†     A Spirituality of Global Solidarity

“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” – Philippians 2:6-8

For forty days we fasted. What did that mean? We denied ourselves something we enjoyed. We pushed aside something we might otherwise indulge upon. We resisted immediate satisfaction. We disciplined our impulses and our desires.

We took something that may have defined us in some way and emptied ourselves of it, if only for a time. And why did we do this? So as to grow closer to Christ, to be able to welcome him in the stranger, the other, the downcast and the voiceless. What we denied ourselves this Lent became the source of hope and change for some of our poorest brothers and sisters around the world.

How does this Lenten spirituality mirror our God who emptied himself of what it meant to be God to become human, to take in what it meant to be us? And how does this spirituality model for us a way of proceeding as one human family concerned for global solidarity? Perhaps our Easter prayer should be this: that we can continue to empty ourselves of what it means to be us so as to better understand what it means to be another.