Monday, February 1, 2010

I have much to work on

I will be the first to admit that I struggle at daily prayer. Most nights I remember to pray before I go to sleep but once the alarm rings in the morning, I hit the ground running and I'm busy all day with my normal daily home and family commitments. I'm not too busy to pray, I just forget to make time for it. I need to change this. God is never too busy for me. I am challenging myself today to strengthen my daily prayer routine with the prayer below.

Christians believe that Jesus had a real human mother and was born fully human. We also believe He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, therefore He is also God. The union of these two natures, fully divine and fully human is called the Incarnation. One very special prayer I hope to make a daily habit is "The Angelus" which celebrates the Incarnation of the Lord. It can be prayed individually or with your family or others. Many people pray this prayer at 6 a.m. to commemorate Christ's resurrection, at 12 noon to honor Christ's passion and at 6 p.m to remember the Incarnation.

The Angelus

The Angel of the Lord declared to Mary
And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Behold the hand maid of the Lord
Be it done unto me according to Thy word.

Hail Mary . . .

And the Word was made Flesh
And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary . . .

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God
that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:

Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord.
Amen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Julie says, "The union of these two natures, fully divine and fully human is called the Incarnation."

Is this something you read in one of the *many* books you are reading?

I thought that the Incarnation meant the Word (Jesus = God) made flesh -- and that the union of Christ's two natures Divine/Man is the hypostatic Union.

Am I off on this, Julie?

Love to pray the Angelus. Ironically enough - the genesis of praying the Angelus comes from the Muslims - who pray several (three/four?) times a day. So, the Christians *adopted* to do this as well - then - voila! - the Angelus!

Kevin

Julie said...

Kevin, my wording for the most part comes from "Catholicism for Dummies" It says "The union of the two natures in the one divine person of Christ is called the Incarnation from the latin word caro meaning flesh. The Latin word Incarnatio or Incarnation in English translates to becoming flesh." This book also explains "Hypostatic Union" as a Doctrine of the church. It says "These two natures were hypostatically (from the Greek hypostasis, for person) united to the one divine person. Thus the Hypostatic Union, the name of the doctrine, explained about Jesus human nature, divine nature and as both God and man. The section on this explains those three things in more depth. Thanks for the prompt to look that up Kevin! As always you are teaching me brick by brick.

Anonymous said...

Good stuff.

Remember - Jesus *was not* a "human Person" (no, that is heresy).

He was a *Divine Person* with two natures - Divine and human.

Kev

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