To this you were called. (1Pe 2:21 NIV)

You? Who is this? Most likely those addressed by Saint Peter in the previous three verses. That means the slaves, those without liberty and freedom. To what are they called? With what goal and aim have they been called to Christ and into his Church? The answer is very clear. So that they would submit themselves to their masters with all respect and even bear up under the pain of unjust suffering. What a calling of these slaves! Who has a higher or more beautiful calling? The calling to labor and good works is beautiful, the call to suffer is beautiful too, but more beautiful is the double calling to good works and suffering, the call to practice benefaction, serving without repayment, without the hope of harvesting – yes suffering the whims and moods and even the whips of the tyrant, bearing his back to those beating him, not hiding his face from those spitting on him and if the tears flow and the heart bleeds hiding ones face in the dust and prayerfully confessing: This is my calling!

Consider yourself as a slave, who can do this and will do it. Consider to be drawn close to him in your daily experience and consider to follow this example as you go about your life and then answer this question: Do you know a higher or greater calling, a more triumphant glory of Christendom than this? Do you know anybody who is more like Christ than such a slave? Did not our Lord himself suffer in this way there in the religious and secular courts of Jerusalem? Did he not as benefactor of all still suffer the shame of the cross and the burden of the sins of all the world? What a tremendous dignity such a faithful Christian slave has! Who great will be the rejoicing and jubilation of the angels and their eternal King about such a slave, who was so patient, humble and faithful in his calling to follow Jesus +

Lord Jesus Christ, you are saviour and liberator! You gave yourself as a living sacrifice for us; help us that we too would sacrifice our hearts to you and that we would bring all our worries, suffering, trouble and hardship to you and lay them at your feet. Let us follow your calling faithfully, so that in all our doing and especially in our suffering we would look up at you and your hands – and become more and more like you. Grant this in your mercy! Amen.

Dress me with your meekness and imprint on me the image of your humility so that no anger or pride rise up in me and nothing else constitute my being than your most holy suffering. (Johann Anastasius Freylingshausen 1670-1739)

This is a rather free translation of Wilhelm Löhe’s devotion for the second Sunday after Easter: Misericordias Domini. It is found on Pg. 173 in Lob sei Dir ewig, o Jesu!   (Eternal Praise to you o Jesus!) edited by A. Schuster and published in the Freimund Verlag, Neuendettelsau 1949.