So as not to embarrass him I will not identify Mr. H. other than to state it was he who several decades ago impressed upon me the richly varied significance of the Incarnation. If he reads this column perhaps he will agree that his instruction has not been fruitless.
We whose roots are steeped in the nourishing soil of the Judeo-Christian heritage have a healthy respect for the physical. The Jewish scriptures tell us that God created the world and saw that it was good. The New Testament explains that the Word became flesh, that our resurrection will be bodily and that all creation will be made anew.
Our faith informs us that the Incarnation is leading us and all creation to that prelapsarian wholeness once crippled by our original sin. While it is generally understood that the Incarnation makes possible our eternal salvation, not so commonly recognized is that it also sanctifies our relationship with God, our relationship with his creation, and significantly our relationship with each other. In a sense the Incarnation divinizes relationship.
Are we beginning to ignore this sanctified role relationship plays in our salvation? Are we falling for a new form of Gnosticism? Are we giving way to ‘decarnation’?
Perhaps it’s nothing more than a consequence of the worldwide pandemic which has obliged us to live in virtual isolation where physical interaction is minimized. Or, maybe it is the ubiquitous reach of the Internet which allows communication without contact. For whatever reason our society seems to be ignoring the need for physical relationship and for community and flirting with solipsism, that slippery belief that each of us is responsible exclusively and entirely for himself.
Maybe these examples are stretching the point, but let’s look at them. Consider the fading respect for those heretofore respected institutions and traditions which once held us together as a ‘people’. Or, how about faceless Google taking the place of real teachers? Or, what about service – traditionally viewed as an act of one person helping another. Think of tellerless banks, self-serve gas stations, the burgeoning DYI (do it yourself) industry, those maddening mechanical answering services (dial one for….., dial two for…) even the challenges of artificial intelligence. Isn’t ‘self-service an oxymoron? A more serious example of the decline of relationship, of course, is how few families are being formed today – and how fewer remain intact.
Does ‘decarnation’ render us hopeless? No. The Lord has also given us his Church. The Catechism instructs us that: “The Church’s first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God. Because men’s communion with one another is rooted in that union with God, the Church is also the sacrament of the unity of the human race. In her, this unity is already begun…at the same time, the Church is the ‘sign and instrument’ of the full realization of the unity yet to come” (CCC 775) The Incarnation paves the way for this ‘full realization of the unity yet to come’.
Back to Mr. H. He is about to celebrate a significant birthday. I congratulate him and express my gratitude for the fellowship we share as together we participate in the advance of the Kingdom.