Now Playing at Pontifications

There is an interesting selection from the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes on display at Pontifications. In this passage we hear that

In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear.

This is a fascinating idea to me--I have blogged several times on the my suspicion that all of creation is shot through with meaning in a way that is commonly overlooked. In referring to humanity itself as a kind of mystery in this sense, Gaudium et Spes reminds us that the real significance of what the Greek philosophers called ta onta (literally, "the beings", "the things that are/exist") can only be read with the help of the Magic Decoder Ring that is Revelation, and, in particular, that part of Revelation that is the Incarnation.