Through the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation, Jesus, deliver us.
The final series of petitions in this litany invites us to reflect on various aspects of Jesus’ life, and they remind us that Jesus’ entire life is salvific. Jesus redeems us through the Paschal mystery, to be sure, but also through His birth and His hidden years, His work and His public ministry.
With this petition, we meditate on the mystery of Jesus’ Incarnation. The divine Son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, begotten by the Father from all eternity became a human being, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Jesus was and is fully God and fully Man. He is one divine Person with two natures. While our human minds struggle to grasp this mystery, our faith accepts it as truth, for God has revealed it.
Through Thy nativity, Jesus, deliver us.
We are all so familiar with the Christmas story that we may easily take it for granted. So today take a few minutes to slowly read and meditate on Luke 2, paying close attention to the details and imagining yourself in the scenes. If you were in the fields with the shepherds, for instance, what would you have thought? How would you have felt? Would you have gone with the others to see this newborn infant lying in a manger? How would you have reacted to that tiny Child, that small Savior of the whole world?
Through Thine infancy, Jesus, deliver us.
God became a baby. The divine Son, consubstantial with the Father, true God, light from light, became an infant. Jesus was fully dependent on Mary and Joseph for all His needs. He had to learn how to do everything, just like any baby. He was almost certainly cute and cuddly, like most babies, but He also cried and needed changing.
That is how much our Lord loves us. He emptied Himself completely. He became a baby. Yet He never stopped being God.
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