Advent Week 1: Saturday

“The Lord will give you bread in adversity and water in affliction. No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher.” (Isaiah 30:20)

Saint Gregory the Great offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“He has seen us sinning and has borne with it. He who forbade us to sin before we did it does not stop waiting to pardon us even after we have sinned. The one we have rejected is calling us. We have turned away from him, but he has not turned away. Hence Isaiah said, “Your eyes shall see your teacher, and your ears shall hear the voice of a counselor behind you.” A person is counseled to his face, so to speak, when he is created for righteousness and receives the precepts of rectitude. When he despises these precepts, it is as if he is turning his back to his Creator’s face. But he still follows behind us and counsels us that we have despised him, but he still does not cease to call us. We turn our backs on his face, so to speak, when we reject his words, when we trample his commandments under foot; but he who sees that we reject him still calls out to us by his commandments and waits for us by his patience, stands behind us, and calls us back when we have turned away.” (Forty Gospel Homilies, 34)

Collect

O God,
Who sent your Only Begotten Son
into this world to free the human race
from its ancient enslavement,
bestow on those who devoutly await him
the grace of your compassion from on high,
that we may attain the prize of true freedom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen