Day 1
The Incarnation
God looks at the world and decides to enter it
c. 1609
Grace to ask for
Lord, grant me an intimate knowledge of You who became flesh for me — that I might love You more and follow You more closely.
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
John 1:14
Composition of Place
Imagine the Trinity looking down at the whole of humanity — all the suffering, all the confusion, all the sin, all the searching. The decision is made: God will enter. He will become one of us. Where will He enter? When? How? The answer to each question is astonishing.
Points for Meditation
The council of the Trinity
Ignatius asks us to see the Three Divine Persons looking at the whole world — all the people being born and dying, suffering and struggling, sinning and reaching toward God. And the decision: the Second Person will become flesh. He will enter, not into a palace, but into a particular womb in a particular province at a particular moment. God narrows Himself to a point.
The announcement
The angel Gabriel goes to a young woman in Nazareth — an insignificant town in a subject nation. The announcement is cosmic in weight; the setting is entirely ordinary. God always works this way. He enters through the unremarkable. He uses what is available, what is humble, what is willing.
The fiat
"Let it be done to me according to your word." Mary's yes is the pivot of history. With it, God enters time. The Word becomes flesh. The eternal intersects the temporal. This is the answer to everything Week One raised: to sin, death, disorder, and brokenness. The answer is not a rule or a law or a philosophy. The answer is a person.
Colloquy
Ask what you can offer — your service, your obedience, your yes. Ask for the grace to love the God who did not stay distant but came close — scandalously, vulnerably, humanly close.
Remain in silence for a few minutes.
Do not rush to the next exercise.