On Palm Sunday we will hear in the second reading from Philippians:
"Though he was in the form of God, Christ 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)
Blessed Frederick Ozanam found this humble and fragile Christ, stripped of honour and dignity, present in the poor and the outcasts, in those without a voice and in those exploited by society.
For him, the poor are the visible image of God whom we do not see but whom we love. Therefore the poor will be the image and the place of the encounter with the suffering Christ. Frederic’s Christology and spirituality consisted of seeing the humiliated and incarnated Christ in the person of those who were outcasts.
With this vision Frederick Ozanam could fall to his knees and exclaim:
It appears that we have to see God in order to order to love him, yet we can only see God with the eyes of faith … but we see the poor with our human eyes. The poor are here, in front of us and we can touch them and put our hands on their wounds and the scars from their crown of thorns are visible on their forehead … They are our masters and we are their servants; they are the sacred image of God whom we do not see. Not knowing how to love God in any other way, we do so in the person of the poor. We ought to fall on our knees and say with Saint Thomas: my Lord and my God!
(Attribution and acknowledgement: This reflection is an edited extract from the very informative "Biography of Frederic Ozanam" by: Sister M. Teresa Candelas, D.C.
https://famvin.org/wiki/Biography_of_Frederic_Ozanam)
