This week, the Creed moves from talking about who the Son is to what the Son has done for humanity.

For us men and for our salvation
(Qui propter nos hómines et propter nostram salútem)
The Creed tells us that the Son had a reason for all that he was to do: that it was for humanity and for our salvation. The motivation for all of his saving actions that we are going to hear is us. Specifically: the dominion of evil which had been established on this earth when Adam and Eve fell and turned to the devil instead of God was not part of God’s plan for us. When the free will of Adam and Eve condemned humanity to everlasting sin, God responded with a plan: “I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in ambush at her heels.” (Genesis 3:15, Knox translation) We will hear more about this plan later.

he came down from heaven,
(descéndit de cælis.)
Because the Son has existed for all eternity with the Father, we say that he “came down” from Heaven to enter the material universe. He has to somehow contain his infinity. St. Paul uses the term “kenosis”, usually translated as “self-emptying”, to describe what the Son does in order to come down from Heaven. The best insight into what it means for the Son to “come down from heaven” comes from St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians, where we encounter what is called the Kenotic Hymn:

Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
(Philippians 2:7-8; the full hymn is 2:6-11)

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
(Et incarnátus est de Spíritu Sancto ex María vírgine,)
At Latin Mass, we genefluct at this point, until we complete saying “et homo factus est.” At English Mass, we make a profound bow most days and genuflect on the Annuciation and Christmas at this same point. This fact that we change our posture for these words tells us that they are important.

This line of the Creed, in particular, tells us the source of Christ’s flesh: Mary. While his spirit was of God, his flesh was of Mary. This is the most supreme honor of our race: that God has taken on human flesh. This event is commemorated in the liturgy every year on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, which is March 25^th^.

and became man.
(et homo factus est.)
The Word received his human flesh from the Blessed Virgin Mary, but the wonders of the Incarnation go much further. When God became man, he expanded human nature. He showed humanity that we have the potential within us not only to follow and to love Him, but that we can live in communion with him. Human nature is capable of union with God, and, in fact, flourishes when it is union with God. We can easily understand that Jesus was fully God, all of his miracles and great teachings demonstrate this, but it is much more challenging for us to accept that Jesus was also fully human. He had a mind and a will like ours in all things but sin. He showed us what we have the capacity to be if we allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s grace. So many of the challenges to the faith of the early Church, challenges that remain, stem from humanity’s struggle to accept this one teaching: God became man. Jesus was both fully God and fully human. Any miracle that he did can be done by us through the grace of God. In fact, we hear of the apostles doing these things in the Acts of the Apostle: they rose the dead, healed the sick, and comforted the poor.

No other religion on this planet proposes what Christianity does: that God had the humility to become man and did so in order for man to be welcomed into heaven. This is utterly revolutionary. Not even the Jewish faith believed this. This mystery of Christianity is so utterly profound that people can spend their entire life pondering just this mystery of our faith.