What then does divinization tell us about the Incarnation? It reminds us that the Incarnation is not merely a rescue operation. The Word becoming flesh is not only God revealing himself to us, forgiving us and bestowing his mercy upon us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, though it certainly includes all those things. The Incarnation is also God revealing himself to us, opening his heart to us and saying, “You belong in here. My heart is your home. Let us become one.” Or as Jesus prays to the Father in the Gospel of John, “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23).
The Incarnation is not merely a rescue operation.
If this then is what divinization tells us about the Incarnation what can it reveal to us about our life? Divinization reveals to us that in everything that happens to us in this life, whether it be good or bad, joyful or sorrowful, or whether it is successful or even a failure, God desires to use everything for our transformation, i.e., our divinization, since “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Romans 8:28). There is no other purpose or plan for our life than this. This is how passionate God is about us and is yet another example of how much God loves us because he doesn’t want us to simply admire him from a distance. Rather, he calls us in and through our life into his very life, fulfilling his own words to us: “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you” (John 14:18).
To understand the reality of divinization more deeply let us take an example from our life in this world. A few years ago, a very beloved married couple whom I had known my whole life died three months apart from each other. Joseph was 90 years old and Helen 91 when they died. They got married when they were 20 years old. During their 70 years of marriage, they encountered much joy and sorrow, and through it all Joseph and Helen grew in love and in holiness together. Whenever I would be at home with my family, I would always make sure I would spend one afternoon visiting them for a few hours. Most of the visit consisted of us sitting outside on their porch and me listening intently to their stories, which were filled with much wisdom regarding life and God.
As soon as you walked into their home and into their living room, there was a picture of Joseph and Helen on their wedding day. A few inches next to that picture was a photo of when their first child Danielle was born. After that photo was another one of when their second child was born and then their third child. Following these were pictures of Joseph and Helen with each of their children when they graduated high school, then college, then when each of their children got married and when they became grandparents. As I would follow the sequence of pictures there was something very fascinating that I would notice.
When Joseph and Helen first got married both their personality and their physical features were very distinct. Joseph had brown hair and brown eyes. He was very tall and outgoing. Helen had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was of medium height and a little more reserved than Joseph. However, as you followed the pictures throughout their marriage in chronological order, you could notice that over the years Joseph and Helen were becoming more and more one, both in their personality and even in their physical features. As time went on and they began to live life more deeply together, they began to look more alike, and you could notice in the pictures that they were even acting more and more like each other over the years. This was evidenced by the fact that they older they got they almost smiled and posed the same way in the pictures.
The more time I spent with them together the more I realized that they even began to speak like each other, so much so that they could always finish each other’s sentences. Towards the end of their life when I was visiting them, it was kind of difficult to know who was who! Obliviously, they still had their unique distinctions, but they were so unified externally and internally, that I felt like if I was talking to Joseph, I was also talking to Helen, even if she wasn’t in the room and vice-versa.
So, how did this unity between Joseph and Helen occur? They became one by simply sharing life together and by allowing everything that happened to them in life, whether it was good, bad, beautiful, or ugly to draw them closer together. Hence, their life as it really was, was not an obstacle to their union, and neither is our life, as it really is, an obstacle to our union with God. In a similar fashion, we become divinized, or one with God, by sharing life with Him and allowing everything that happens to us to draw us closer to Him.
When we see a photo of or hear a holy person speak, what we ultimately see and hear in that person is their own divinization to varying degrees. What makes that holy person interesting or attractive, is Jesus in them. Yes, you see and hear the saint’s particular personality and their unique physical features, but it is ultimately Jesus that you see and hear. This is why when a saint, such as St. Teresa of Calcutta or St. John Paul II would go somewhere and speak or just simply walk through the streets, people would begin to weep and experience conversion because Jesus was alive in them and the people could both see him and hear him in them.
Unfortunately, when many people look at pictures of themselves over the years, they often say things like, “Oh no, my hair is getting grey…I gained weight…or I have wrinkles.” The ultimate question to ask ourselves when we see pictures of ourselves is this: “Is Jesus becoming more visible in me as the years go on, regardless of my grey hair, weight, and wrinkles.” After all, Jesus is not confined to youth! Like Joseph and Helen on their wedding day, when we are younger, especially in our various vocations, there is much of us in those pictures. Hopefully, over time as we respond more deeply to the words of St. John the Baptist, that Jesus must increase and I must decrease (John 3:30), Jesus becomes more visible in us and the two of us, Jesus and me, become more one. This is divinization and it is God’s will for each one of us.
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Image courtesy of Unsplash.
