Dear Friends,

“And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death -
even death on the cross.”
[Philippians 2.8]

The hymn from Paul’s letter to
Philippians focuses on the process of kenosis
which is one of self-emptying. Emptying and
humility are central to the dynamic of who
Christ is. We see in this passage in poetic form a
beautiful description of the Incarnation. The end
result is glorification or resurrection.

What is also quite central is the notion
of service. The emptying and humility are not
ends in themselves. They lead to something,
namely new life signified by service. I saw a
beautiful passage recently from Metropolitan
Anthony of Sourozh capturing the idea well –
Humility does not consist in forever
trying to abase ourselves and renounce the
dignity which God gives us and demands of us
because we are his children not his slaves.
Humility as we see it in the saints is not born
solely of their awareness of sin, because even a
sinner can bring to God a broken and contrite
heart and a word of forgiveness is enough to
blot out all evil from the past and the present.

The humility of the saints comes from
the vision of the glory, the majesty, the beauty of
God. It is not even a sense of contrast that gives
birth to their humility, but the consciousness that
God is so holy, such a revelation of perfect
beauty, of love so striking that the only thing
they can do in his presence is to prostrate
themselves before him in an act of worship, joy
and wonder.

When the great experience of the
overwhelming love that God has for us came to
Saint Teresa, she was struck to her knees,
weeping in joy and wonder; when she arose she
was a new person, one in whom the realization
of God’s love left her ‘with a sense of
unpayable debt’. This is humility – not
humiliation.

Sincerely,

Father Beaudin