Divinization, Becoming Like God, Begins at Baptism

Divinization, becoming like God, begins at baptism. It is the true goal of being a Christian. The Bible says that we are the adopted sons and daughters of God.  The significance of this is staggering.  Jesus is the King of Kings, and if we become His sons and daughters, then we are like Princes and Princesses in the Kingdom of God.  And while that is truly a wonderful thing, it gets even better for those who make it to heaven.

Partakers of the Divine Nature

St. Athanasius once said that God became man, so that man could become God. What he meant by that, of course, is that man does not become another person of the Trinity. Rather, it means that man will become divinized in the Kingdom of God, or, as St. Peter says in 2 Peter 1:4, “to become partakers of the divine nature.” The purest and best example of this, of course, is the blessed Virgin Mary, who became one with God while on earth – fully one with God the Father at birth (Immaculately conceived), fully one with the Holy Spirit at the Incarnation, and fully one with God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit  after the Incarnation.  And because she was totally united with God, she remained sinless her whole life – otherwise, she would not be totally united with the Divine.  In other words, just like a metal alloy composed of two different substances becomes a stronger new metal (i.e., zinc and copper become brass), Mary became a whole new creation by being fully united with God. It’s important to remember, however, that what God accomplishes through His very nature, Mary only accomplishes through her intercession and God’s grace.

In a similar, but less unitive way, we too become one with God after Holy Communion (to “commune” means to “become one with,” as in “communing with nature”). But since we are not totally filled with grace as Mary was, we do commit sin from time to time, which can be overcome many times through the sacrament of confession. Think of the confessional box like it is the tomb of Jesus, that is, you go in dead with your sins, and come out alive with absolution and grace.

The Divinization Process

This divinization process started at our Baptism, when the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to live in us.  During this sacrament, we go from being pagans to becoming Christian, by the power of the Holy Spirit. For most of us this unity with God begins when we are infants, but it can happen even earlier!  In the bible (Luke 1:41), the Holy Spirit even divinized John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth, when he leapt for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice, thus fulfilling the earlier prophecy of Luke, that “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15).“

When we receive our first communion, our deification continues, since we are consuming the spiritual AND physical (transubstantiated) body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. We become like another Mary then, as she also had the Body of Christ within her.  The more we desire Christ to take over our lives, and the more we trust in Him, the more powerful this sacrament operates within us.  If we just receive Communion out of force of habit, or in a state of mortal sin, its power is either weakened or totally negated, not by God’s actions, but by our lukewarmness towards Him.

This divinization process continues later, when we receive the sacrament of Confirmation, and we accept the Holy Spirit in our lives in order to make us soldiers for Christ. The more united with Christ we are at that time, the stronger the Spirit works in each one of us. There are different strengths of the Holy Spirit, as seen in the Bible, where many were initiated into Christianity with a very quiet Baptism. But then there was also Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit appeared as tongues of fire, and with a mighty wind.  And while the Holy Spirit rarely appears like that today, He can and does come into our bodies and ignites our souls with a great fervor to overcome sin and to do the will of God.  All we have to do is to desire it and to pray for it!  The Bible says in Acts 1:8 that there is power in the reception of the Holy Spirit!

The Mass

At each and every Mass, the priest prays for our divinization, with the words:

“By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

So just as Jesus is a God-man, fully divine and fully human, we who partake of His sacred body and precious blood in the Eucharist are given the opportunity to become like Him, a kind of divinized human.  We know this from the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:17:

“But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”

Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive Way

So what is the process, other than receiving the sacraments frequently, in becoming like God?

The first step is called the Purgative Way.  This is basically Catholicism for beginners, or the infant stage. This is basically when you are taught the faith, you say your morning and evening prayers, you go to Church on Sunday, and, in most cases, you make peace with the world around you, blending in so that no one knows you are a Christian.  Occasionally you watch a TV show or a movie that you know has bad things in it, you sometimes carouse, occasionally tell a dirty joke or two, and basically become a “good old boy Catholic.”  You figure that since you don’t commit adultery or kill anyone, then your salvation is assured.  Some people never leave this stage, because it seems right to live in the world as it is, and not to have people make fun of you because you really love Jesus and His Church.

The second step is called the Illuminative Way, or the teenage stage. This is where a little light bulb goes off in your head that says that there is much more to life than sex, money, pleasure, power, booze, etc.  The light bulb may have been turned on by a life-shattering event in your life, like a death in the family, a jilted love affair, or the loss of a job and its huge income. Now, you start to take your faith a lot more seriously, and you realize that one day you will die and come face to face with Jesus, who has the power to cast you into the fires of hell forever.  You begin to realize that your former go-along-to-get-along life which was a mixture of 90% worldliness and 10% Catholicism just isn’t cutting it anymore. You look around and see that your family isn’t full of love for the faith, for you, and for each other. Your conscience then tells you that it’s no wonder they’re like that, since you failed to set the example of being a St. Joseph-like father, or a Virgin Mary-like mother (meek, humble, chaste, forgiving, self-sacrificing, prayerful, teaching them about the faith, etc.). Your prayer life thus begins to become more personal with God, speaking to Him from the heart. You start to learn about the benefits of meditating on scripture through the power of the rosary. Daily Mass and even occasional Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament start to become part of your routine activities. Going to confession more than once a year now becomes a necessity in your life. You now begin to realize that the Eucharist IS the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, and that the Mass is the most powerful and wonderful thing on earth. You struggle mightily with overcoming your sinful ways, which is very painful at first. You even pick up your bible and start to actually read it AND to study it. And when you see the beggar at the street corner, you reach into your wallet and give him a few dollars, for the first time in your life.

The third and final step in the divinization process is called the Unitive Way, which is the adult stage. This is when you and the Lord  Jesus Christ are now totally united in mind and spirit. Very few people reach this stage here on earth. However, everyone who goes to heaven will reach this stage; if not here, then in purgatory, where the worldliness of man is burned off, like the dross of gold and silver in the fire. During the silver refining process, the silversmith keeps the fire at just the right temperature to burn off all of the impurities in it. If it’s too hot or too cold, the silver will not come out bright and shiny.  And how long does he keep the fire burning?  Until he can see a perfect reflection of himself in the silver! This analogy perfectly describes the Unitive Way.

Some have compared the transition phase of going from the Purgative Way to the Illuminative Way as being like Jesus in the desert for 40 days – hungry, abandoned, arid, and undergoing many demonic temptations. After all, the devil had you in his grip for many years, and now he doesn’t want to lose you. So he sends you many trials, to make you think that it was much easier before you started on the journey of the Illuminative Way. After all, look at the atheists down the street who live in a big home, who party all the time, drive a big car, and go on lots of nice vacations all of the time.  They don’t believe in God, and they seemingly don’t struggle with anything, like you do. But this is all demonic smoke and mirrors, because those people down the street are being blessed now, in their huge mansion on earth. The Catholic goal, of course, is to be blessed later on in heaven, with a huge mansion built specifically for you, by Jesus, the world’s greatest carpenter!

The transition phase from the Illuminative Way to the Unitive Way is even tougher, because it is akin to Jesus’ suffering on the cross.  Why? Because to be totally united to Jesus and His teachings, one must jettison totally from his mind all thoughts of the carnal allurements of the world; love God more than anything on this earth; be totally forgiving to EVERYONE;  be 100% meek, pure and chaste; and to really desire to be with Jesus in the next life. That is tough to accomplish, because then, like Paul, you have to prefer death to living in this world.  This way of thinking is rare, to say the least, as most people prefer to hang on to this life as long as they can, as comfortably as possible, as if that was the goal of this life. But those who progress to the Unitive Way remember the simplicity of the old Baltimore Catechism, which very plainly stated that the goal of this life is to “Know God, to love God, and to serve God in this life, in order to be happy with Him in the next life.” Yes, that message, a lot of us learned as kids. is really the secret of success in life.

So how does one start on this spiritual journey? It’s as simple as consecrating yourself to Jesus through Mary.  Why? Because at Fatima, Mary promised us all, that in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph. So consecrate yourself as soon as possible to Jesus, through her, because as God descended down to earth through Mary, we can ascend up to God through her Immaculate Heart!  The great news is that you will feel like a new person with this chaste and pure heart transplant!