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All things are made subject to Christ—but what kind of subjection is this? Not ignoble slavery, says St. Ambrose, but a glorious service of the Good. We are subject the way the angels are subject.
Are not all things now subject to him? Are not the choirs of the saints made subject? Are not the angels, who ministered to him when on the earth (Matt.
4:11)? Are not the Archangels who were sent to Mary to foretell the coming of the Lord? Are not all the heavenly hosts? Are not the Cherubim and Seraphim, are not Thrones and Dominions and Powers that worship and praise him?
But how are they brought into subjection? In the way that the Lord himself has said: “Take my yoke upon you” (Matt. 11:29). It is not the fierce who bear the yoke, but the humble and the gentle. This clearly is no degrading subjection for us, but a glorious one: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11). –St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, 5.13
IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Do I take on Christ’s glorious subjection willingly, like the good angels? Or am I straining at the yoke, like the devil and his angels, still trying to have my own way?
CLOSING PRAYER
St. Michael the Archangel, teach me to say, as you said, “I will serve.”
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