Q&A: The Incarnation is the Compendium of All Mysteries?

The Incarnation . .  From All Other Mysteries Flow

A man and wife, married only about a year, were involved in a serious car accident. The husband was unhurt. The wife was a permanent cripple from the neck down. Not even a year after the accident, the husband ‘reluctantly’ divorced his wife, saying: “I never bargained for something like this!”

The husband apparently did not understand – or would not accept – his commitment at his marriage. When a couple says “Yes” to each other on their wedding day, they are also saying “Yes” to everything which flows from the marriage: the children, the joys, the sufferings. That young husband had already said “Yes” to his paraplegic wife; he did so at his wedding – the beginning of his marriage.

The Beginning is Never the First Point of a Series of Moments

Philosophers tell us that the “beginning” is never the first point of a series of further moments in time. Rather, the beginning contains what follows and is the never-to-be-repealed law that governs everything flowing from it (like the beginning of a human being, the first moment of conception). If I step into a commercial jet leaving for Europe, that first step “contains” everything which springs from it; the fatigue, the annoyances of a seven hour overnight flight, plus the joy of arriving at my destination. The Yes of our baptism, is in itself a Yes to everything which flows from it; the crosses, the joys, the struggles of being a follower of the Lord.

The Incarnation is the “the first mystery of Jesus Christ”.  (TD 248). All mysteries of salvation are contained in this compendium of salvation history, this beginning;  the Incarnation. “It is in this mystery that he has wrought all the other mysteries of his life by the acceptance which He made of them. ‘When He comes into the world, He says . . . Behold, I come to do Your Will, O God’ [Heb 10:5-9]. Hence this mystery is an abridgment of all mysteries and contains the will and the grace of all”. (TD 248). Therefore, the miracles, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the death/Resurrection, the Church, the Sacraments, all grace, are rooted and contained in the Incarnation.

“The plan adopted by the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity in the Incarnation, the first coming of Jesus Christ, is adhered to each day in an invisible manner throughout the Church and they will pursue it to the end of time until the last coming of Jesus Christ.”