Incarnation, deification, theosis
Let us pray [(in silence) that we may grow into the life promised at Christmas]pause
O God,
you wonderfully created
and yet more wonderfully restored
the dignity of human nature;
grant that we may share the divine life
of your Son Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.
NZPB p. 557
Thomas Merton (Fr. Louis) was speaking to a group of his novices:
"There is only one thing for anybody to become in life.
There’s no point in becoming spiritual – the whole thing is a waste of time.
What you came here for is to become yourself, to discover your complete identity to be you.
But the catch is that of course our full identity as monks and Christians is Christ.
It is Christ in each of us…
I’ve got to become me in such a way that I am the Christ that can only be the Christ in me.
There is a Louis Christ that must be brought into existence and hasn’t matured yet. It has a long way to go."*
There is a Louis Christ (a Thomas Merton Christ), a you Christ, a me Christ - each one of us is called and graced to be our true self - the self that God has made us to be.
God has become what we are, what I am, so that I/we might become what God is (Irenaeus).
The collect is slightly stronger in the American BCP adding "grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ".
The collect comes from the Leonine sacramentary where it is the collect of the first Christmas Mass (1239). The Gelasian sacramentary moves it to be one of the Christmas prayers for Lauds or Vespers (27), and the Gregorian sacramentary has it as one of the "other prayers for the birthday of the Lord" (59).
In Celebrating Eucharist I have also placed it, as the American BCP has, as the collect concluding the first reading at the Easter Vigil. There I have restated it as:
Bounteous God,
you wonderfully created
and yet more wonderfully restored
the dignity of human nature;
grant that we may share the divine life
of the one who came to share our humanity,
Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen.
*The quote is from The Lure of Saints A Protestant Experience of Catholic Tradition by Jon M. Sweeney. Merton was talking to the novices in relation to William Faulkner’s (~1942) short story “the bear” - The story of a young man's development against a background of vanishing wilderness.