INCARNATION - Quotes of the Saints

The Incarnation is the central doctrine of Christianity; "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). God assumed our flesh, body, and soul in order to redeem us. The obligations imposed on humans by God's condescension are staggering. The elevation and healing of human nature are also implied. That which was made of earth can now pass, as Athanasius tells us, "through the gates of heaven."
JOHN VIANNEY

Who could find it hard to persevere at the sight of a God who never commands us to do anything which he has not practiced himself?
JOHN VIANNEY

Christ did not pass through the Virgin as through a channel, but truly took flesh and was truly fed with milk from her. He truly ate as we eat and drank as we drink. For if the incarnation was a figment then our salvation was a figment.
CYRIL OF JERUSALEM

Invisible in his own nature he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.
LEO THE GREAT

If you could see the sweet embrace of the Virgin and the woman who had been sterile and hear the greeting in which the tiny servant recognized his Lord, the herald his Judge, and the voice his Word, then I am sure you would sing in sweet tones with the Blessed Virgin that sacred hymn: My soul magnifies the Lord.
BONAVENTURE

He did submit himself unto the elements, unto cold and heat, hunger and thirst, and other insensible creatures, concealing His power and despoiling Himself thereof in the likeness of man, in order that He might teach us weak and wretched mortals with what patience we ought to bear tribulation.
BL. ANGELA OF FOLIGNO

He undertook to help the descendants of Abraham, fashioning a body for himself from a woman and sharing our flesh and blood, to enable us to see in him not only God, but also, by reason of this union, a man like ourselves.
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA

Christ is born that by his birth he might restore our nature. He became a child, was fed, and grew that he might inaugurate the one perfect age to remain forever as he created it. He supports man that man might no longer fall. And the creature he had formed of earth he now makes heavenly.
PETER CHRYSOLOGUS

Man's body has acquired something great through its communion and union with the Word. From being mortal it has been made immortal; though it was a living body it has become a spiritual one; though it was made from the earth it has passed through the gates of Heaven.
ATHANASIUS

Through Christ we see as in a mirror the spotless and excellent face of God.
CLEMENT OF ROME

The Word was not degraded by receiving a body, so that he should seek to"receive" God's gift. Rather he deified what he put on; and, more than that, he bestowed this gift upon the race of men.
ATHANASIUS

To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that is incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.
LEO THE GREAT