Thursday, March 25, 2010

Zygote Jesus

In the beginning...

In the movie Talladega Nights, there is a scene where Ricky Bobby says grace with his family...
Ricky Bobby: "Dear tiny infant Jesus... "
Carley Bobby: "Hey, um... you know sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don't always have to call him baby. It's a bit odd and off-puttin' to pray to a baby."
Ricky Bobby: "Well look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm sayin' grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grown up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whatever you want."
Ricky Bobby has point.

... was the Word,

On March 25th, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation. It celebrates the meeting of the angel Gabriel sent to Mary, "Hail, full of grace (favored one), the Lord is with you!" Gabriel passes on the message that the world hoped to hear,
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
And this Jesus would be the Son of God,

and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.

And this is the mystery of the Incarnation: that God who so loved the world, gave us his only Son. But the Son, the eternal Word, did not walk upon the world as God. Indeed no,
though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
And he began his life according to His human nature, right at the beginning. Before 1973, there was no confusion as to the beginning of an individual's human life. Fortunately, one can look at books as old as the nineteenth century and find references that an individual human life began at the moment a sperm fertilized an ovum, that is, conception. Was there a scientific advance which introduced confusion over the beginning of life? No, it was rather a political development.

Jesus began His life, like other human beings, at the beginning. It is a mystery how God brought himself into His own creation, but we do know according to science that He began as a single cell zygote, and He drifted, to be implanted into His mother's womb. He became as a slave, completely and totally dependent on His human mother according to His human nature.

And when His mother Mary visits Elizabeth, the baby John the Baptist within Elizabeth's womb leaps for joy at the presence of his Lord and the voice of the Lord's mother Mary.

Those who perform the consecration according to St. Louis de Montfort know that the Feast of the Annunciation (and Incarnation) is the moment of great joy! For is then that the Lord enters His creation. We prepare by praying to "Jesus living in Mary." As did Jesus, we place our trust in Mary and depend on Mary. Following Jesus, we become a slave of Mary. "Behold your mother."

And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us

Literally, "made his dwelling" translates as "pitched his tent/tabernacle." The first place in which Jesus pitched His tent was in Mary's womb; Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, a living tabernacle. Yet we also can follow Mary as God bearers (if only for a short time).
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
This is a hard teaching. "Do you also want to leave?"

Where would we go?

God, who can become incarnate, Who came into His creation, can come under the appearance of bread and wine. To accept the one makes it easier to accept the other. Can the Incarnate God-Man come into the world, transforming the bread and wine into Himself by the action of His Holy Spirit (the same Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary)?

There is a better model. We can say yes to His teachings. "Let it be done unto me according to thy Word."

FIAT! A prayer to zygote Jesus.

Update: Cross posted to AGAPAS ME.

1 Comments:

At 3/26/10, 12:26 PM, Anonymous Kathleen said...

It is amazing that this Feast is believed to have been instituted in the first half of the fifth century, when there was no ultrasound or laser technoligies. Earlier names for the day were Festum Incarnationis and Conceptio Christi. They knew what they were talking about. Thanks for the post Bob.

 

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