Advent Greetings to you all!! Today we officially begin our journey towards the great celebration of the Birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. The first candle is lit and we pray that the Lord will fill our lives with light as we journey together over the coming weeks. Part three of our series of reflections on the Eucharist focuses on humility...
‘Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, He emptied Himself, taking the form of
a servant, being born in the likeness of people. And being found in human form,
he humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross’(Phil
2:6-11).
This is the great mystery of our faith. Jesus Christ, Son of
God, takes on flesh and humanity and so becomes bound by the cycle of human life from birth to death. Christ truly God and
truly human entered fully into our existence and experience and therefore
becomes a God that truly knows us. Francis marvelled at this and rejoiced in it
too.
He writes in his Letter to the Entire Order ‘The Lord of the
Universe, God and Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation he
hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility
of God, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be
exalted by Him! Hold back nothing for yourselves, that He who gives Himself
totally for you may receive you totally! (27-30).
As a Franciscan, I cannot read these words without being
moved and changed by them. Their beauty lies in their simplicity. These are the
words of somebody who understood, at the deepest levels, what Christ did for
us, the lengths he went to in order to reach us where we are and how He
continues to do this everyday, through the Eucharist.
Christ’s humility, Francis tells us, calls us in turn to
humility. We should humble ourselves before God and each other, taking the form
of a servant. In giving of ourselves to God and our Brothers and Sisters, we
receive. This is the life blood of Christianity. As we celebrate the Eucharist
together, we do so in harmony and solidarity with all of Creation. We can, if
we turn our minds to it, carry the weight of the world to the altar and offer
it, along with ourselves, to God. This is our call.
Let us pray that over these days of Advent, that we
may be given the grace of humility. That we may begin to move towards seeing
our Brothers and Sisters as Christ sees them and that we may never be afraid to
go and meet them, where they are, just as Christ meets us where we are. Through
the Eucharist may we be unified with Christ and with one another.
Pax
Br Martin
