He Humbled Himself

"In the Cross of Christ, man is redeemed and Adam’s experience is reversed: Adam, created in the image and likeness of God, sought to be like God by his own strength, to put himself in God’s place, and thus did he lose the original dignity given him. Jesus, instead, was “in the condition of God”, but he humbled himself, he immersed himself in the human condition in total fidelity to the Father, in order to redeem the Adam within us and to restore to man the dignity he had lost. The Fathers emphasize that He became obedient, thus restoring to human nature, through his humanity and obedience, what had been lost through Adam’s disobedience.


"In prayer, in our relationship with God, we open our minds, hearts and wills to the action of the Holy Spirit in order to enter into this same dynamic of life. As St. Cyril of Alexandria affirms, whose feast we celebrate today: “The work of the Spirit seeks to transform us by means of grace into the perfect copy of his humiliation” (Festal Letter 10, 4). Human logic, instead, often looks for self-realization through power, domination, and powerful means. Man continues to want to construct the tower of Babel by his own power, in order to reach the heights of God unaided, to be like God. The Incarnation and the Cross remind us that full realization resides in conforming one’s human will to the Father’s, in being emptied of egoism in order to be filled with love, with the charity of God, and thus to become truly capable of loving others. Man does not find himself by remaining closed in within himself, by affirming himself. Man finds himself only by going out of himself; we only find ourselves if we go out of ourselves. And if Adam wanted to imitate God, this in itself was not bad, but he erred in his idea about God. God is not one who wills only greatness. God is love, who gives himself first in the Trinity, and then in creation. And to imitate God means going out of oneself; it means giving oneself in love." -- Pope Benedict XVI, in Wednesday's audience. (reported on ZENIT)

More on Prayer...

Benedict XVI said that prayer leads us to see God's merciful plan in the Church's journey.


"St. Ireneaus once said that, in the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit accustomed himself to being in man," the Pope noted. "In prayer we must accustom ourselves to being with God. This is very important, that we learn to be with God; in this way, we see that it is beautiful to be with him, which is redemption. [...] Prayer, as a way of 'accustoming oneself' to being together with God, produces men and women animated not by egoism, by the desire to possess, by the thirst for power, but by gratuity, by the desire to love, by the thirst to serve -- animated, that is, by God; and it is only in this way that we can bring light to the darkness of the world." -- from ZENIT, 6-21-12

Life of Prayer

"A life of prayer is necessary too, because the self-surrender, obedience and meekness of the Christian are born of love and lead to love.  And love leads to genuine concern for others and to mutual dealings, to meaningful conversation and to friendship.  The Christian life requires a constant dialogue with God, One and Three, and it is to this intimacy that the Holy Spirit leads us.

Union with the Cross there must be also...

We tell Our Lord that we do not want to rest content with the standard we have achieved in prayer...that with his grace and the protection of Our Lady we will not rest until we reach the goal which gives meaning to our life -- complete identification with Jesus Christ."  -- In Conversation With Christ, vol 3, pp. 594-5

The Cunning of Pride

"Deep within every human heart - unless it has been profoundly purified - there lurks a sly, unrecognized cunning, all too well skilled in self-deception and evasion.  This is the total adversary of belief.  It is the cunning of pride, of self-possession, of self-sufficiency.  To live fully out of our inheritance...strikes a deadly blow at human pride...

"Each of us has the choice either to live by faith or to live by 'flesh'.  To live by 'flesh' is to live within the limits of our own potential, within the limits of our our perception and understanding, according to how things seem and feel, according to our natural experience.  It is instinctive to live thus, taking for granted that our conscious experience is to be trusted, that it is the way things really are... We want to remain on this level because it is within our grasp...we are unaware of how much of our life is lived from self, relying on self and not on faith in the Son of Man. We cannot rid ourselves of this deeply rooted pride and self-possession by our own strength.  Only the Holy Spirit of the Crucified and Risen One can effect it, and this he is indeed always trying to do.  But we must recognize his work and respond 'Amen'."  --Sr. Ruth Burrows, OCD, quoted in Magnificat, p. 113-4

Prayer -- When You Can't....

"Our prayer...ought to express the feelings of a happy child who enjoys talking heart to heart with his father, and can throw himself into his father's arms with complete abandon.  Unfortunately, we are always poor sinners, and the knowledge of our wretchedness and unfaithfulness  may paralyze this filial affection, causing a certain fear to arise in our souls...especially when the soul is going through dark periods of struggle, temptations, and difficulties, all of which tend to throw it into agitation and confusion, impeding, in spite of its efforts, that confident outpouring of the heart which submerges all its worries in God.  Then one day, during prayer, the soul becomes recollected under the influence of a new light which drives away all fear, not a new thought, but an intimate realization of truth never before experienced:  God is my Father, I am His child.  It is the influence of the gift of piety, set in motion by the Holy Spirit."

"Come, Holy Spirit, be my interior Master...O Divine Spirit, pray then in me and through me.  I ought to think that it is You who are praying and praising God in me, even when weariness or aridity or distractions prevent me from being recollected.  I should remain, then, in a humble attitude of prayer, confident that You will draw from me the praise and glory which I do not know how to give, but which I desire to give to my God."  (Sr. Carmela of the Holy Spirit, OCD)
   ---from Divine Intimacy, #198