The coming of Christ was lowly, secret and sudden; it was not in the form that men expected or desired; it was both a surprise and a disappointment.
The manifestation of Christ comes to us in some peculiar form adapted to our circumstances. It is a distant glimmering light at first, easily extinguished, often hard to detect. We need to be watchful, sincere, and prompt, if we wish to arrive at its fulness.
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He would claim no privileges beyond the rest of those whom He had made His brethren.
He bound Himself to take all the consequences of sin on His own shoulders, and all that was burdensome in the yoke of the law; and He undertook to do whatever was required for our salvation. See how badly you have fulfilled your part in the contract with Him, and resolve to observe it most scrupulously in the future.
And He was her own Child, He was her beloved one, and she was His. He was to be toe possession of the whole world, but in that hour she possessed Him to herself.
For every one of us He beseeches, as He did on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do".
This office Our Lord continues in heaven, where His blood, shed on Calvary, is always making intercession for us, and never ceases until either His love or our obstinacy finally triumphs. Confess your unworthiness; make no excuses for yourself; do not allege your own merits; but rely exclusively on the powerful advocacy of Our Blessed Lord.
None other could have delivered us: hence He is our sole Redeemer.
Be careful that you do not "neglect so great salvation"; like many who love their chains, who will not submit to the conditions which the higher state requires, and who trample on the blood of their Redemption.
"He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High."
"Wherefore also Good hath exulted Him, and hath given Him a name that is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow". God has made Jesus to be served and venerated by every creature; and the veneration due to Him is that of supreme and divine adoration.
All things were foreseen and ordained by God from eternity; so Our Lord, as being man, was predestined like the rest of His race.
Secondly, it was decreed that He should not remain for ever in the suffering stage of human nature, bearing our afflictions, but that He should be raised from the dead and glorified by the exhibition of divine power, and that He should occupy as man the first place in heaven. Rejoice with Our Lord that His name is the first one written in the Book of Life; pray that yours may be written there after His, and strive to make it so.