December
23

Fell down and worshiped Him.

And when they had come into the house, they found the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him.... (Matthew 2:11)

All inward endeavors that are of the will, thus of the love or affection, consequently of the life, have outward acts or gestures corresponding to them… Holy fear with its consequent humility (and therefore adoration), has acts or gestures corresponding to itself, namely, bending the knees, falling down upon the knees, and also prostrating the body down to the earth. (Arcana Coelestia 5323)

Humiliation before a man produces a bowing down, according to the estimation of him; but in presence of the Divine it produces total prostration, especially when man thinks that the Divine in respect to power and wisdom is everything, and man in comparison is nothing …When man is in this acknowledgment from the heart, he comes as it were out of himself, and thence falls upon his face, and when he is thus out of himself he also is removed from the proprium [what is his own], which in itself is wholly evil; when this is removed, the Divine fills him and raises him up. (Apocalypse Explained 77)

True adoration, or humiliation of heart, carries with it prostration to the earth upon the face before the Lord, as a gesture naturally flowing from it. For in humiliation of heart there is the acknowledgment of self as being nothing but filthiness, and at the same time the acknowledgment of the Lord’s infinite mercy toward that which is such; and when the mind is kept in these two acknowledgments, the very mind droops in lowliness toward hell, and prostrates the body; nor does it lift itself up until it is uplifted by the Lord. This takes place in all true humiliation, with a perception of being uplifted by the Lord’s mercy. (Arcana Coelestia 1999)

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