December 30
The Lord of all stooped down to our level
o prevent the
wickedness of men and women causing the entire race to be destroyed a second
time, one man was singled out. He was to be called the father of believers;
from him would issue both the promise of a kingdom and the seed of its
eternal king. Subsequently multiplied by the faith of the Gentiles, that
seed came to its term in Christ, who had appeared to the patriarchs and
was foreshadowed by the law. After speaking through the prophets, he came
in person to fulfill both law and prophecy, bringing the remedy by his
grace that the prescriptions of the law had been powerless to confer, since
by that time sin had so infected the whole body, that is to say the entire
human race, that the disease was now too firmly entrenched for cure; it
was beyond all human remedy.
And so, conforming himself to our humble bodily condition in order to
form us afresh on the model of his own glorified body, there came the one
who is to come again. He came in person, because only the craftsman is
master of his work, only the potter has the right to decide what to make
of his clay.
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from
Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
HTML text prepared by David P. Steelman
