We are in darkness, now, until God becomes man. We look now, in this Little Lent, toward our Winter Pascha, toward the Nativity of God, when God became man to bring man to God. Let us prepare ourselves, fasting from food and from every passion. Let us meditate on the darkness of Death, the unknowable darkness of the heart, and that blessed darkness in which the Holy Trinity is the only and unapproachable Light.
We look to the Incarnation, as we follow the Gospel on our holy calendar, because He has become man for us, to make us God with Him. We can rejoice in the redemption of our nature, because he has united human nature to his divine nature, in perfect union and distinction. Let us each be united to Him also in person.
Let us now pursue our union with Him, our theosis, for each of us must be redeemed as persons and so become whole. God, by becoming man, has confronted each of us at the personal level, leaving us no recourse to neutrality nor safety. Either we turn away from the defining event in human history, the meaning of existence, choosing nonexistence, or else we respond to the Incarnation by seeking Him out as the Heaven that came down to earth.
— Catechetical Letter 12/14/2005