“He was created of a mother who He created.He was carried by hands who He formed.He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.” (Saint Augustine).
I have been thinking about little tiny babies. When babies are born they are completely helpless. They cannot feed themselves, or change themselves. They cannot explain what they want or need.
Saint Augustine said, “He was created of a mother who He created. He was carried by hands who He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.”
In his book, “It is Right and Just”, Scott Hahn explores this idea of helplessness… “Religion, as we’ve said from the beginning, simply describes the duties we owe on the basis of truth. The son-servant reversal in the Incarnation, as well as the servant-son reversal it makes possible through grace, transforms religion from a merely natural bond to a supernatural, familial relationship. And in its fullness, it becomes an all-encompassing communion.”
And I have been thinking about that reversal today…
You see, in this world the weak seem so far from truth and the strong seem so well connected to it. And yet, it is the helpless who are blessed.
Christ said in the Beatitudes, “blessed are the meek” and the helpless and the persecuted… He was literally blessing the helpless. It was not a figurative blessing but a literal one. It was not an opportunity to be metaphoric. For Christ that was a blessing to all those souls who are helpless and weak…
And I have been thinking about that today. Because Christ blessed those souls more intensely than we could ever understand. And He did it by being helpless Himself. He did it by making Himself a weak baby of poor parents. He did that by allowing all the earthly rewards to remain far from Him. He did that by leading the weak through His earthly weakness.
And it is upon this mystery that I have been reflecting today. You see, when I feel weak and helpless, I get angry. The injustice of the situation overwhelms me and I struggle to hold any inner peace.
And yet, my Beloved experienced more injustice and weakness than I could ever imagine. Because when God became Incarnate, He decided with His own PERFECT FREE WILL that He would not assume His Divine Power on the Earth in His own best interests. He promised – through His decision made of His Own Perfect and Free Will that He would not take up the power that is rightfully His…
And when you stop and think about that it really does show how helpless God willingly made Himself for love of me. And when I think about why that is, it occurs to me to consider it an example to me. And example of the way that I should bear the injustice that comes to me JUSTLY (for as a sinner I deserve all injustice). And when I think about it like that, I hang my head in shame – for I am a weak woman with a weak soul and I deserve to be helpless… But my Beloved is God Himself and became helpless just to show me how to do it myself… Such a shame that I squander that example, ignoring it in my own weak anger…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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