Advent Meditation~By St. Alphonsus de Liguori (December 19)

[Dawn Marie]

THE MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH

THE INCARNATION

Discourse by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

December 19, 2014

Discourse 20

In the fables of the pagans, it is related that the god Hercules, for the love which he bore to the king Augea, undertook to tame his horses, and that the god Apollo, out of love for Admetus, kept his flocks for him.

 

These are inventions of imagination, but it is of faith that Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, for the love of men, humbled Himself to be born in a stable, and to lead a contemptible life, and in the end to die by the hands of executioners on an infamous gibbet. “O grace! O power of love!”, exclaims St. Bernard, “didst Thou, the Most High, become the lowest of all!”  O the strength of Divine Love!, the greatest of all has made Himself the lowest of all!  “Who did this?”, rejoins St. Bernard. “It was love, regardless of its dignity. Love triumphs over God.”  Love does not consider dignity, when there is question of gaining for itself the person it loves. God, who can never be conquered by any one, has been conquered by love, for it was that love that compelled Him to make Himself man, and to sacrifice Himself for the love of man in an ocean of sorrows and contempt.  “He emptied Himself,” concludes the holy Abbot, “that thou mayest know that it was through love that the Highest made Himself equal to thee.”  The Divine Word, who is majesty itself, humbled Himself so far as to annihilate Himself, that mankind might know how much He loved them.

 

Yes, says St. Gregory Nazianzen, because in no other way could He better show forth the Divine Love than by abasing Himself, and taking upon Himself the greatest misery and ignominy that men even suffer on this earth.  “God could not otherwise declare His love for us than by descending for our sakes to what was most low.”  Richard of St. Victor adds that man having had the boldness to offend the majesty of God, in order to expiate His guilt, the intervention of the most excessive humiliation was necessary:  “For the expiation of the highest to the lowest was necessary.”  St Bernard goes on to say, the more our God abased Himself, so much the more did He show forth His goodness and love:  “The lower He showed Himself to be in human nature, the greater did He declare Himself in goodness.”

 

Now, after a God has suffered so much for the love of man, will man have a repugnance to humble himself for the love of God?  “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Jesus Christ.”  He who is not humble, and who does not seek to imitate the humility of Jesus Christ, is not worthy of the name of Christian, for Jesus Christ, as St. Augustine says, came into the world in a humble way to put down pride. The pride of man was the disease which drew from Heaven this Divine Physician, which loaded Him with ignominies, and caused Him to die on the Cross. Let the proud man, then, at least be ashamed when he sees that a God so humbled Himself in order to cure him of pride:  “Because of this very vice of pride, God came in humility. This disease drew Him down from Heaven, humbled Him even to the form of a servant, overwhelmed with calumnies, hung Him upon the Cross. Blush, then, O man, to be proud, for whom God has become humble.”

 

And St. Peter Damian writes:  “To raise us, He lowered Himself.”  He chose to abase Himself, that He might raise us out of the mire of our sins, and might place us in the company of the angels in Heaven:  “Lifting up the poor out of the dunghill, that He may place him with the princes of His people.”  “His abasement in our exaltation.”  O the greatness of Divine Love!, exclaims St. Augustine. For the sake of a man, a God takes upon Himself contempt, that He may share His honor with man. He makes Himself familiar with grief and pain, that man may have salvation; he even suffers death, to obtain life for man.  “O wondrous condescension!, He comes to receive contempt, that He may confer honors; He comes to be satiated with grief, that He may give life.”