Tuesday, 11/6/12
Although November 6, 2012 might be significant for its
presidential election, it could be memorable as the day when we took Paul’s
prayer from the second chapter of Philippians, making it our own.
With Paul saying, “Let this mind be in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus,” he began by asking us to imitate Christ’s humility: by asking
us to consider the greatness Christ willingly gave up for us. Paul described how Christ, when he was in heaven before his
birth as a human, had equality with God within his grasp; but he threw that
prospect aside, emptying himself. (Saints have built their lives on Kenosis, Paul’s Greek word for emptied.)
Paul then used three parallel expressions for Christ lowering
himself. 1. He took on the form of a slave. 2. He came in human form. 3. He was
found in human appearance.
Next Paul commented on the obedience of Jesus. (It has us
recalling how Jesus said, “I came not to
do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”) His obedience extended
to his accepting an utterly degrading death nailed naked to a cross.
For Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night of Holy Week as
seminarians we sang, “Christ became obedient for us, obedient to death, even
death on a cross..” If you Google “Christus factus est pro nobis obediens,” You
can hear the way we sang it in Latin.
That Latin chant put us under the cross of Jesus. Then on
Saturday we concluded Paul’s hymn with “For this reason God has bestowed on him
a name that is above all names.” As we sang, “Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum” we made Easter official.
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