Papal Commentary on Philippians 2:6-11

[stumbler]

“The Paradoxical ‘Emptying’ of the Divine Word”

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 1, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave at today’s general audience, which he dedicated to a reflection on the canticle from Philippians 2:5-11.

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1. Every Sunday, in the celebration of vespers, the liturgy proposes to us the brief but profound Christological hymn from the Letter to the Philippians (see 2:6-11). It is the hymn, just heard, which we consider in its first part (see verses 6-8), which delineates the paradoxical “emptying” of the divine Word, who lays aside his glory and assumes the human condition.

Christ, incarnated and humiliated in the most infamous death, that of crucifixion, is proposed as a vital model for the Christian. The latter – as affirmed in the context – should have “the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus” (verse 5), sentiments of humility and selflessness, of detachment and generosity.

1. Undoubtedly, he possesses divine nature with all its prerogatives. But he does not interpret and live this transcendent reality as a sign of power, of greatness, and of dominion. Christ does not use his being equal to God, his glorious dignity and his power as an instrument of triumph, sign of distance, expression of crushing supremacy (see verse 6). On the contrary, he “emptied” himself, immersing himself without reserve in the miserable and weak human condition. The divine “form” (“morphe”) is hidden in Christ under the human “form” (“morphe”), that is, under our reality marked by suffering, poverty, limitation and death (see verse 7).

It is not a question therefore of a simple clothing, of a changeable appearance, as it was believed happened to the gods of the Greco-Roman culture: It is Christ’s divine reality in an authentically human experience. God does not appear only as man, but becomes man and is really one of us, he is truly “God-with-us,” not content with gazing on us with a benign look from his throne of glory, but enters personally in human history, becoming “flesh,” namely, fragile reality, conditioned by time and space (see John 1:14).

1. This radical sharing of the human condition, with the exception of sin (see Hebrews 4:15), leads Jesus to that frontier which is the sign of our finiteness and frailty, death. However, the latter is not the fruit of a dark mechanism or blind fatality: It is born from the choice of obedience to the Father’s plan of salvation (see Philippians 2:8).

The Apostle adds that the death Jesus faces is that of the cross, namely, the most degrading, thus wishing to be truly a brother of every man and woman, including those constrained to an atrocious and ignominious end.

But precisely in his passion and death Christ attests to his free and conscious adherence to the will of the Father, as one reads in the Letter to the Hebrews: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

Let us pause here in our reflection on the first part of the Christological hymn, focused on the Incarnation and redemptive Passion. We will have the occasion later on to reflect more deeply on the subsequent itinerary, the paschal, which leads from the cross to glory. The fundamental element of this first part of the hymn, it seems to me, is the invitation to penetrate into Jesus’ sentiments. . . .

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Full article

 

[savone]

Then, there’s this part:

“To penetrate into Jesus’ sentiments means not to consider power, wealth and prestige as the highest values in life, as in the end, they do not respond to the deepest thirst of our spirit, but to open our heart to the Other, to bear with the Other the burden of life and to open ourselves to the Heavenly Father with a sense of obedience and trust, knowing, precisely, that if we are obedient to the Father, we will be free. To penetrate into Jesus’ sentiments – this should be the daily exercise of our life as Christians.”

I’d like to be able to ask the Holy Father the intention of the phrase “as in the end”? Is this a reference to the end of earthly existence? Or, at the end of a day, or the end of a task, or even the end of a particular moment? Perhaps, he intended all of these?

Thanks for posting this, stumbler. I, otherwise, might not have read this inspirational work. God bless.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

savone:

Then, there’s this part:

“To penetrate into Jesus’ sentiments means not to consider power, wealth and prestige as the highest values in life, as in the end, they do not respond to the deepest thirst of our spirit, but to open our heart to the Other, to bear with the Other the burden of life and to open ourselves to the Heavenly Father with a sense of obedience and trust, knowing, precisely, that if we are obedient to the Father, we will be free. To penetrate into Jesus’ sentiments – this should be the daily exercise of our life as Christians.”

I’d like to be able to ask the Holy Father the intention of the phrase “as in the end”? Is this a reference to the end of earthly existence? Or, at the end of a day, or the end of a task, or even the end of a particular moment? Perhaps, he intended all of these?

Thanks for posting this, stumbler. I, otherwise, might not have read this inspirational work. God bless.

Probably he means “ultimately”, “fundamentally”, “when all is said and done”. I think his point here is one that he often makes: those things cannot meet our deepest yearnings, because they are not meant to: God, alone, can do that. “Our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in Thee”, as St. Augustine - whose outlook this Pope is very familiar with - points out.​

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

Thanks for posting this. I had been thinking about this passage, and it’s great to hear a commentary on it from someone who is far more knowledgeable than I am about what it means.

 

[Ter]

savone:

Then, there’s this part:

"To penetrate into Jesus’ sentiments means not to consider power, wealth and prestige as the highest values in life, as in the end

The expression ‘as in the end’ here refers to the purpose/reason/ultimate design for life (i.e. our goal in life). I’ve seen this expression used a few times - maybe it’s a European thing.

 

[BayCityRickL]

Thanks for calling attention to this homily.

I agree that “in the end” is used in the sense of using logic, that,
“after all is said and done” or “after all the analysis” etc. It seems also to be used as a gramatical conjunction, to connect the previous thought with the following thought.

 

[savone]

I’ve been reading “Introduction to Christianity” by His Holiness. He is interesting and I appreciate the exposure to his thinking. Along the way, I think I’m becoming more accustomed to his style of writing. In some instances “in the end” is tame and mild compared to some of what has engaged me in this work.

“In the end,” I know I will have matured and grown as a Christian.

 

[Goldentime]

“The Paradoxical ‘Emptying’ of the Divine Word”

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 1, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave at today’s general audience, which he dedicated to a reflection on the canticle from Philippians 2:5-11.

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Phi 2:1 If then I can appeal to you as the followers of Christ, if there is any persuasive power in love and any common sharing of the Spirit, or if you have any tender-heartedness and compassion, make my joy complete by being of one mind,
Phi 2:2 united by mutual love, with harmony of feeling giving your minds to one and the same object.
Phi 2:3 Do nothing in a spirit of factiousness or of vainglory, but, with true humility, let every one regard the rest as being of more account than himself;
Phi 2:4 each fixing his attention, not simply on his own interests, but on those of others also.
Phi 2:5 Let the same disposition be in you which was in Christ Jesus.
Phi 2:6 Although from the beginning He had the nature of God He did not reckon His equality with God a treasure to be tightly grasped.
Phi 2:7 Nay, He stripped Himself of His glory, and took on Him the nature of a bondservant by becoming a man like other men.
Phi 2:8 And being recognized as truly human, He humbled Himself and even stooped to die; yes, to die on a cross.
Phi 2:9 It is in consequence of this that God has also so highly exalted Him, and has conferred on Him the Name which is supreme above every other,
Phi 2:10 in order that in the Name of JESUS every knee should bow, of beings in Heaven, of those on the earth, and of those in the underworld,
Phi 2:11 and that every tongue should confess that JESUS CHRIST is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.
Phi 2:12 Therefore, my dearly-loved friends, as I have always found you obedient, labour earnestly with fear and trembling–not merely as though I were present with you, but much more now since I am absent from you–labour earnestly, I say, to make sure of your own salvation.
Phi 2:13 For it is God Himself whose power creates within you the desire to do His gracious will and also brings about the accomplishment of the desire.
Phi 2:14 Be ever on your guard against a grudging and contentious spirit,
Phi 2:15 so that you may always prove yourselves to be blameless and spotless–irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as heavenly lights in the world,
Phi 2:16 holding out to them a Message of Life. It will then be my glory on the day of Christ that I did not run my race in vain nor toil in vain.
Phi 2:17 Nay, even if my life is to be poured as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I rejoice, and I congratulate you all.
Phi 2:18 And I bid you also share my gladness, and congratulate me.
Phi 2:19 But, if the Lord permits it, I hope before long to send Timothy to you, that I, in turn, may be cheered by getting news of you.
Phi 2:20 For I have no one likeminded with him, who will cherish a genuine care for you.
Phi 2:21 Everybody concerns himself about his own interests, not about those of Jesus Christ.
Phi 2:22 But you know Timothy’s approved worth–how, like a child working with his father, he has served with me in furtherance of the Good News.
Phi 2:23 So it is he that I hope to send as soon as ever I see how things go with me;
Phi 2:24 but trusting, as I do, in the Lord, I believe that I shall myself also come to you before long.
Phi 2:25 Yet I deem it important to send Epaphroditus to you now–he is my brother and comrade both in labour and in arms, and is your messenger who has ministered to my needs.
Phi 2:26 I send him because he is longing to see you all and is distressed at your having heard of his illness.
Phi 2:27 For it is true that he has been ill, and was apparently at the point of death; but God had pity on him, and not only on him, but also on me, to save me from having sorrow upon sorrow.
Phi 2:28 I am therefore all the more eager to send him, in the hope that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have the less sorrow.
Phi 2:29 Receive him therefore with heartfelt Christian joy, and hold in honour men like him;
Phi 2:30 because it was for the sake of Christ’s work that he came so near death, hazarding, as he did, his very life in endeavouring to make good any deficiency that there might be in your gifts to me.

Could it be he meant that we should be more like Jesus Christ ?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Ter:

The expression ‘as in the end’ here refers to the purpose/reason/ultimate design for life (i.e. our goal in life). I’ve seen this expression used a few times - maybe it’s a European thing.

What do people in the USA say ? ​

It’s also something of a “filler” - like “basically”, “right”, “you know what I mean”, and similar expressions (like Chaucer’s *eke *- he uses that all the time). ##