Echoes of the Spirit

The Lord of Heaven entered the fallen world where man was lost and ‘stumbling upon the dark mountains’. The path of Christ in the world was a way of suffering.

Our Great and Almighty God became a vulnerable infant laid in a manger of dumb beasts. He became weak to draw near to us, to heal us and save us. An ancient prophecy of Christ is given by the patriarch Jacob: ‘Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.’ This prophesies the great self-emptying of the Lord of glory, to condescend from His ineffable and incomprehensible Divine nature, and to unite Himself with human nature, to become flesh and blood.

The Lord Almighty, the King of creation, was born a defenceless child under the threat of death by a worldly king: ‘Herod was overcome with wrath, mothers were bereft of their infants by an untimely death.’ Together with Herod, Jerusalem, the City of God, was ‘breathing threats and murder’. The Lord spoke about it with great pain before His Passion: ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!’

At the holy Nativity, we see the infinite magnitude of the kenosis and humility of Christ. Yet, why did God choose this way to approach man? He came with great reverence for His creature, whose likeness He would assume. By His almighty power, He could have compelled us all to follow Him. Yet in His unfathomable wisdom, He preferred to become a vulnerable child and draw us to Himself by His humble love.

— Excerpt from: Echoes of the Spirit • Humility: The Extreme Trial, The Time for the Lord to Act (p. 39-41)

The perfection of the way of the Lord was foreknown when He was born in Bethlehem and the angels said to the shepherds, ‘This shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes?’ The binding of the infant from the beginning was interpreted by the Fathers as the sign of the Cross that the Lord would endure for the salvation of man. It prefigured the binding of the Lord in graveclothes when they sealed Him in the tomb.

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The binding of the infant with swaddling bands prefigures the mystery of the Cross of Christ and should render in us the mystery of continual deadening. That is, we must go through a deadening of the passions of the old man which is symbolised by the swaddling clothes of the infant in the cradle. It is as if the Church is telling us, now is the time to prepare yourself a new garment, a spotless raiment that will allow you to enter the Bridal Chamber of Christ.

Of course, we men find it difficult to humble ourselves and to surrender all our privileges and desires to the will of God. We are full of our evil self which separates us from God and from other men. We are always reluctant to accept the pain, the afflictions and the swaddling clothes that constrain and bind us and hold us captive and crucified for God.

— Excerpt from: Echoes of the Spirit • Humility: The Extreme Trial, The Time for the Lord to Act (p. 41, 43)