PART VI.
ON THE LIFE AND PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
FOR FRIDAY
CHAPTER I.
Colloquy on the way to meditate on the Life and Passion of our Savior, and to imitate it well.
§ I. Exhortation to reflect upon the work of redemption.
The Apostle. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.[1]
Hear, O man! servant neither good nor faithful, because, though by nature and condition a servant, thou wouldst not serve, but attempted to seize on liberty and equality with thy Lord. Hear and see that Christ, being in the form of God, not by robbery but by nature equal with God, because himself also almighty, eternal, and immeasurable, not only emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men, but also fulfilled the ministry of a servant, by humbling himself and becoming obedient to his Father even to death.
But it might seem to thee a small thing that, though he was his Son and co-equal, he served his Father as a servant, if he had not served his own servant too more than a servant.
It was to serve thy Creator, O man, that thou wast made; and what is juster than that thou shouldst serve him who created thee, without whom thou canst neither live, move, nor be? But what can be a happier or nobler lot than to serve him, to serve whom is to reign? And yet thou hast said, I will not serve.
But, lo! thy Creator came,
- ↑ Phil. ii. 5-7.
