"Of all the works done by God in time and outside of Himself, the redemptive Incarnation of the Word is the greatest. It is the greatest because it has for end not a mere creature, however sublime, but God Himself, the eternal Word who, in time, assumed a human nature. It is the greatest because it is the supreme manifestation of the merciful love of God, and the work which above all others glorifies Him; and it glorifies Him precisely in reference to charity which is His very essence. It is also the greatest of His works because of the immense good it brings to mankind. The salvation, sanctification, and eternal happiness of the whole human race depend wholly upon the Incarnation of the Word, upon Jesus, the Incarnate Word. God the Father 'chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted . . . Who hath predestined us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself . . . In whom we have redemption . . . the remission of sins according to the riches of His grace . . . God hath quickened us together in Christ . . . and hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, through Christ Jesus' (Eph 1, 4.5.7 - 2,5.6). Jesus, the Incarnate Word, is the one source of our salvation and our sanctification. Without Him, man would not be able to call God by the sweet name of Father; he could not love Him as a son loves his father, nor could he hope to be admitted to His intimacy; there would be no grace, no Beatific Vision. Without Jesus, man would be imprisioned within the limits of a purely human life, deprived of every supernatural horizon, in time and in eternity."
From Divine Intimacy, Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.
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