We Have Found Mercy by Schoenborn Christoph Cardinal

Author:Schoenborn, Christoph Cardinal [Schoenborn, Christoph Cardinal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586174156
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2012-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

The Cross Is the Center

This powerful perspective is reduced by Paul to a single point: Christ is inseparable from the Cross. That is where Paul finds the center. He himself experienced that Christ is to be found in the Cross. The path by which God’s mercy comes to all men is the Cross. It is central in God’s plan of salvation. Nowhere is this more profoundly expressed than in the hymn from the Letter to the Philippians:

Christ Jesus . . . though he was in the form of God, / did not count equality with God / a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself, / taking the form of a servant, / being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form / he humbled himself / and became obedient unto death, / even death on a cross.

Therefore / God has highly exalted him / and bestowed on him the name / which is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus / every knee should bow, / in heaven and on earth / and under the earth, / and every tongue confess / that Jesus Christ is Lord, / to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:5-11)

Around ten years after the death of Jesus on the Cross, a song is sung at the liturgy of a Christian community that unquestionably celebrates Jesus as being equal to God (that is what it means to say “he was in the form of God”). He became man by emptying himself and taking on the form of aservant, a humannaturelikeours. His path led down to the utmost humiliation; in obedience he went all the way to death on the Cross. That is why every knee, without exception, will bend before him, and all will acknowledge him as the Kyrios, the Lord, “to the glory of God the Father”.

Jesus received from God “the name which is above every name”, that is to say, the Divine Name itself. Jesus, who humbled himself in obedience all the way to death on the Cross, is God. His name is God’s Most Holy Name. From the first moment of his conversion, this is Paul’s great insight: God has revealed his Son in Christ (Gal 1:16). That is why he is the unique Mediator (cf. 1 Tim 2:5). But once again: this insight is anything but abstract. It produces in Paul the deep desire to be conformed more and more to Christ, to know and to love him more each day: “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings” (Phil 3:10). Paul also wants to “become like Christ” in death (ibid.). He wants to be completely transformed by Christ. Christ’s life and sufferings are to become his, so that he will be able to share in the Resurrection of Christ as well. Christ himself is also the model of how Christians ought to act toward one another, the pattern by which Christian life is formed from within.

Thus Paul

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.