This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation." 150 "God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one"; 151 on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil. We ask him not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin. We are engaged in the battle "between Flesh and spirit"; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength.

The married couple forms "the intimate partnership of life and Love established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable perSonal consent." 146 Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are no longer two; from now on they form one Flesh. the covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble. 147 "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." 148

Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. the union of man and Woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the Flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his Father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 120 All human generations proceed from this union. 121

There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. the Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the Flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: "Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." 127

Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: "My heart and Flesh sing for joy to the living God." 46

The Love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses' community of perSons, which embraces their entire life: "so they are no longer two, but one Flesh." 151 They "are called to grow continually in their Communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving." 152 This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common Faith and by the Eucharist received together.

"Conjugal Love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the perSon enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one Flesh, leads to forming one heart and Soul; it demands indissolubility and Faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values." 150

The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." 126 This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one Flesh." 127

Holy Scripture affirms that man and Woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." 92 The woman, "Flesh of his flesh," i.e., his counterpart, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. 93 "Therefore a man leaves his Father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." 94 The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh." 95

In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and Blood of Christ, received at this moment of "passing over" to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of Resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: "He who eats my Flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." 140 The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father. 141

The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing 118 so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense Prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness," and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that "in my Flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church." 119

What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the Flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit," 226 preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum.

Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. the principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said: "He who eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me, and I in him." 223 Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me." 224

The Lord addresses an invitation to us, urging us to receive him in the sacrament of the Eucharist: "Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood, you have no life in you." 215

Incest designates intimate relations between relatives or in-laws within a degree that prohibits marriage between them. 180 St. Paul stigmatizes this especially grave offense: "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you . . . for a man is living with his Father's wife.... In the name of the Lord Jesus ... you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the Flesh...." 181 Incest corrupts family relationships and marks a regression toward animality.

The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reaSon - selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian - lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit. St. Paul directed a Christian master to treat his Christian slave "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beLoved brother, . . . both in the Flesh and in the Lord." 193

St. John distinguishes three kinds of covetousness or concupiscence: lust of the Flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. 300 In the Catholic catechetical tradition, the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another's goods.

"The kingdom of God (is) righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." 90 The end-time in which we live is the age of the outpouring of the Spirit. Ever since Pentecost, a decisive battle has been joined between "the Flesh" and the Spirit. 91

Finally, in Jesus the name of the Holy God is revealed and given to us, in the Flesh, as Savior, revealed by what he is, by his word, and by his sacrifice. 75 This is the heart of his priestly Prayer: "Holy Father . . . for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth." 76 Because he "sanctifies" his own name, Jesus reveals to us the name of the Father. 77 At the end of Christ's Passover, the Father gives him the name that is above all names: "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father." 78

Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his Prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time. the prayer of this hour fills the end-times and carries them toward their consummation. Jesus, the Son to whom the Father has given all things, has given himself wholly back to the Father, yet expresses himself with a sovereign freedom 46 by virtue of the power the Father has given him over all Flesh. the Son, who made himself Servant, is Lord, the Pantocrator. Our high priest who prays for us is also the one who prays in us and the God who hears our prayer.

In this Paschal and sacrificial Prayer, everything is recapitulated in Christ: 45 God and the world; the Word and the Flesh; eternal life and time; the Love that hands itself over and the sin that betrays it; the disciples present and those who will Believe in him by their word; humiliation and Glory. It is the prayer of unity.

Another temptation, to which presumption opens the gate, is acedia. the spiritual writers understand by this a form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart. "The spirit indeed is willing, but the Flesh is weak." 21 The greater the height, the harder the fall. Painful as discouragement is, it is the reverse of presumption. the humble are not surprised by their distress; it leads them to trust more, to hold fast in constancy.

Contemplative Prayer is a Communion of Love bearing Life for the multitude, to the extent that it consents to abide in the night of Faith. the Paschal night of the Resurrection passes through the night of the agony and the tomb - the three intense moments of the Hour of Jesus which his Spirit (and not "the Flesh [which] is weak") brings to life in prayer. We must be willing to "keep watch with (him) one hour." 14

Through his Word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal, our Prayer takes Flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer: "Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our Souls." 2

In Jesus "the Kingdom of God is at hand." 72 He calls his hearers to conversion and Faith, but also to watchfulness. In Prayer the disciple keeps watch, attentive to Him Who Is and Him Who Comes, in memory of his first coming in the lowliness of the Flesh, and in the hope of his second coming in Glory. 73 In Communion with their Master, the disciples' prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can one avoid falling into temptation. 74

Jesus often draws apart to pray in solitude, on a mountain, preferably at night. 46 He includes all men in his Prayer, for he has taken on humanity in his incarnation, and he offers them to the Father when he offers himself. Jesus, the Word who has become Flesh, shares by his human prayer in all that "his brethren" experience; he sympathizes with their weaknesses in order to free them. 47 It was for this that the Father sent him. His words and works are the visible manifestation of his prayer in secret.

The drama of Prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word who Became Flesh and dwells among us. To seek to understand his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to know how he hears our prayer.

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through Faith in Jesus Christ for all who Believe." 332 Henceforth, Christ's faithful "have crucified the Flesh with its passions and desires"; they are led by the Spirit and follow the desires of the Spirit. 333

The tenth commandment unfolds and completes the ninth, which is concerned with concupiscence of the Flesh. It forbids coveting the goods of another, as the root of theft, robbery, and fraud, which the seventh commandment forbids. "Lust of the eyes" leads to the violence and injustice forbidden by the fifth commandment. 318 Avarice, like fornication, originates in the idolatry prohibited by the first three prescriptions of the Law. 319 The tenth commandment concerns the intentions of the heart; with the ninth, it summarizes all the precepts of the Law.

Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the Flesh and disordered desires. With God's grace he will prevail - by the virtue and gift of chastity, for chastity lets us Love with upright and undivided heart; - by purity of intention which consists in seeking the true end of man: with simplicity of vision, the baptized perSon seeks to find and to fulfill God's will in everything; 312 - by purity of vision, external and internal; by discipline of feelings and imagination; by refusing all complicity in impure thoughts that incline us to turn aside from the path of God's commandments: "Appearance arouses yearning in fools"; 313 - by Prayer:

Because man is a composite being, spirit and body, there already exists a certain tension in him; a certain struggle of tendencies between "spirit" and "Flesh" develops. But in fact this struggle belongs to the heritage of sin. It is a consequence of sin and at the same time a confirmation of it. It is part of the daily experience of the spiritual battle:

Etymologically, "concupiscence" can refer to any intense form of human desire. Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of the human reaSon. the apostle St. Paul identifies it with the rebellion of the "Flesh" against the "spirit." 301 Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man's moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins. 302

The term "Flesh" refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality. 534 The "Resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal Soul will live on after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life again. 535

By her very mission, "the Church . . . travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the Soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God." 351 Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet Believe in Christ, 352 continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are "a sign of God's presence in the world," 353 and leads to the foundation of local churches. 354 It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take Flesh in each people's culture. 355 There will be times of defeat. "With regard to individuals, groups, and peoples it is only by degrees that [the Church] touches and penetrates them and so receives them into a fullness which is Catholic." 356

The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human perSon joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical Council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the Flesh animated by a rational Soul, Became man." 89 Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh." 90

The first heresies denied not so much Christ's divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian Faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God's Son "come in the Flesh". 87 But already in the third century, the Church in a Council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. the first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is "begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father", and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God "came to be from things that were not" and that he was "from another substance" than that of the Father. 88

Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian Faith: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the Flesh is of God." 85 Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings "the mystery of our religion": "He was manifested in the flesh." 86

Taking up St. John's expression, "The Word Became Flesh", 82 The Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul, the Church sings the mystery of the Incarnation:

The Word Became Flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": 78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into Communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." 79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." 80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." 81

The Word Became Flesh to be our model of holiness: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." 74 On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: "Listen to him!" 75 Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: "Love one another as I have loved you." 76 This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example. 77

The Word Became Flesh so that thus we might know God's Love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." 72 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever Believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." 73

The Word Became Flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who "Loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins": "the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world", and "he was revealed to take away sins": 70

Such is not the case for Simon Peter when he confesses Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God", for Jesus responds solemnly: "Flesh and Blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." 46 Similarly Paul will write, regarding his conversion on the road to Damascus, "When he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles..." 47 "and in the synagogues immediately [Paul] proclaimed Jesus, saying, 'He is the Son of God.'" 48 From the beginning this acknowledgment of Christ's divine sonship will be the centre of the apostolic Faith, first professed by Peter as the Church's foundation. 49

We Believe and confess that Jesus of Nazareth, born a Jew of a daughter of Israel at Bethlehem at the time of King Herod the Great and the emperor Caesar Augustus, a carpenter by trade, who died crucified in Jerusalem under the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of the emperor Tiberius, is the eternal Son of God made man. He 'came from God', 4 'descended from heaven', 5 and 'came in the Flesh'. 6 For 'the Word Became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his Glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. . . and from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.' 7

Man and Woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a Communion of perSons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one Flesh", 245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." 246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents co-operate in a unique way in the Creator's work. 247

God created man and Woman together and willed each for the other. the Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." 242 None of the animals can be man's partner. 243 The woman God "fashions" from the man's rib and brings to him elicits on the man's part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of Love and Communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and Flesh of my flesh." 244 Man discovers woman as another "I", sharing the same humanity.

"In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made Flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear." 224

When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come "from Flesh and Blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven". 24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and Believe the truth.'" 25

For a Christian, believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One he sent, his "beLoved Son", in whom the Father is "well pleased"; God tells us to listen to him. 18 The Lord himself said to his disciples: "Believe in God, believe also in me." 19 We can believe in Jesus Christ because he is himself God, the Word made Flesh: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known." 20 Because he "has seen the Father", Jesus Christ is the only one who knows him and can reveal him. 21

In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words: "Indeed the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the Flesh of human weakness, Became like men." 63

After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ's human nature a kind of perSonal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that "there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity." 93 Thus everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: "He who was crucified in the Flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of Glory, and one of the Holy Trinity." 94

Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical Council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made Flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. 110 Christ's human will "does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will." 111

Since the Word Became Flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ's body was finite. 112 Therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the seventh ecumenical Council (Nicaea II in 787) the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate. 113

"Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways." 325 The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, 326 "the first to hear the Word of God." 327 The Jewish Faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the Sonship, the Glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the Flesh, is the Christ", 328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable." 329

The Church is one because of her source: "the highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of PerSons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit." 259 The Church is one because of her founder: for "the Word made Flesh, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God by the cross, . . . restoring the unity of all in one people and one body." 260 The Church is one because of her "Soul": "It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who Believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful Communion of the Faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church's unity." 261 Unity is of the essence of the Church:

From the beginning, Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the Kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, joy, and sufferings. 215 Jesus spoke of a still more intimate Communion between him and those who would follow him: "Abide in me, and I in you.... I am the vine, you are the branches." 216 and he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours: "He who eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me, and I in him." 217

"At all times and in every race, anyone who fears God and does what is right has been acceptable to him. He has, however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness. He therefore chose the Israelite race to be his own people and established a covenant with it. He gradually instructed this people.... All these things, however, happened as a preparation for and figure of that new and perfect covenant which was to be ratified in Christ . . . the New Covenant in his Blood; he called together a race made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, not according to the Flesh, but in the Spirit." 201

On that day, the Holy Trinity is fully revealed. Since that day, the Kingdom announced by Christ has been open to those who Believe in him: in the humility of the Flesh and in Faith, they already share in the Communion of the Holy Trinity. By his coming, which never ceases, the Holy Spirit causes the world to enter into the "last days," the time of the Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated.

Jesus does not reveal the Holy Spirit fully, until he himself has been glorified through his Death and Resurrection. Nevertheless, little by little he alludes to him even in his teaching of the multitudes, as when he reveals that his own Flesh will be food for the life of the world. 110 He also alludes to the Spirit in speaking to Nicodemus, 111 to the Samaritan Woman, 112 and to those who take part in the feast of Tabernacles. 113 To his disciples he speaks openly of the Spirit in connection with Prayer 114 and with the witness they will have to bear. 115

In Mary, the Holy Spirit manifests the Son of the Father, now become the Son of the Virgin. She is the burning bush of the definitive theophany. Filled with the Holy Spirit she makes the Word visible in the humility of his Flesh. It is to the poor and the first representatives of the gentiles that she makes him known. 106

"God fashioned man with his own hands [that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit] and impressed his own form on the Flesh he had fashioned, in such a way that even what was visible might bear the divine form." 65

Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the Faith of many Believers. 573 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth 574 will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. the supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the Flesh. 575

Henceforth Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: "By 'the Father's right hand' we understand the Glory and honour of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he Became incarnate and his Flesh was glorified." 545

Christ's death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union his body retained with the perSon of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for "divine power preserved Christ's body from corruption." 470 Both of these statements can be said of Christ: "He was cut off out of the land of the living", 471 and "My Flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my Soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption." 472 Jesus' Resurrection "on the third day" was the proof of this, for bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death. 473

Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us. "By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man." 193 We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his Flesh as our model:

Mary is a virgin because her virginity is the sign of her Faith "unadulterated by any doubt", and of her undivided gift of herself to God's will. 168 It is her faith that enables her to become the mother of the Saviour: "Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the Flesh of Christ." 169

By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through Faith. "How can this be?" 165 Participation in the divine life arises "not of Blood nor of the will of the Flesh nor of the will of man, but of God". 166 The acceptance of this life is virginal because it is entirely the Spirit's gift to man. the spousal character of the human vocation in relation to God 167 is fulfilled perfectly in Mary's virginal motherhood.

From the first formulations of her Faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived "by the Holy Spirit without human seed". 146 The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says: You are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the Flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin,. . . he was truly nailed to a tree for us in his flesh under Pontius Pilate. . . he truly suffered, as he is also truly risen. 147

Called in the Gospels "the mother of Jesus", Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her Son, as "the mother of my Lord". 144 In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly Became her Son according to the Flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God" (Theotokos). 145

"It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made Flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature." 2