Is Ahaz crazy?



εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

"The LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying:
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
"I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!" Then Isaiah said:
Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary people,
must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel."
Isaiah 7:10-14.
Fourth Sunday of Advent


θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

Is Ahaz crazy? In a word, yes - but probably not for reasons readily apparent. Consider for a moment how many times we have cried out in prayer, “Lord, give me a sign!” When weighing the pros and cons of a decision especially the big ‘life decisions,’ we know firsthand the difficulty to arrive at a resolution that brings peace and a degree of certitude. We seek the advice of trusted loved ones and often ask people to pray for ‘a special intention.’ In the midst of deliberating the final outcome, we tend to become more aware of our surroundings wondering if the sought-after ‘sign from God’ is knocking on the door of our heart. More often than not we find ourselves disappointed that ‘the sign’ (as far as we are concerned) never materialized and we are left floundering in a sea of foggy dew still looking for some assurance of light and land to guide us to safety and surety.

What makes the episode with Ahaz perplexing is that he is told to ask for a sign and the one ‘asking’ is not just anyone, he is the prophet, Isaiah! Because the one asking is Isaiah, the implication is that a sign will be given because the prophetic word is effective. But Ahaz not only says “I will not ask!” - he reinforces his position, “I will not tempt the Lord!” One can almost picture Ahaz’s defiant posture, the forceful tone of his words, the scowling face and crossed arms. He is all but guaranteed a sign and adamantly clearly declares ‘No!’ Why? To offer a response, some recourse to Israel’s history may be helpful.


Ahaz ruled as king of Judah (Southern Kingdom) during turbulent and uncertain times. Israel (Northern Kingdom) and Aram had joined forces to fortify their defenses against Assyria. The kings of Israel and Aram wanted Ahaz to join them in an even stronger defense, but Ahaz would not join and soon Israel and Aram turned their sights on the City of David, Jerusalem. Ahaz did the opposite and sought an alliance with Assyria for protection against Israel and Aram which involved compromising much of Judah’s religious identity and practices. Despite his idolatrous actions, Isaiah declared the sign to be the birth of a child whose name, Emmanuel (“God-is-with-us”), was a reminder to Ahaz that God had not abandoned Jerusalem. In fact, by the time the child grew in age, Judah’s foes had been conquered not by human ingenuity, scheming or plotting. Rather, because “God-is-with-us” (the promise to David and his household) and Judah’s dependency on God, all worked unto good. Later Christian reflection upon this episode saw a deeper sense of the Sacred Text as referring to Jesus born of Mary.

So, what does this have to do with a “sign” and Ahaz’s refusal to ask? In Hebrew, אוֹת (ʾot, sign) can be natural or supernatural. The sign, whatever it is, however, is not effective in-and-of-itself. In other words, a sign cannot cause what it signifies. A ‘stop sign,’ for example, directs that a particular action be done: the motion of a vehicle must come to a stop. The sign only directs or points, it does not cause the actual stopping. Stopping is caused by the driver recognizing the sign, understanding what the sign directs and then making a choice to act in accordance with what the sign declares. At the bottom line, signs involve choices. Consider the Exodus Event. Numerous “signs” were performed by Moses prior to the Hebrew people leaving Egypt. Pharaoh chose to ‘read’ the signs one way, the Hebrew people in another way. In either case, a choice had to be made regarding the sign; a choice that initiated a series of consequences (good or bad) flowing from the particular decision.


Essentially Ahaz was faced with a choice - accept or not accept a sign. Ahaz knew, even while unfaithful to Covenant living, accepting a sign meant change. Both on the natural and even more so on the supernatural level, embracing a sign as an indicator of God-is-with-us required, by definition, a change of heart, mind and body. A sign intends to draws one from self to other and therefore require ongoing conversion of the whole person. A sign is not necessarily an indication of Divine benevolence or agreement with one’s thoughts or plans; it directs that a change in how one thinks, speaks and acts must be made. Like the ‘stop sign,’ that change is not effected automatically; it can only come about through a choice. One might argue that Ahaz knew this on some level of his life. For him, asking for a sign would be to abandon his self-motivated plotting and alliance making with Assyria. It was certainly a challenge. He could physically see the protection Assyria offered whereas Isaiah’s reminder that God would never abandon the house of David seemed far more uncertainly, nebulous and vague. Ahaz’s refusal to ask and his insistence “not to tempt [(נָסָה nacah, which can also be translated “not to do” or “not to follow through”]” was essentially a refusal to abandon his way of doing things and thus make a ‘crazy’ decision. Thankfully, the Good Lord stepped in and provided a needed sign when Ahaz’s own bull-headed stubbornness got in the way of the Divine plan for salvation.

The lesson for Christians on this final Advent Sunday more than 2700 years after the time of Ahaz is clear. In a few days we will hear angels speak to outcast shepherds: “... And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12) During the Christmas Season, we will listen to accounts of Jesus’ signs performed during His Public Ministry (7 distinct Signs in the Gospel according to Saint John alone) as well as ongoing sacramental life described in one way as “outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace.” Signs of Emmanuel, God-is-with-us, are all around. The question we are faced with is the reality of Ahaz, will I ask (accept) the sign and the necessary conversion or not?






17 December — O Wisdom ...



O Wisdom,
O holy Word of God, You govern all creation with Your strong yet gentle care. Come and show Your people the way to salvation.


“You, Judah, shall your brothers praise your hand on the neck of your enemies; the sons of your father shall bow down to you.” (Genesis 49:8.)

Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“This text appears to be directed to the patriarch Judah, indeed, but more so that later Judah is meant, the true confessor who was born of that tribe and who alone is praised by his brothers; of them he says, “I will declare your name to my brothers.” He is the Lord by nature but a brother by grace; his hands, which he stretched out to an unbelieving people, are on the back of his enemies. For with those same hands and by that same passion Christ protected his own, subjugated hostile powers, and made subject to himself all people who were without faith and devotion. Of these the Father says to his Son, “And you will rule in the midst of your enemies.” It was their own wickedness that made them enemies, not Christ’s will. In this there is a great gift of the Lord. Previously, spiritual wickedness generally used to make our neck bend to the yoke of captivity. Thus even David wrote that he felt in some way the hands of those who triumphed over him, for he said, “Upon my back sinners have wrought.” But now spiritual wickedness is subject to the triumph of Christ and to his hands, as it were; that is, wickedness undergoes the affliction of captivity, being subject forever in deeds and in works. And it is he indeed to whom the sons of his Father bow down, when we bow down to him; for he has permitted us to call upon the Father, and to be subject to the Father is to be subject to virtue.” (The Patriarchs, 4)



Collect
O God,
Creator and Redeemer of human nature,
Who willed that Your Word should take flesh
in an ever-virgin womb,
look with favor on our prayers,
that Your only Begotten Son,
having taken to Himself our humanity,
may be pleased to grant us
a share in his divinity.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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





The mystery of our reconciliation with God



Pope Saint Leo the Great
Bishop of Rome and Father of the Church

An excerpt from Letter 31

The Weekdays of Advent, 17 December

To speak of our Lord, the son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as true and perfect man is of no value to us if we do not believe that he is descended from the line of ancestors set out in the Gospel. Matthew’s gospel begins by setting out the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, and then traces his human descent by bringing his ancestral line down to his mother’s husband, Joseph. On the other hand, Luke traces his parentage backward step by step to the actual father of mankind, to show that both the first and the last Adam share the same nature.

No doubt the Son of God in his omnipotence could have taught and sanctified men by appearing to them in a semblance of human form as he did to the patriarchs and prophets, when for instance he engaged in a wrestling contest or entered into conversation with them, or when he accepted their hospitality and even ate the food they set before him. But these appearances were only types, signs that mysteriously foretold the coming of one who would take a true human nature from the stock of the patriarchs who had gone before him. No mere figure, then, fulfilled the mystery of our reconciliation with God, ordained from all eternity. The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon the Virgin nor had the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so that within her spotless womb Wisdom might build itself a house and the Word become flesh. The divine nature and the nature of a servant were to be united in one person so that the Creator of time might be born in time, and he through whom all things were made might be brought forth in their midst.

For unless the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Father’s substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan. The Conqueror’s victory would have profited us nothing if the battle had been fought outside our human condition. But through this wonderful blending the mystery of new birth shone upon us, so that through the same Spirit by whom Christ was conceived and brought forth we too might be born again in a spiritual birth; and in consequence the evangelist declares the faithful to have been born not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.



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

 





Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent



““What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went...” (Matthew 21:28-29)

In an ancient work known as the Incomplete Work on Matthew, an anonymous Ancient Christian Writer (ACW) offers the following insight on these verses from today’s Gospel:

“What does it mean to work in the vineyard? To work in the vineyard is to do justice. We noted above that the vineyard is the justice that God has planted generally in the nature of all people but more particularly in the Jewish Scriptures. Each vine in the vineyard represents a different type of justice, and each person, according to his individual virtues, produces either more or fewer vines. I do not know of anyone, however, who is sufficient to work the entire vineyard.

“And he said, ‘I will not.’” How did he say, “I will not”? He said it in his thoughts, for whoever understands the difference between good and evil and abandons the good to follow evil seems to be rebelling against the Lord in his thoughts; for “I will not” is spoken against the faculty of the intellect, which was created by God for himself. No one would ever have been able to sin unless he had first said in his heart “I will not,” as the prophet indicates: “Injustice speaks within him that he might sin.”3 The pagans, who abandoned God and his justice from the beginning and converted to the worship of idols and to a life of sin, seem to have rebelled in their thoughts, as though they had said, “We will not do the justice which we learned from you.”

“Approaching the other,” Jesus asked the same thing, and he replied, “‘I will go,’ but he did not go.” When the Jewish people, represented here by the younger son, were asked both by Moses and by John the Baptist, as though God were speaking through each of them, they promised that they would do everything the Lord commanded. Afterwards, however, they turned away and lied to God, as the prophet had foretold: “Foreign sons deceived me.”

“Which of these two did the will of the Father? They replied, ‘the first.’” Notice how, as we have already said above, attracted by the truth of the parable, they turned its meaning against themselves when they said that the first son, who represented the pagan Gentiles, had done the will of the father. It is better to do the righteousness of God without promising to do so than it is to promise and then to renege.” (Incomplete Work on Matthew, «Homily 40»)


Collect
O God,
Who through Your only Begotten Son
have made us a new creation, look kindly, we pray,
on the handiwork of your mercy,
and at your Son’s coming
cleanse us from every stain of the old way of life.
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.


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





On humility and peace



Thomas á Kempis
Priest

An excerpt from Imitation of Christ

Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

Do not care much who is with you and who is against you; but make it your greatest care that God is with you in everything you do.

Have a good conscience, and God will defend you securely; no one can hurt you if God wishes to help you.

If you know how to suffer in silence, you will surely receive God’s help. Since he knows best the time and the way to set you free, resign yourself to him, for God helps you and frees you from all confusion.

It is often good for us, and helps us to remain humble, if others know our weaknesses and confront us with them.

When a man humbles himself for his faults, he more easily pleases others and mollifies those he has angered.

God protects and frees a humble man; he loves and consoles a humble man; he favors a humble man; he showers him with graces; then, after his suffering, God raises him up to glory.

He reveals his secrets to a humble man and in his kindness invitingly draws that man to himself. When a humble man is brought to confusion, he experiences peace, because he stands firm in God and not in this world. Do not think that you have made any progress unless you feel that you are the lowest of all men.

Above all things, keep peace within yourself, then you will be able to create peace among others. It is better to be peaceful than learned.

The passionate man often thinks evil of a good man and easily believes the worst; a good and peaceful man turns all things to good.

A man who lives at peace suspects no one. But a man who is tense and agitated by evil is troubled with all kinds of suspicions; he is never at peace with himself, nor does he permit others to be at peace.

He often speaks when he should be silent, and he fails to say what would be truly useful. He is well aware of the obligations of others but neglects his own.

So be zealous first of all with yourself, and then you will be more justified in expressing zeal for your neighbor.

You are good at excusing and justifying your own deeds, and yet you will not listen to the excuses of others. It would be more just to accuse yourself and excuse your neighbor.

If you wish others to put up with you, first put up with them.

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

 

 



Monday of the Third Week of Advent



“I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel.” (Numbers 24:17.)

Pope Saint Leo the Great offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Reading:

“Although it was a gift of divine favor that the birth of the Savior should become recognizable to the nations, nevertheless, to understand the wonder of the sign, the wise men were also able to be reminded through the ancient pronouncements of Balaam, for they knew that it had at one time been spread abroad in a famous and memorable prediction: “A star will appear out of Jacob, and a man will rise up from Israel. He will rule over the nations.” So the three men, stirred by God through the shining of this unusual star, follow the course of its gleaming light ahead of them, thinking that they would find the indicated child in the royal city of Jerusalem.

When this conjecture had failed them, however, they learned from scribes and teachers of the Jews what the sacred Scriptures had told about the birth of Christ. Encouraged by the double evidence, they sought him out with an even more ardent faith, the one to whom both the brightness of the star and the authority of prophets pointed.” (Sermon 34)



Collect
Incline a merciful ear to our cry,
we pray, O Lord, and,
casting light on the darkness of our hearts,
visit us with the grace of your Son.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


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








He loved us first



William of Saint Thierry
Abbot

An excerpt from his On the Contemplation of God

Monday of the Third Week of Advent


Truly you alone are the Lord. Your dominion is our salvation, for to serve you is nothing else but to be saved by you! O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you? That, Lord, is why you willed that the Son at your right hand, the man whom you made strong for yourself, should be called Jesus, that is to say, Savior, for he will save his people from their sins, and there is no other in whom there is salvation. He taught us to love him by first loving us, even to death on the cross. By loving us and holding us so dear, he stirred us to love him who had first loved us to the end.

And this is clearly the reason: you first loved us so that we might love you—not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.

In many ways and on various occasions you spoke to our fathers through the prophets. Now in these last days you have spoken to us in the Son, your Word; by him the heavens were established and all their powers came to be by the breath of his mouth.

For you to speak thus in your Son was to bring out in the light of day how much and in what way you loved us, for you did not spare your own Son but delivered him up for us all. He also loved us and gave himself up for us.

This, Lord, is your Word to us, this is your all-powerful message: while all things were in midnight silence (that is, were in the depths of error), he came from his royal throne, the stern conqueror of error and the gentle apostle of love. Everything he did and everything he said on earth, even enduring the insults, the spitting, the buffeting—the cross and the grave—all of this was actually you speaking to us in your Son, appealing to us by your love and stirring up our love for you.

You know that this disposition could not be forced on men’s hearts, my God, since you created them; it must rather be elicited. And this, for the further reason that there is no freedom where there is compulsion, and where freedom is lacking, so too is righteousness.

You wanted us to love you, then, we who could not with justice have been saved had we not loved you, nor could we have loved you except by your gift. So, Lord, as the apostle of your love tells us, and as we have already said, you first loved us: you are first to love all those who love you.

Thus we hold you dear by the affection you have implanted in us. You are the one supremely good and ultimate goodness. Your love is your goodness, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son! From the beginning of creation it was he who hovered over the waters—that is, over the wavering minds of men, offering himself to all, drawing all things to himself. By his inspiration and holy breath, by keeping us from harm and providing for our needs, he unites God to us and us to God.


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

 





Third Sunday of Advent



“The wilderness and the parched land will exult; the Arabah will rejoice and bloom...” (Isaiah 35:1.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“And where shall we place that oracle of Isaiah, which cries to the wilderness, “Be glad, O thirsty wilderness. Let the desert rejoice and blossom as a lily, and the desolate places of Jordan shall blossom and shall rejoice”? For it is clear that it is not to places without soul or sense that he proclaims the good tidings of joy, but he speaks, by the figure of the desert, of the soul that is parched and unadorned.” (On the Baptism of Christ)




Collect
O God,
Who see how Your people
faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity,
enable us, we pray,
to attain the joys of so great a salvation
and to celebrate them always
with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



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





The Voice is John the Word is Christ



Saint Augustine of Hippo
Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from his Sermon 293

Third Sunday of Advent

John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives for ever.

Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.

However, let us observe what happens when we first seek to build up our hearts. When I think about what I am going to say, the word or message is already in my heart. When I want to speak to you, I look for a way to share with your heart what is already in mine.

In my search for a way to let this message reach you, so that the word already in my heart may find a place also in yours, I use my voice to speak to you. The sound of my voice brings the meaning of the word to you and then passes away. The word which the sound has brought to you is now in your heart, and yet it is still also in mine.

When the word has been conveyed to you, does not the sound seem to say: The word ought to grow, and I should diminish? The sound of the voice has made itself heard in the service of the word, and has gone away, as though it were saying: My joy is complete. Let us hold on to the word; we must not lose the word conceived inwardly in our hearts.

Do you need proof that the voice passes away but the divine Word remains? Where is John’s baptism today? It served its purpose, and it went away. Now it is Christ’s baptism that we celebrate. It is in Christ that we all believe; we hope for salvation in him. This is the message the voice cried out.

Because it is hard to distinguish word from voice, even John himself was thought to be the Christ. The voice was thought to be the word. But the voice acknowledged what it was, anxious not to give offense to the word. I am not the Christ, he said, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. And the question came: Who are you, then? He replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness is the voice of one breaking the silence. Prepare the way for the Lord, he says, as though he were saying: “I speak out in order to lead him into your hearts, but he does not choose to come where I lead him unless you prepare the way for him.”

To prepare the way means to pray well; it means thinking humbly of oneself. We should take our lesson from John the Baptist. He is thought to be the Christ; he declares he is not what they think. He does not take advantage of their mistake to further his own glory.

If he had said, “I am the Christ,” you can imagine how readily he would have been believed, since they believed he was the Christ even before he spoke. But he did not say it; he acknowledged what he was. He pointed out clearly who he was; he humbled himself.

He saw where his salvation lay. He understood that he was a lamp, and his fear was that it might be blown out by the wind of pride.




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









Lebanon, Carmel and Sharon:
life ‘grounded’ in the gift of land



εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to them,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.


θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

Are you ready for a lesson in biblical geography? While the Bible is not a geography book, a vast array of episodes and events are tied intimately to particular locales throughout the region known as the Holy Land, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and others as well. Throughout the centuries, many scholars (for example, the Benedictine Archeologist Fr Bargil Pixner referred to the Holy Land as the ‘Fifth Gospel in his writings) have noted the significance of geography woven in and throughout the Sacred Text as it conveys God the Father’s message of salvation (see Dei Verbum, especially chapter 3,  and Catechism of the Catholic Church especially paragraphs 101-141).

A few lands are mentioned in this Sunday’s opening proclamation from the Prophet Isaiah: Lebanon, Carmel, Sharon along with the wilderness. The lands of Lebanon, Carmel and Sharon exist in sharp contrast to the barrenness, aridity and sterility of the wilderness. Isaiah binds familiar Old Testament actions of God’s Self-revelation such as glory (Hebrew, kavod) and splendor (Hebrew, hadar) to Lebanon, Carmel and Sharon. Each land from a geographic perspective, therefore offers some insight into both the glory and splendor of God.

Lebanon

The Semitic root of Lebanon is akin to “white” and most probably refers to the snow-capped mountains of this land. From these mountains during the spring thaw, water flows into the land along with approximately 50 inches of rain per year making Lebanon somewhat unique in the Ancient Near Eastern world when it comes to water access. As referenced in a number of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g. Psalm 72), Lebanon - situated north of the region of Galilee - is home to the aromatic cedars and also the Beqa' valley, an exceptionally fertile land making agrarian life a common occupation. The land also boasted a beauty that Isaiah viewed as a fitting metaphor for the beauty of Divine life. In addition, because this valley is situated between impressive mountain ranges, this region enables trade to move more efficiently without having to detour.

Mount Carmel

The famed mountain that was the site of the clash between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Carmel conveys images of a garden, vineyard or orchard in Hebrew. Similar to many descriptions of Lebanon, the land of Mount Carmel is quite fertile and receives a fair amount of rain each year, though not as much as Lebanon. Throughout the Old Testament, Mount Carmel stands as an image of beauty and majesty reflecting the oneness of the God of Israel and challenging the Israelites to respond by living a life of radical monotheism.

Plain of Sharon

Slightly south of Mount Carmel lies the plain of Sharon. Part of this area was known in the biblical era for its grazing land that fed a good deal of animals. Other parts of the plain were subject to droughts which in turn came an imagery of desolation. Because of its location and terrain, Sharon was an important region for trade routes, especially as travels went eastward away from the coastal areas.

For the Israelites, land was God’s gift to provide and sustain life as well as growth. Most guaranteed safe water came from the land. Food grew from the land and also provided grazing for herds. Land provided a means to anchor shelter. In receiving land as gift, all hoped for land that was wide, broad and spacious because the wider the land, the broader the land, the more spacious the land a family would have great access to water, food and shelter/protection. People of the biblical era knew that land meant life and meant life in an urgent way. Water, food, shelter/protection were the minimal necessities for physical living and no one toyed with these realities. The gift of spacious, wide land that yielded water, food, shelter/protection was expressed by the Hebrew word ysh (yesha), which in time came to be translated into English as “salvation.” For Isaiah, the deeply known and lived singlemindedness of securing sufficient water, food, shelter/protection from the gift of wide, broad and spacious land was a powerful image of the vital and necessary relationship with the one God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.






Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr



“... but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands...” (Matthew 17:12)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“The disciples who went up with Jesus remembered the traditions of the scribes concerning Elijah, that before the advent of Christ, Elijah would come and prepare for him the souls of those who would receive him. But the vision on the mountain, in which Elijah appeared, did not seem to be harmonized with what had been said, since Elijah seemed to them to have come with him rather than before him. So they say this thinking that the scribes were wrong. To this the Savior replies, not denying what was handed down about Elijah but saying that there was another coming of Elijah before that of Christ unknown to the scribes. In [this coming] “they did not know him but did to him whatever they pleased,” as though they too were accomplices in his imprisonment by Herod and execution by him. Then he says that he too will suffer what they did to Elijah. The disciples asked these questions as though about Elijah and the Savior replied. But hearing the Savior’s words, “Elijah has already come,” and what followed, they took it as a reference to John the Baptist.” (Commentary on Matthew, 13).



Collect
May the glorious intercession
of the Virgin and Martyr Saint Lucy
give us new heart, we pray, O Lord,
so that we may celebrate her heavenly birthday
in this present age
and so behold things eternal.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



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


Top





You light up your grace of body with the radiance of your mind



Saint Ambrose of Milan
Bishop and Great Latin Father of the Church

An excerpt from his work, On Virginity

Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr

You are one of God’s people, of God’s family, a virgin among virgins; you light up your grace of body with your splendor of soul. More than others you can be compared to the Church. When you are in your room, then, at night, think always on Christ, and wait for his coming at every moment.

This is the person Christ has loved in loving you, the person he has chosen in choosing you. He enters by the open door; he has promised to come in, and he cannot deceive. Embrace him, the one you have sought; turn to him, and be enlightened; hold him fast, ask him not to go in haste, beg him not to leave you. The Word of God moves swiftly; he is not won by the lukewarm, nor held fast by the negligent. Let your soul be attentive to his word; follow carefully the path God tells you to take, for he is swift in his passing.

What does his bride say? I sought him, and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. Do not imagine that you are displeasing to him although you have called him, asked him, opened the door to him, and that this is the reason why he has gone so quickly; no, for he allows us to be constantly tested. When the crowds pressed him to stay, what does he say in the Gospel? I must preach the word of God to other cities, because I have been sent for that. But even if it seems to you that he has left you, go out and seek him once more.

Who but holy Church is to teach you how to hold Christ fast? Indeed, she has already taught you, if you only understood her words in Scripture: How short a time it was when I left them before I found him whom my soul has loved. I held him fast, and I will not let him go.

How do we hold him fast? Not by restraining chains or knotted ropes but by bonds of love, by spiritual reins, by the longing of the soul.

If you also, like the bride, wish to hold him fast, seek him and be fearless of suffering. It is often easier to find him in the midst of bodily torments, in the very hands of persecutors.

His bride says: How short a time it was after I left them. In a little space, after a brief moment, when you have escaped from the hands of your persecutors without yielding to the powers of this world, Christ will come to you, and he will not allow you to be tested for long.

Whoever seeks Christ in this way, and finds him, can say: I held him fast, and I will not let him go before I bring him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me. What is this “house”, this “room”, but the deep and secret places of your heart?

Maintain this house, sweep out its secret recesses until it becomes immaculate and rises as a spiritual temple for a holy priesthood, firmly secured by Christ, the cornerstone, so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in it.

Whoever seeks Christ in this way, whoever prays to Christ in this way, is not abandoned by him; on the contrary, Christ comes again and again to visit such a person, for he is with us until the end of the world.



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

 

 



Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe



“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:45.)

Saint Ambrose of Milan offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“You see that Mary did not doubt but believed and therefore obtained the fruit of faith. “Blessed are you who have believed.” But you also are blessed who have heard and believed. For a soul that has believed has both conceived and bears the Word of God and declares his works. Let the soul of Mary be in each of you, so that it magnifies the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each of you, so that it rejoices in God. She is the one mother of Christ according to the flesh, yet Christ is the Fruit of all according to faith. Every soul receives the Word of God, provided that, undefiled and unstained by vices, it guards its purity with inviolate modesty.” (Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, 2)



Collect
O God, Father of mercies,
Who placed Your people
under the singular protection
of Your Son’s most holy Mother,
grant that all who invoke
the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe,
may seek with ever more lively faith
the progress of peoples
in the ways of justice and of peace.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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





The Voice of the Turtledove
has been heard in our land



Don Antonio Valeriano
Native American author, 16th century

An excerpt from a Report

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

At daybreak one Saturday morning in 1531, on the very first days of the month of December, an Indian named Juan Diego was going from the village where he lived to Tlatelolco in order to take part in divine worship and listen to God’s commandments. When he came near the hill called Tepeyac, dawn had already come, and Juan Diego heard someone calling him from the very top of the hill: “Juanito, Juan Dieguito.”

He went up the hill and caught sight of a lady of unearthly grandeur whose clothing was as radiant as the sun. She said to him in words both gentle and courteous: “Juanito, the humblest of my children, know and understand that I am the ever virgin Mary, Mother of the true God through whom all things live. It is my ardent desire that a church be erected here so that in it I can show and bestow my love, compassion, help, and protection to all who inhabit this land and to those others who love me, that they might call upon and confide in me. Go to the Bishop of Mexico to make known to him what I greatly desire. Go and put all your efforts into this.”

When Juan Diego arrived in the presence of the Bishop, Fray Juan de Zumarraga, a Franciscan, the latter did not seem to believe Juan Diego and answered: “Come another time, and I will listen at leisure.”

Juan Diego returned to the hilltop where the Heavenly Lady was waiting, and he said to her: “My Lady, my maiden, I presented your message to the Bishop, but it seemed that he did not think it was the truth. For this reason I beg you to entrust your message to someone more illustrious who might convey it in order that they may believe it, for I am only an insignificant man.”

She answered him: “Humblest of my sons, I ask that tomorrow you again go to see the Bishop and tell him that I, the ever virgin holy Mary, Mother of God, am the one who personally sent you.”

But on the following day, Sunday, the Bishop again did not believe Juan Diego and told him that some sign was necessary so that he could believe that it was the Heavenly Lady herself who sent him. And then he dismissed Juan Diego.

On Monday Juan Diego did not return. His uncle, Juan Bernardino, became very ill, and at night asked Juan to go to Tlatelolco at daybreak to call a priest to hear his confession.

Juan Diego set out on Tuesday, but he went around the hill and passed on the other side, toward the east, so as to arrive quickly in Mexico City and to avoid being detained by the Heavenly Lady. But she came out to meet him on that side of the hill and said to him: “Listen and understand, my humblest son. There is nothing to frighten and distress you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and let nothing upset you. Is it not I, your Mother, who is here? Are you not under my protection? Are you not, fortunately, in my care? Do not let your uncle’s illness distress you. It is certain that he has already been cured. Go up to the hilltop, my son, where you will find flowers of various kinds. Cut them, and bring them into my presence.”

When Juan Diego reached the peak, he was astonished that so many Castilian roses had burst forth at a time when the frost was severe. He carried the roses in the folds of his tilma (mantle) to the Heavenly Lady. She said to him: “My son, this is the proof and the sign which you will bring to the Bishop so that he will see my will in it. You are my ambassador, very worthy of trust.”

Juan Diego set out on his way, now content and sure of succeeding. On arriving in the Bishop’s presence, he told him: “My Lord, I did what you asked. The Heavenly Lady complied with your request and fulfilled it. She sent me to the hilltop to cut some Castilian roses and told me to bring them to you in person. And this I am doing, so that you can see in them the sign you seek in order to carry out her will. Here they are; receive them.”

He immediately opened up his white mantle, and as all the different Castilian roses scattered to the ground, there was drawn on the cloak and suddenly appeared the precious image of the ever virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the same manner as it is today and is kept in her shrine of Tepeyac.

The whole city was stirred and came to see and admire her venerable image and to offer prayers to her; and following the command which the same Heavenly Lady gave to Juan Bernardino when she restored him to health, they called her by the name that she herself had used: “the ever virgin holy Mary of Guadalupe.”



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

 






Thursday of the Second Week of Advent



“In the wilderness I will plant the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive; in the wasteland I will set the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine ...” (Isaiah 41:19.)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“All these [types of trees] are equally placed in solitude, lest even one chord from the harp of the Lord and any virtue of the graces of the church seem to be missing. They are planted in the desert so that all might understand and recognize with a common mind that the hand of the Lord has accomplished all these things, so that in the desert of the nations there came rivers of virtues and in a land once a desert and full of salty water the cedar and cypress and other trees may grow, whose height and stature rush to the skies. The olive tree is the same tree that supplies both light and relaxation after working.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 12.)



Collect
Stir up our hearts, O Lord,
to make ready the paths
of Your Only Begotten Son,
that through His coming,
we may be found worthy to serve You
with minds made pure.
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


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Love desires to see God



Saint Peter Chrysologus
Bishop

An excerpt from his Sermon 147

Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

When God saw the world falling to ruin because of fear, he immediately acted to call it back to himself with love. He invited it by his grace, preserved it by his love, and embraced it with compassion. When the earth had become hardened in evil, God sent the flood both to punish and to release it. He called Noah to be the father of a new era, urged him with kind words, and showed that he trusted him; he gave him fatherly instruction about the present calamity, and through his grace consoled him with hope for the future. But God did not merely issue commands; rather with Noah sharing the work, he filled the ark with the future seed of the whole world. The sense of loving fellowship thus engendered removed servile fear, and a mutual love could continue to preserve what shared labor had effected.

God called Abraham out of the heathen world, symbolically lengthened his name, and made him the father of all believers. God walked with him on his journeys, protected him in foreign lands, enriched him with earthly possessions, and honored him with victories. He made a covenant with him, saved him from harm, accepted his hospitality, and astonished him by giving him the offspring he had despaired of. Favored with so many graces and drawn by such great sweetness of divine love, Abraham was to learn to love God rather that fear him, and love rather than fear was to inspire his worship.

God comforted Jacob by a dream during his flight, roused him to combat upon his return, and encircled him with a wrestler’s embrace to teach him not to be afraid of the author of the conflict, but to love him. God called Moses as a father would, and with fatherly affection invited him to become the liberator of his people.

In all the events we have recalled, the flame of divine love enkindled human hearts and its intoxication overflowed into men’s senses. Wounded by love, they longed to look upon God with their bodily eyes. Yet how could our narrow human vision apprehend God, whom the whole world cannot contain? But the law of love is not concerned with what will be, what ought to be, what can be. Love does not reflect; it is unreasonable and knows no moderation. Love refuses to be consoled when its goal proves impossible, despises all hindrances to the attainment of its object. Love destroys the lover if he cannot obtain what he loves; love follows its own promptings, and does not think of right and wrong. Love inflames desire which impels it toward things that are forbidden. But why continue?

It is intolerable for love not to see the object of its longing. That is why whatever reward they merited was nothing to the saints if they could not see the Lord. A love that desires to see God may not have reasonableness on its side, but it is the evidence of filial love. It gave Moses the temerity to say: If I have found favor in your eyes, show me your face. It inspired the psalmist to make the same prayer: Show me your face. Even the pagans made their images for this purpose: they wanted actually to see what they mistakenly revered.



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

 






Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent



“They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength, they will soar on eagles’ wings; They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.” (Isaiah 40:31.)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel proclamation:

“We have said that the old age of eagles is revived by a change of their wings and that they alone who see the brilliance of the sun and the radiance of its splendor are able to gaze with gleaming eyes; and they test their young ones to see whether they are of noble birth by this same test. In the same way the saints are made young again as they put on their immortal bodies so that they no longer feel the toil of mortals but are taken up into the clouds before the face of Christ, and in no way (following the Septuagint) do they hunger, since they have the Lord present to them as food.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 12.)



Collect
Almighty God, Who command us
to prepare the way for Christ the Lord,
grant in Your kindness, we pray,
that no infirmity may weary us
as we long for the comforting presence
of our heavenly physician.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


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


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God established a time for his promises and a time for their fulfillment



Saint Augustine of Hippo
Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt his On the Psalms

Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

The time for promises was in the time of the prophets, until John the Baptist; from John until the end is the time of fulfillment.

God, who is faithful, put himself in our debt, not by receiving anything but by promising so much. A promise was not sufficient for him; he chose to commit himself in writing as well, as it were making a contract of his promises. He wanted us to be able to see the way in which his promises were redeemed when he began to discharge them. And so the time of the prophets was, as we have often said, the foretelling of the promises.

He promised eternal salvation, everlasting happiness with the angels, an immortal inheritance, endless glory, the joyful vision of his face, his holy dwelling in heaven, and after resurrection from the dead no further fear of dying. This is as it were his final promise, the goal of all our striving. When we reach it, we shall ask for nothing more. But as to the way in which we are to arrive at our final goal, he has revealed this also, by promise and prophecy.

He has promised men divinity, mortals immortality, sinners justification, the poor a rising to glory.

But, brethren, because God’s promises seemed impossible to men — equality with the angels in exchange for mortality, corruption, poverty, weakness, dust and ashes — God not only made a written contract with men, to win their belief but also established a mediator of his good faith, not a prince or angel or archangel, but his only Son. He wanted, through his Son, to show us and give us the way he would lead us to the goal he has promised.

It was not enough for God to make his Son our guide to the way; he made him the way itself, that you might travel with him as leader, and by him as the way.

Therefore, the only Son of God was to come among men, to take the nature of men, and in this nature to be born as a man. He was to die, to rise again, to ascend into heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father, and to fulfill his promises among the nations, and after that to come again, to exact now what he had asked for before, to separate those deserving his anger from those deserving his mercy, to execute his threats against the wicked, and to reward the just as he had promised.

All this had therefore to be prophesied, foretold, and impressed on us as an event in the future, in order that we might wait for it in faith, not find it a sudden and dreadful reality.

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

 






Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent



“What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” (Matthew 18:12.)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel proclamation:

““See that you do not despise one of these little ones,” he is calling us to be merciful. Then he adds the parable of the ninety-nine sheep left in the mountains and the one stray that because of its great weakness could not walk. The good shepherd carried it on his shoulders to the rest of the flock. This, some say, is the shepherd “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” For that reason he descended to earth: to save the one sheep that had perished, that is, the human race. Others think that by the ninety-nine sheep should be understood the number of the righteous and by the one sheep the number of the sinners, according to what he said in another place: “I have come not to call the righteous but the sinners; for it is not the healthy who have need of the physician but those who are ill.”” (Commentary on Matthew, 3.)



Collect
O God,
Who have shown forth Your salvation
to all the ends of the earth,
grant, we pray,
that we may look forward in joy
to the glorious Nativity of Christ.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



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


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The eschatological character
of the pilgrim Church



Second Vatican Council

An excerpt from Lumen Gentium, 48.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

The Church, to which we are all called in Christ Jesus and in which we acquire holiness through the grace of God, will reach its perfection only in the glory of heaven, when the time comes for the renewal of all things, and the whole world, which is intimately bound up with man and reaches its perfection through him, will, along with the human race, be perfectly restored in Christ.

Lifted above the earth, Christ drew all things to himself. Rising from the dead, he sent his life-giving Spirit upon his disciples, and through the Spirit established his Body, which is the Church, as the universal sacrament of salvation. Seated at the right hand of the Father, he works unceasingly in the world, to draw men into the Church and through it to join them more closely to himself, nourishing them with his own body and blood, and so making them share in his life of glory.

The promised renewal that we look for has already begun in Christ. It is continued in the mission of the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit it goes on developing in the Church: there we are taught by faith about the meaning also of our life on earth as we bring to fulfilment—with hope in the blessings that are to come—the work that has been entrusted to us in the world by the Father, and so work out our salvation.

The end of the ages is already with us. The renewal of the world has been established, and cannot be revoked. In our era it is in a true sense anticipated: the Church on earth is already sealed by genuine, if imperfect, holiness. Yet, until a new heaven and a new earth are built as the dwelling place of justice, the pilgrim Church, in its sacraments and institutions belonging to this world of time, bears the likeness of this passing world. It lives in the midst of a creation still groaning and in travail as it waits for the sons of God to be revealed in glory.



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

 

 



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