This Advent, on each Sunday, we will take a look at Saint Augustine’s thoughts on the Incarnation contained in his Sermon 191. Go here to read the first part of the sermon and here to read the second part. In the third part of the sermon Augustine reminds us that the mission of Christ on Earth was to establish His Church:
The only-begotten Son of God deigned to take upon Himself a human nature drawn from a virgin so that He might thus link a spotless Church to Himself, its spotless Founder. In doing so He not only thought of virgins undefiled in body, but He also desired that, in that Church which the Apostle Paul calls a virgin, the minds of all should be undefiled. I betrothed you to one spouse, that I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ.’ The Church, therefore, imitating the Mother of her Lord in mind, though not in body, is both mother and virgin. Since the virginity of His Mother was in no way violated in the birth of Christ, He likewise made His Church a virgin by ransoming her from the fornication of demons. You holy virgins, born of her undefiled virginity, who, scorning earthly nuptials, have chosen to be virgins in the flesh, rejoice now and celebrate with all solemnity the fecundity of the Virgin on this day. The Lord was, indeed, born of a woman, but He was conceived in her without man’s co-operation. He who has offered to you this blessing of virginity to cherish did not deprive His Mother of that gift. Far be it that He who repairs in you the harm wrought by Eve should even in the slightest degree mar in His Mother Mary that virginity which you have prized.
No matter the travails of the Church on Earth she remains a Divine institution, something it is all too easy to forget and something we should always remember. Christ became one of us not just for one day but for all time.
