Christ’s humility shows love is powerful, pope says at audience
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. Discussing St. Paul’s faith in and teaching about Jesus Christ, the pope looked particularly at the hymn to Christ in the second chapter of the Letter to the Philippians. 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.” Happiness comes from “humility, which is the concrete expression of love,” the pope said. “It is love that is divine.” 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.