The Bond That Unites Us.

Now Christ became like one of us; he sprang from the holy Virgin like a spike of wheat from the ground. Indeed, he spoke of himself as a grain of wheat when he said, I tell you truly, if a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains as it was, a single grain; but if it dies its yield is very great. And so, like a sheaf of grain, the firstfruits, as it were, of the earth, he offered himself to the Father for our sake.

For we do not think of a spike of wheat, any more than we do of ourselves, in isolation. We think of it rather as part of a sheaf, which is a single bundle made up of many spikes. The spikes have to be gathered into a bundle before they can be used, and this is the key to the mystery they represent, the mystery of Christ who, though one, appears in the image of a sheaf to be made up of many, as in fact he is. Spiritually, he contained in himself all believers. As we have been raised up with him, writes St. Paul, so we have also been enthroned with him in heaven [Eph 2:6]. He is a human being like ourselves, and this has made us one body with him, the body being the bond that unites us. We can say, therefore, that in him we are all one, and indeed he himself says to God, his heavenly Father: It is my desire that as I and you are one, so they also may be one in us [cf. Jn 17:21].

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Numbers. Taken from Give Us This Day.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) is a Doctor of the Church and one of the most important theologians of the early Church. He insisted that there is an inseparable unity between the divine and human natures of Christ, and that through our kinship with Christ we become children of God.