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Effigy of Sainte Louise de Marillac at Rue du Bac, Paris France

" The Son of God took a human body in the womb of the Blessed Virgin in a state of innocence more perfect than that of the first man. This action was sufficient to satisfy divine justice for the disobedience of our first parents and to reveal to us the truth of the plan of God expressed in the words, “My delight is to be with the children of men.”

   Nevertheless, this did not satisfy His great love for us. He desired an inseparable union of divine nature with human nature. He accomplished this after the Incarnation by the admirable institution of the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in which the fullness of the divinity dwells continually in the Second Person of the most Blessed Trinity. This union is a means for uniting the Creator to His creature. However, all do not participate in this mystery because free will enables man to bring about his own damnation by following his evil inclinations and the temptations of the devil, or to earn his salvation by grace which applies to him the merits of the Son of God.

  We have reason to believe that the assurance which Our Lord gave us that He would always be with us was designed to sanctify souls by means of this continual, albeit invisible, presence and by the application of the merits of His actions to those of His creatures. Our Lord does this either by asking pardon of His Father so as to wash away the sins which we have committed in opposition to the virtues which He Himself practiced, or by rendering the virtuous deeds which men accomplish by the power of His grace pleasing to God by uniting them to His meritorious actions. It seemed to me that it is in this way that the holy humanity of Our Lord is continually present to us. He is among us by the application of His merits and by the sanctification of souls. His presence is like air without which the soul is lifeless. It is thus that I see the Redemption of men in the Incarnation and their sanctification by means of this union of man with God in the person of His Son and by this continual presence, whereby His merits are applied to each soul joined to the personal union of a God to man. All of nature is thereby honored since it causes God to see His image in all mankind, if it has not been disfigured by the refusal of the application of the merits of His Son which sin alone can effect.

  This thought came to me after a long period during which I prayed for a great love for the humanity of Our Lord as a means for moving me to practice His virtues especially gentleness, humility, forbearance and love of my neighbor in order to overcome the sins which I so often commit against them."

Source: Spiritual writings of Louise de Marillac : correspondence and thoughts