(Phil. ii. 7.) By these words the Apostle gives us to understand, that the Son of God, who was filled with the divine majesty and power, humbled himself so as to assume the lowly and impotent condition of human nature, taking the form or nature of a servant, and becoming like men in his external appearance, although, as St. Chrysostom observes, he was not a mere man, but man and God. Hearing a deacon singing the words of St. John, "and the Word was made flesh," St. Peter of Alcantara fell into ecstasy, and flew through the air to the altar of the most holy sacrament.
7. But this God of love, the Incarnate Word, was not content with becoming flesh for the love of man; but, according to Isaias, he wished to live among us, as the last and lowest, and most afflicted of men. ” There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows." (Isa. iii. 2, 3.) He was a man of sorrows. Yes; for the life of Jesus Christ was full of sorrows. Virum dolorum. He was a man made on purpose to be tormented with sorrows. From his birth till his death, the life of our Redeemer was all full of sorrows.
8. And because he came on earth to gain our love, as he declared when he said “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I but that it be kindled ?" (Luke xii. 49), he wished at the close of his life to give us the strongest marks and proofs of the love which he bears to us. "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end." (John xiii. 1.) Hence he not only humbled himself to death for us, but he also chose to die the most painful and opprobrious of all deaths. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross." (Phil. ii. 8.) They who were crucified among the Jews, were objects of malediction and reproach to all. “He is accursed of God that hangeth on a tree." (Deut. xxi. 23.) Our Redeemer wished to die the shameful death of the cross, in the midst of a tempest of ignominies and sorrows. “I am come into the depths of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me." (Ps. lxviii. 3.)
9. ” In this ” says St. John, "we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for
