every word he addresses to us and that comes from the center of truth must also be a declaration about him. If he is good par excellence, then he gives us in all those words that represent life and passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, a good that is always also a wonderful reality to the highest degree. And if he is beauty par excellence, then the truth and good that he tells and gives us is always also a reality of the highest beauty.Being God a child, He says: in all my omnipotence, that which I truly am and possess, I am at the same time so poor and humble and trustworthy as this Child, indeed, not only “as”. I am truly this child. And when Jesus later teaches, speaking of the lowest place one has to take, of serving, giving one’s life for the brothers, this is not only as a moral teaching for men, but as something He Himself is and experiences, as a manifestation of the heart of God, His Father. He does this because this is how God is. And now the terrible thing. When Jesus suffers for the sinners and takes sin upon Himself, He no longer feels the Father and cries out as if abandoned, as if dying of thirst for God: again, God. “God so loved the world”, the Good News says, “that He gave His only Son for it” until He reached the state of abandonment, timeless, of God. And when Jesus distributes Himself as food and drink: God is like this. Yes, it is the Father who offers us this word and this God’s flesh, bloody, torn, lacerated by men, as participation in His eternal life. And when the heart of Jesus is pierced and transformed into an empty hole that anyone can put their finger in, and with it, every man, “Hide me in your wounds”: God is like this. A wound that reaches His heart, and in which we are healed.Saying such things is not an exaggeration, but a simple observation of the Christian meditation on the mystery of Christmas. The Word of God becomes flesh: flesh that comes from the womb of the Mother, who then struggles for life, who must endure horrors and die, but in all its states and situations is the Word of God, and in all of them it tells us something of the essence of God.Do we worship the flesh? No, we only worship God. God who is the one we are certainly not, God, the totally Other, the very Being, the Almighty. But He who took pleasure in showing us that He is powerful enough to be also impotent, that He is blessed enough to also suffer, glorious enough to place Himself in the lowest place in His creation. And God does not act “as if”: as if He were humble and poor and a child. He Is.Mary is the Mother of the Son of God made child. To deepen the mystery of the Incarnation and the role of Mary, read the encyclical *Redemptoris Mater* by Saint John Paul II, on Mary in the economy of salvation.Deepen your studies: explore *Mariology*, *Marian theology*, *Marian apparitions*, and the *Graduate Studies in Mariology*.The Incarnation is the place where divine humility and Mary’s motherhood meet. Deepening the Incarnation in the light of Balthasar’s spirituality means rediscovering that God in the form of a child continues to touch the world through the maternal mediation of the Virgin.
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In the coming days, we will share some Christmas texts from the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, certainly not to be missed.Has the reader considered that God sent his Eternal Word into the world in the form of a child?Above all, it is important to understand what God wants to tell us through this new form of speaking. As always happens through his Word, he says something about himself. In everything that this child is and will become, as a youth, as a man, as a teacher and author of miracles, as one who remains silent before the judge, as one who is scourged, despised, and rejected, as one who cries out in the abandonment of God on the cross, as the dead and buried, as one who lives anew and eternally among the dead—in all this is the Word that God speaks, and speaks truly, about himself. If God is the truth par excellence, then every word he addresses to us and that comes from the center of truth must also be a declaration about him. If he is good par excellence, then he gives us in all those words that represent life and passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, a good that is always also a wonderful reality to the highest degree. And if he is beauty par excellence, then the truth and good that he tells and gives us is always also a reality of the highest beauty.
Being God a child, He says: in all my omnipotence, that which I truly am and possess, I am at the same time so poor and humble and trustworthy as this Child, indeed, not only “as”. I am truly this child. And when Jesus later teaches, speaking of the lowest place one has to take, of serving, giving one’s life for the brothers, this is not only as a moral teaching for men, but as something He Himself is and experiences, as a manifestation of the heart of God, His Father. He does this because this is how God is. And now the terrible thing. When Jesus suffers for the sinners and takes sin upon Himself, He no longer feels the Father and cries out as if abandoned, as if dying of thirst for God: again, God. “God so loved the world”, the Good News says, “that He gave His only Son for it” until He reached the state of abandonment, timeless, of God. And when Jesus distributes Himself as food and drink: God is like this. Yes, it is the Father who offers us this word and this God’s flesh, bloody, torn, lacerated by men, as participation in His eternal life. And when the heart of Jesus is pierced and transformed into an empty hole that anyone can put their finger in, and with it, every man, “Hide me in your wounds”: God is like this. A wound that reaches His heart, and in which we are healed.
Saying such things is not an exaggeration, but a simple observation of the Christian meditation on the mystery of Christmas. The Word of God becomes flesh: flesh that comes from the womb of the Mother, who then struggles for life, who must endure horrors and die, but in all its states and situations is the Word of God, and in all of them it tells us something of the essence of God.Do we worship the flesh? No, we only worship God. God who is the one we are certainly not, God, the totally Other, the very Being, the Almighty. But He who took pleasure in showing us that He is powerful enough to be also impotent, that He is blessed enough to also suffer, glorious enough to place Himself in the lowest place in His creation. And God does not act “as if”: as if He were humble and poor and a child. He Is.Mary is the Mother of the Son of God made child. To deepen the mystery of the Incarnation and the role of Mary, read the encyclical *Redemptoris Mater* by Saint John Paul II, on Mary in the economy of salvation.Deepen your studies: explore *Mariology*, *Marian theology*, *Marian apparitions*, and the *Graduate Studies in Mariology*.The Incarnation is the place where divine humility and Mary’s motherhood meet. Deepening the Incarnation in the light of Balthasar’s spirituality means rediscovering that God in the form of a child continues to touch the world through the maternal mediation of the Virgin.
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