|
|
 |
|
CNS Story:
|
POPE-AUDIENCE Oct-22-2008 (400 words) With photos. xxxi
Christ's humility shows love is powerful, pope says at audience
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christ's extreme humility and his willingness to die for the sins of all humanity demonstrate that love is far more powerful than pushiness and pretension, Pope Benedict XVI said.
During his Oct. 22 general audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict spoke about St. Paul's faith in and teaching about Jesus Christ as fully divine.
The pope looked particularly at the hymn to Christ in the second chapter of St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians.
The "overwhelming majority" of biblical scholars say the hymn is even older than the rest of the text of St. Paul's letter, the pope said, which means that "Judeo-Christianity, before St. Paul, believed in the divinity of Jesus."
Faith in Christ's divinity was not an "invention that came long after the earthly life of Jesus was over, after his humanity was forgotten, but we see the first Jewish Christians believed in the divinity of Jesus," he said.
The hymn in Philippians 2:6-11 professes faith in Christ's existence from the beginning of time when it says, "he was in the form of God," the pope said, and it praises Christ's humility when it says he "did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave."
Then, the pope said, the hymn says how God the Father responded to Christ's humility: "God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name."
Pope Benedict said the hymn shows that Jesus Christ is the exact opposite of Adam, "who wanted to make himself God" and so ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam's "gesture of haughtiness ends up in self-destruction. This is not how one arrives at heaven, at true happiness," the pope said.
Happiness comes from "humility, which is the concrete expression of love," the pope said. "It is love that is divine."
Pope Benedict said St. Paul's letters also speak of Christ as "the firstborn of all creation."
Calling Christ the firstborn "implies that he is the first of many children, the first of many brothers and sisters, that he came down to attract us to him and make us his brothers and sisters," the pope said.
Jesus "invites us to participate in his humility and in his love for others and, in that way, to participate also in his glorification as sons and daughters in the son," Pope Benedict said.
- - -
Editor's Note: The text of the pope's audience remarks in English is posted online at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081022_en.html.
The text of the pope's audience remarks in Spanish is posted online at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081022_sp.html.
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250
|
|
|
|
