Chapter 5: Of the redemption of the human race by the mystery of the Incarnate Word

I BLESS You, and give thanks to You, my Lord and my God, Creator and Redeemer of the human race, for Your exceeding great love in willing that man,whom you had wonderfully created, should be still more wonderfully redeemed. For it was when we were yet yours enemies, and death had long tyrannized over all the human race, that You did call to mind Your rich mercies, and from the place of Your habitation in glory, did look down upon this vale of tears and wretched.

It was when You had seen that the affliction of Your people was great upon the earth, and that the burden of the sons of Adam was grievous to be borne, that, inwardly moved by the tenderness of Your charity, You did set Yourself to think in our behalf thoughts of Redemption and of peace.

For, when the fullness of time was come, You Yourself, the Dayspring from on high, did come to visit us, and did fulfil the desires of the prophets by taking upon Yourself our Flesh, and appearing among men true God and true man.

I bless and praise You, Jesus Christ, our Saviour, for Your exceeding great humility in deigning to choose for Your Mother a poor young maiden, and for causing her to be espoused to the poor carpenter Joseph, a just and holy man.

I bless You for making known Your most illustrious Incarnation, and for the reverent angelic greeting, with which the Angel Gabriel most devoutly saluted the ever-blessed Virgin Mary, making known to her the Divine Mystery that she should be the Mother of the Son of God.

I praise and magnify You for the grandeur of the faith of Mary the Virgin, for the courage of her assent, for the lowliness of her reply, and for all the other virtues which she so conspicuously displayed, when she made her obedient answer to the angel's message in the words: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to Your word."

I praise and glorify You, O Eternal Wisdom of the Father, for the marvellous condescension of Your unapproachable Majesty in entering the vile prison of our mortal frame, and for Your most pure Conception, by the operation of the Holy Ghost upon Mary; in whose virgin womb the Power of the most Highest, overshadowing her, formed Your most sacred Body from the undefiled flesh of a pure virgin. For You, being at the same time true God, consubstantial with the Eternal Father, were made one flesh with us, without spot of sin, to make us one spirit with You, through the adoption of the sons of God.

I praise and magnify You for voluntarily emptying Yourself of Your fullness, and for graciously taking upon Yourself our weak and degraded nature, capable of suffering and of death; that so You might fill us by emptying Yourself, might save us by Your sufferings, might raise us by Your lowliness, might strengthen us by Your weakness, and by Your death might bring us to a glorious immortality.

I praise and magnify You, for that You, Whose Divine nature knows neither times nor seasons, but Who have ordered all things here below in their season and time, did Vouchsafe to dwell for nine long months within the narrow limits of a virgin's womb, and to lie hid there as a babe waiting for the due time of his birth.

O the gracious and most wondrous condescension of Him, Who, though God of boundless glory, did not think scorn of becoming a contemptible worm; and Who, though He had created all things by His own mere Will, yet, to free us from them, was ready to take upon Himself our sorrows!

O most sweet Jesus, You Brightness of the Eternal Glory, the lower You have made Yourself, by taking upon You our nature, the more exalted do You appear to me in Your Goodness; the viler You have made Yourself for me, the dearer have You become to me.