He dwelt among us.
"And the Word was made flesh. And dwelt among us." - from The Angelus prayer
A Reflection by Fred Schaeffer, OFS
As devout Catholics we think of God mostly in his divinity. God is in heaven and to us he is Spirit and the giver of life. In the Blessed Sacrament we recognize Jesus in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. We should never forget, however, that "He dwelt among us." His Humanity is part of our knowledge of Jesus Christ.
If we remove his humanity from our knowledge of the Lord, then we are missing the reason why He came to us in the first place. "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins." (1 John 4:7-10) "God sent his Son as expiation for our sins" - that is the reason for God's Humanity. May I refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 385 to 412 to get a clear understanding how Original Sin came about and why sin perpetuated after the first sin... and how Our Lord Jesus in His Humanity came to save us from sin. He was sent by the Father to redeem us, in effect to give us the possibility to be with Him in paradise until the end of time. In John 12:32, "...when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself." That means that Jesus wants all of us to be with Him after we pass on!
In his humanity, Jesus suffered an immense amount of pain as he was stripped of his clothing, scourged while tied to a pillar, beaten, spat upon, crowned with a crown made of thorns which were long and very sharp, sentenced to death by crucifixion, made to carry his own cross made of heavy wooden beams, up hill to Golgotha, nailed to the cross with spikes through his hands and feet, and left to die. Let us never forget about that. He paid the price, the ultimate price for our sins so that we can be with Him in paradise. And even after all that, mankind has the audacity and selfishness to keep on offending him? There are bad (mortal) sins, and little sins, but they all contributed to the pain He endured on the Cross. and Jesus was totally innocent. He had not done anything, in fact, while on earth He did nothing but good, He healed people, He fed the masses, inspired the Apostles to carry on after He was gone. That, and so much more, was his Humanity and we should never forget all He endured for us.
St. Paul tells us in Romans 8:17 onward, "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, "Abba, Father!" The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us."
The portion in that Scripture that grabs at me is: ...if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him... which suggests a reason for all our suffering here on earth, to suffer with Him, so that we may be with Him forever, right? St. Paul talks about the "sufferings of this present time" (he refers to 2000 years ago, but really nothing is changed as we are still suffering), and the more we suffer the greater the reward. We have a tendency to sugarcoat our human condition, to look through blinders, as it were, when it comes to the sins of us all. We say "God understands me," or "We all sin." There is no doubt that God understands us because He is Intelligence itself, He knew us before we were born and how it is all going to turn out ... but that's not what we mean ... When we state that "God understands me," we impose our sinful condition on God and somehow have the chutzpah to tell him to forget about it, right? We're not asking forgiveness, we're telling God how he should react to our condition. Well, that doesn't work. God doesn't work that way. Let us acknowledge that the world (that means most of the people in it) are heavily into displeasing God, through our pride. We have received all this hot intelligence (A gift of God) and now we are turning this against Him. That can only lead to more suffering.
But, thank Heavens, there is Purgatory, a place or a condition where we can atone for our sins while awaiting entry into Heaven. There are those who are so incorrigible and mean-willed that they end up in Hell, but we hope you aren't one of those. We hope that you made amends for your shortcomings, and will go on to Heaven. Wouldn't it we great if we met up there, with the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin and gazillions of the righteous with us - and even though we would be one of many, we would know in our hearts that Jesus is the one and only Son of God, who experienced Humanity, and now Divinity. Praise God!
May He richly bless you this and every day!
Fred S. Schaeffer, OFS
August 24, 2009.
For some reason, this "bro Fred's Reflection" was never published. I found it as I was searching my computer files for something else. Thank you, Holy Spirit.