"We sometimes reproach Christianity..."

... for not being effective enough, for not bringing about enough change in the world about us, and therefore for being inferior to other systems we see at work in the world. This criticism is valid. Beyond question, Christianity must become incarnate in the sense that it must penetrate the real world in which we live, and that we must be concerned with its temporal efficacy.

At the same time, we must not forget that this is merely the first step, that we must turn towards the world only in order to turn the world towards Christ, and that the Incarnation is the first stage of a process that is to reach fulfullment in the Transfiguration, that is, in the penetration of the world by the light of Christ. If we tarry too long on the first stage, the process will remain incomplete. In Christ, we find both movements. He became man, and fully, but in order to make us gods. Without the second part, the first would make no sense whatever.

Therefore, a spirituality of Incarnation is complete only if the Incarnation is the way to the Transfiguration, to deification.

— From "Incarnation and Transfiguration", in The Salvation of the Nations (Sheed & Ward, 1950), by Jean Danielou.

• The Transfiguration: Gospel to the Dead | Frank Sheed
• The Incarnation | Frank Sheed
• The Problem of Life's Purpose | Frank Sheed
• Jean Daniélou and the "Master-Key to Christian Theology" | Carl E. Olson
• Theosis: The Reason for the Season | Carl E. Olson
• The Dignity of the Human Person: Pope John Paul II's Teaching on Divinization in the Trinitarian Encyclicals | Carl E. Olson
• The Liturgy Lived: The Divinization of Man | Jean Corbon, O.P.