We cannot contemplate this stage of Our Lord's life without being struck
first of all by the humility and self-abasement of it, by the way in
which in some sense He _annihilated_ Himself that He might do His
Father's Will. St. Paul says: "He emptied Himself ... being made in the
likeness of men" (Phil. II. 7). He stripped Himself, robbed Himself of
all that He possessed: _Semetipsum exinanivit_. We know that Mary, His
created Home, was chaste and pure, that no breath of sin had ever
touched her, that the Holy Spirit Himself had overshadowed her and had
undertaken the preparation and the adornment of the earthly Tabernacle
of the Word; but pure and holy though she was, Mary was only a creature
and He was the Creator. He was God and she was one of the human race.
His place was on the highest throne of Heaven and yet "He abhorred not
the Virgin's womb" but there lived hidden from the sight of all, like
any other infant and yet wholly unlike, because He had full possession
of His faculties and intelligence. In the manger He will be _seen_, and
so will be loved, pitied and worshipped; there will be many consolations
which will go far to lessen and soften His humiliations, but _here_, He
is alone, hidden; His very existence not even suspected. He has
annihilated Himself, made Himself nothing. He could have taken our
nature, had He so wished, without all these humiliations; why then did
He despise not the Virgin's womb? Because this is to be His principle
all through His life, He will love "unto the end." He will leave
nothing undone that He could possibly do. He came to do His Father's
Will and He will do it thoroughly. He will bear all the humiliations
because He wants to be my Model and to teach me that there is only one
way of learning humility.