After the disobedience of Adam, God could in all justice have refused to restore the human race to His friendship or to give men another opportunity of gaining heaven. But in His goodness the Almighty determined to save men from their sins and to open to them again the gates of heaven. However, God willed that full satisfaction for sin should be made to Him, and since sin is an offense against the infinite dignity of God, only a person of infinite dignity that is, a divine Person - could make full satisfaction for sin. But a divine Person in His divine nature cannot suffer and consequently cannot make satisfaction; hence, if God was to receive full satisfaction for sin, it was necessary that a divine Person should take our human nature and in that nature suffer in satisfaction for the sins of mankind. That is the reason why the Son of God became man in the Incarnation.
God promised this favor to Adam and Eve shortly after their fall, speaking of one that was to come into the world to crush the devil. The devil had led our first parents into sin, and God said to him: "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed" (Gen. 3, 15). The woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary; the seed of the woman is our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Many centuries passed. Sometimes it is said that four thousand years elapsed between the sin of our first parents and the coming of the Savior. But this is a matter of much uncertainty; the Catholic Church has never made any statement on this matter, and so we can hold that many centuries or even hundreds of centuries passed from the beginning of the human race until the birth of Our Savior. The world became very wicked; men forgot God and gave themselves freely to all manner of sins. Among the Israelites, the chosen people of God, the hope of the Saviortocome was kept alive by prophets, men inspired by God to convey His message to their fellow men. These prophets foretold so accurately the circumstances of the birth, the life, the death and the resurrection of the future Savior that no one could reasonably fail to recognize Him when He came.
The coming of the Redeemer was delayed so long in order that the world might learn from the many evils it suffered the great malice of sin and might know that God alone could raise up fallen man. Those who lived before the coming of the Redeemer could be saved if they had faith in God and kept His law. Thus they received sanctifying grace through the anticipated merits of the Savior.
And when the time for the coming of the Savior arrived, God announced it through an angel to a humble virgin of Nazareth named Mary, the daughter of Joachim and Ann. The angel told Mary that she was to be the mother of the world's Savior, yet by a wonderful miracle she was to remain a virgin. We celebrate this great event on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. And nine months later in the stable of Bethlehem, where she and her spouse St. Joseph were obliged to pass the night because there was no room for them in the inn, the Blessed Virgin gave birth to the Child who was to save the world from sin. The name given Him was Jesus; and He was the Christ, the one destined to be the world's Redeemer.
When Christ began His preaching, He announced among other doctrines that He Himself was the true Son of God. By His wonderful miracles - which could be wrought only by divine power - he proved that God was vouching for the truth of His teaching. Hence, the Catholic Church has always held that Jesus Christ is true God. In other words, He is a divine Person - the second Person of the Blessed Trinity - possessing two distinct natures, the nature of God and the nature of man. His human nature is exactly like ours, consisting of body and soul with all its faculties. However, because of His divine personality certain imperfections to which we are subject could not be in His human nature. Thus, He could not have any sin, nor even any inclination to sin; neither could He be ignorant of any truth which it was fitting for Him to know. He was "full of grace and truth", as St. John says enriched with the fullest measure of supernatural grace and virtue, and even in His human intellect endowed with a knowledge of all things that were or ever had been or ever were to be. Since the actions proceeding from a nature are truly the actions of the person possessing that nature, all the actions proceeding from the human nature of Jesus Christ are truly the actions of God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. Thus we can correctly say: God walked on earth, God suffered, God died.
This is the great mystery of the Incarnation which means "the being made flesh", because God took human nature, the most noticeable part of which is the body. Around this mystery Catholic faith and devotion are chiefly centered. The Gospel, the most important portion of the New Testament, relates the earthly life of Jesus Christ. Catholics are urged to read it and to ponder its lessons. Above all, the Incarnation is a manifestation of God's love for us, inasmuch as He could give us no more exalted Savior than His only Son. "God so loved the world that he gave His onlybegotten Son" (John 3:16).
RESOLUTION: Resolve that you will always pronounce the name of Jesus Christ with love and reverence and never speak that Holy Name irreverently,