Tuesday, March 29 : Saint Leo the Great

Human lowliness was taken by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our fallen state, nature which was inviolable was united with a nature which was passible. Thus, in accordance with our needs, “one and same mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1Tim 2,5) was able to die in the one nature and incapable of death in the other. True God, then, was born in the complete and perfect nature of true man… He took the form of a servant without stain of sin. He enhanced our humanity but did not thereby diminish his divinity. By emptying himself (Phil 2,7) the invisible one made himself visible. The Lord and Creator of all things willed to be one with mortal men, but this was a bending down in pity not a failure of power… Begotten into a new order by a new birth… he was in his own nature invisible, but was made visible in ours; he is incomprehensible yet he willed to be comprehended; enduring before time began, he began to be in time. The Lord of the universe took on the form of a slave (Phil 2,7), veiling his infinite majesty. The God who cannot suffer did not disdain to be a man who can, and, immortal though he is, to subject himself to the laws of death. For he who is true God is also true man… He is true God insofar as “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; and he is man insofar as “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1,1.14).

maronite readings – rosary,team