…by faith we know that God wants to share the communion of his trinitarian life with us. In other words, he wants to make us his sons and daughters\u2014in short, as the Christian tradition has not hesitated to say, his intimate friends. How better to accomplish this than by becoming one of us. While a shared human nature is fundamental to our relationships with others, it is only with particular human beings that we can have such relationships. Even a generous love for mankind as a whole is no substitute for knowing and loving particular people whom we can see, hear, address, touch, hold, and kiss. These people have names, they live somewhere, they have ethnic and social backgrounds, and so on. To bring us into the communion of trinitarian life, God first enters into the round of human existence and thus, as Aquinas loved to say, he adapts his action to our nature. He even has a mother whose \u201chand leaves his light \/ Sifted to suit our sight\u201d (G. M. Hopkins). At the same time, God adapts our nature to his. \u201cA Boy is born in Bethlehem,\u201d we sing, \u201cWherefore rejoice Jerusalem \/ The Father\u2019s Word on high doth take \/ A mortal form for mortals\u2019 sake \/ \u2026 He took our flesh, to man akin \/ In all things like us, save in sin \/ That he might make our mortal race, Alleluia \/ Like God and like himself by grace, Alleluia, alleluia\u201d (\u201cPuer Natus Est in Bethlehem\u201d). How could we share in the communion of trinitarian life if we were not made sharers\u2014\u201cpartakers\u201d\u2014of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)? Listen to St. Athanasius: \u201cthe Son of God became man so that we might become God\u201d.<\/p>\n