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

 

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Friday of the Third Week of Advent

“Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7.)

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

“Is it not written, “He says, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’”? We read this in Isaiah: “But you have made it a den of thieves.” Where we read, “You have made it a den of thieves,” John’s Gospel had instead, “You have made it a house of business.” Wherever there are thieves, there is a house of trafficking. Would that it were applied only to the Jews and not the Christians! We would, indeed, weep for them but rejoice for ourselves. But now, in many places, the house of God, the house of the Father, has become a place of business. I who am speaking and each one of you, priest, deacon or bishop, who yesterday was a poor man, who today is a rich man in the house of God!” (Homilies on Mark, 83.)

Collect

May Your grace, Almighty God,
always go before us and follow after,
so that we, who await with heartfelt desire
the coming of Your Only Begotten Son,
may receive Your help
both now and in the life to come. 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

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The desire of your heart constitutes your prayer

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from A Discourse on the Psalms (Psalm 37)

Friday of the Third Week of Advent

In the anguish of my heart I groaned aloud. There is a hidden anguish which is inaudible to men. Yet when a man’s heart is so taken up with some particular concern that the hurt inside finds vocal expression, one looks for the reason. And one will say to oneself: perhaps this is what causes his anguish, or perhaps such and such had happened to him. But who can be certain of the cause except God, who hears and sees his anguish? Therefore the psalmist says: In the anguish of my heart I groaned aloud. For if men hear at all, they usually hear only bodily groaning and know nothing of the anguish of the heart from which it issues.

Who then knows the cause of man’s groaning? All my desire is before you. No, it is not open before other men, for they cannot understand the heart; but before you is all my desire. If your desire lies open to him who is your Father and who sees in secret, he will answer you.

For the desire of your heart is itself your prayer. And if the desire is constant, so is your prayer. The Apostle Paul had a purpose in saying: Pray without ceasing. Are we then ceaselessly to bend our knees, to lie prostrate, or to lift up our hands? Is this what is meant in saying: Pray without ceasing? Even if we admit that we pray in this fashion, I do not believe that we can do so all the time.

Yet there is another, interior kind of prayer without ceasing, namely, the desire of the heart. Whatever else you may be doing, if you but fix your desire on God’s Sabbath rest, your prayer will be ceaseless. Therefore, if you wish to pray without ceasing, do not cease to desire.

The constancy of your desire will itself be the ceaseless voice of your prayer. And that voice of your prayer will be silent only when your love ceases. For who are silent? Those of whom it is said: Because evil has abounded, the love of many will grow cold.

The chilling of love means that the heart is silent; while burning love is the outcry of the heart. If your love is without ceasing, you are crying out always; if you always cry out, you are always desiring; and if you desire, you are calling to mind your eternal rest in the Lord.

And all my desire is before you. What if the desire of our heart is before him, but not our groaning? But how is that possible, since the groaning is the voice of our desire? And therefore it is said: My groaning is not concealed from you. It may be concealed from men, but it is not concealed from you. Sometimes God’s servant seems to be saying in his humility: My anguish is not concealed from you. At other times he seems to be laughing. Does that mean that the desire of his heart has died within him? If the desire is there, then the groaning is there as well. Even if men fail to hear it, it never ceases to sound in the hearing 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

 

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Thursday of the Third Week of Advent

“This is for me like the days of Noah: As I swore then that the waters of Noah should never again flood the earth, So I have sworn now not to be angry with you, or to rebuke you.” (Isaiah 54:9.)

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

“The sense that the Septuagint gives is confused and all things are disordered, so that what is said is hard to understand. It is not that I do not know what that very wise man has said on this chapter but rather that it does not satisfy my mind. For he takes it to be about a figurative flood that means the Savior’s baptism that in baptism he removed all sins. In this figure the water cleanses us, not washing away the dirtiness of flesh but by the appeal of a good conscience to God. The mountains and the hills are those saints who were not moved in the flood of this sort, having accepted the eternal covenant, although in the previous flood they were moved, but they left their weakness behind.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 15.)

Collect

Unworthy servants that we are, O Lord,
grieved by the guilt of our deeds,
we pray that You may gladden us
by the saving advent
of Your Only Begotten 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

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Christ brings all revelation to perfection

Second Vatican Council

An excerpt from Dei Verbum, 3-4.

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent

God, who through the Word creates all things and keeps them in being, provides men with unfailing testimony to himself in creation. With the intention of opening up the way of salvation from above, he also revealed himself to our first parents from the very beginning.

After their fall, he lifted them up to hope for salvation by the promise of redemption, and watched over mankind with unceasing care, in order that he might give eternal life to all who in persevering in good works seek out salvation.

In his own good time God called Abraham, to make of him a mighty nation. After the patriarchs, he taught this nation through Moses and the prophets to acknowledge himself alone as the living and true God, a provident father and just judge, and to look forward to the promised Savior. So, through the ages, he prepared a way for the Gospel. After speaking at various times and in different ways through the prophets, God has finally spoken to us in these days through the Son.

He sent his Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men, to dwell among men and make known to them the innermost things of God. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, sent as a man to men, speaks the words of God, and brings to perfection the saving work that the Father gave him to do.

To see him is to see the Father also. By his whole presence and self-revelation, by words and actions, by signs and miracles, especially by his death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally by sending the Spirit of truth, he completes revelation and brings it to perfection, sealing by divine testimony its message that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to eternal life.

The Christian dispensation, because it is the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and no new public revelation is any longer to be looked for before the manifestation in glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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 knowledge of the mystery hidden in Christ Jesus

Saint John of the Cross

Priest and Doctor of the Church

An excerpt from his Spiritual Canticle

Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Though holy doctors have uncovered many mysteries and wonders, and devout souls have understood them in this earthly condition of ours, yet the greater part still remains to be unfolded by them, and even to be understood by them.

We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.

For this reason the apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The soul cannot enter into these treasures, nor attain them, unless it first crosses into and enters the thicket of suffering, enduring interior and exterior labors, and unless it first receives from God very many blessings in the intellect and in the senses, and has undergone long spiritual training.

All these are lesser things, disposing the soul for the lofty sanctuary of the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ: this is the highest wisdom attainable in this life.

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be steadfast and rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth—to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.

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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Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr

““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

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

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Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

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

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

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

 

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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

 

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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.

(Isaiah 35:1-2.)

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.

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

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The strength of loveought to overcome the fear of death

Optional Memorial — 6 December

Saint Nicholas of Myra 

Pope and Martyr

An excerpt from Saint Augustine’s
Treatise on Saint John

When the Lord asks Peter if he loves him, he is asking something he already knows. Yet he does not ask only once, but a second and third time. Each time Peter’s answer is the same: You know I love you. Each time the Lord gives him the same command: Tend my sheep.

Peter had denied Christ three times, and to counter this he must profess his faith three times. Otherwise his tongue would seem quicker to serve fear than love, and the threat of death would seem to have made him more eloquent than did the presence of life. If denying the shepherd was proof of fear, then the task of love is to tend his flock.

When those who are tending Christ’s flock wish that the sheep were theirs rather than his, they stand convicted of loving themselves, not Christ. And the Lord’s words are a repeated admonition to them and to all who, as Paul writes sadly, are seeking their own ends, not Christ’s.

Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Surely this means: “If you love me, your thoughts must focus on taking care of my sheep, not taking care of yourself. You must tend them as mine, not as yours; seek in them my glory, not yours; my sovereign rights, not yours; my gain, not yours. Otherwise you will find yourself among those who belong to the ‘times of peril,’ those who are guilty of self-love and the other sins that go with that beginning of evils.”

So the shepherds of Christ’s flock must never indulge in self-love; if they do they will be tending the sheep not as Christ’s but as their own. And of all vices this is the one that the shepherds must guard against most earnestly; seeking their own purposes instead of Christ’s, furthering their own desires by means of those persons for whom Christ shed his blood.

The love of Christ ought to reach such a spiritual pitch in his shepherds that it overcomes the natural fear of death which makes us shrink from the thought of dying even though we desire to live with Christ. However distressful death may be, the strength of love ought to master the distress. I mean the love we have for Christ who, although he is our life, consented to suffer death for our sake.

Consider this: if death held little or no distress for us, the glory of martyrdom would be less. But if the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep, has made so many of those same sheep martyrs and witnesses for him, then how much more ought Christ’s shepherds fight for the truth even to death and to shed their blood in opposing sin? After all, the Lord has entrusted them with tending his flock and with teaching and guiding his lambs.

With his passion for their example, Christ’s shepherds are most certainly bound to cling to the pattern of his suffering, since even the lambs have so often followed that pattern of the Chief Shepherd in whose one flock the shepherds themselves are lambs. For the Good Shepherd who suffered for all mankind has made all mankind his lambs, since in order to suffer for them all he made himself a lamb.

Scriptures for the Optional Memorial

Collect

We humbly implore your mercy, Lord:
protect us in all dangers
through the prayers of the
Bishop Saint Nicholas,
that the way of salvation
may lie open before us.
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

 

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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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Preparing to face... a wondrous, graced Advent work

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

“John the Baptist appeared,
preaching in the desert of Judea and saying,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah
had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.”

(Matthew 3:1-3.)

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

“Prepare!” When one ponders the meaning of Advent, prepare is often one of the words at the top of the list, describing this Season as a way of living. Together with the command and action “make straight,” the command “prepare” stand at the forefront of the wildly hope-filled Isaian text, employed by the evangelist Saint Matthew, declaring (not simply wishing) that God is about a mighty work, some might even say a ‘re-creation,’ that will transform captivity into freedom. Hymns, oratorios, Broadway plays and even a flash mob have enshrined this powerful prophetic text that all Evangelists use (the Evangelist John begins the Isaian citation with the command “make straight” omitting “prepare the way of the Lord”) at some point early in each Gospel to describe the person, John the Baptist, as well as his work ‘to prepare the way’ for his kinsman and Savior, Jesus.

Initially, the word prepare is usually associated with actions that will “make ready.” A particular event or celebration, to name only two, require specific tasks be accomplished in order for the future event to happen with a reasonable expectation of success. For the super-organized among us, one might even have an app that will meticulously track and document everything on the “to-do” or “honey-do” list as well as generate progress reports to keep everyone on track. This sense of ‘making ready’ by completing necessary steps or task does convey the meaning of the Greek verb ἑτοιμάζω (hetoimazo) as used by the Evangelist, Saint Matthew. With Advent’s two-fold meaning of preparing for Jesus’ Second Coming as well as for the commemoration of His first coming to us in Bethlehem, there are legitimate ‘tasks’ to accomplish as a response to the Grace of this Season. Time spent pondering the Word of God, silent prayer, the Sacrament of Penance, deepening awareness and reverence for Our Lord’s Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament as well as the spiritual and corporal works of mercy are noble tasks accomplished by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit given to each of us as Gift. All of these ready each of us for Jesus’ presence and action in the world and in our lives. But there is more, as the Word of God is always abundantly rich in its life-giving message of Salvation.

ἑτοιμάζω (hetoimazo), the Greek verb “to prepare,” is itself a translation of a Hebrew verb that appears in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that dates to the time of Alexander the Great). ἑτοιμάζω (hetoimazo) translates the Hebrew verb פָּנָה (panah) and in terms of its usage this Sunday in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, appears in Isaiah 40:3 which is part of ‘the prologue of hope’ delivered to the Israelites while captive in Babylon. During their captivity, the Israelites became painfully aware that their plight as captives, not to mention a destroyed city and Temple, were the result of their own selfishness. Despite the repeated pleas of prophets, many in Israel choose to gaze only upon that which satisfied self in the present moment. Whether it was sins of anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride or sloth, Israel knew she turned her gaze from the One God to elements of creation in a failed attempt for some delight or satisfaction. Isaiah’s command to this captive and now deeply depressed people was “Prepare [פָּנָה (panah)]!” While not excluding specific actions that must be accomplished, פָּנָה (panah) concretely describes the action of “turning to face the other” to establish a connection with that person or persons. In other words, the Isaian command פָּנָה (panah) is essentially relational as the Ancient Near Eastern cultures ‘viewed’ the “face” as the sum-total of a person. While the Covenant imperative to avoid sinful anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride or sloth is necessary and valid, these are but the summation of what must be avoided in order to live in proper relationship with God, others, the true self and all creation — what the Old Testament enshrines as sadiq (often translated in the New Testament as “just” or “righteous” and applied to a select few such as Saint Joseph [Matthew 1:19.]). For Isaiah, the path home (preparing) rested in ‘turning to face the Lord.’ Specific and necessary tasks flowed first and foremost from gazing upon the Face of the Lord.

The implication of the iconic Isaian Text for Christians is not only obvious but urgently imperative. The ‘holy work’ of Advent is not the completion of self-generated tasks, as noble and as good as they may seem to each of us. As the Sacred Tradition knows quite well, our ‘good intentions’ or ‘good works’ can stymie the work of the Holy Spirit; simply consult Saint Augustine as he responded to the ‘good intentions’ and ‘good works’ of Pelagius. All that we are and all that we do MUST be the fruit (product) of heeding the movement of the Holy Spirit to ‘turn our faces to Jesus.’ Being turned to gaze on the Face of Jesus Christ and to permit ‘connecting with Him’ is precisely what that Wildman of the Jordan – John the Baptist — was doing. As people were intrigued by the prophetic word he spoke, he intended that people – including himself – be connected to Jesus. Beholding the Face of Jesus, gazing into His eyes – being captivated and held by Him is the deeply preparatory work of Advent and indeed how we are to live. When the posture of our lives faces Him, He writes the ‘to-do list’ for life. ‘Be prepared,’ ‘be ready’ for a surprise as to what He writes on the list!

Monday of the First Week of Advent

“When the Lord washes away the filth of the daughters of Zion, And purges Jerusalem’s blood from her midst with a blast of judgment, a searing blast...” (Isaiah 4:4.)

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

“When one has recognized the differences in sins, one can see how the Lord says in Isaiah, “The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion and will cleanse the blood from their midst by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning.” Filth is washed away by a spirit of judgment. Blood is washed away by a spirit of burning. Even if you have not committed a sin that leads to death, you have still sinned and have thereby become filthy. The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and he will cleanse the blood from among them. A spirit of judgment will be the recompense for filth, and a spirit of burning will be a recompense for the blood. Whenever we commit heinous sins, we do not need lye or washing with soap; rather we need the spirit of burning.” (Homilies on Jeremiah, 2.)

Second Sunday of Advent

“But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” (Isaiah 11:1.)

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

“Until the beginning of the vision, or the burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos saw, his entire prophecy was about Christ, a prophecy that we want to explain piecemeal lest the ideas and discussions thereof together confuse the reader’s memory. The Jews interpreted the branch and the flower from the root of Jesse to be the Lord himself because the power of his governance is demonstrated in the branch and his beauty in the flower. But we understand the branch from the root of Jesse to be the holy Virgin Mary, who had no shoot connatural to herself. About her we read above: “Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son.” And the flower is the Lord our Savior, who said in the Song of Songs, “I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys.” In place of “root,” which only the Septuagint translated, the Hebrew text has geza, which Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotus interpret as kormon, that is, “stem.” And they translated “flower,” which the Hebrew text calls nēṣer, as “bud” to show that after a long time in Babylonian captivity, no longer possessing any glory from the sprout of the old kingdom of David, Christ would rise from Mary as though from her stem. The educated of the Hebrews believe that what all the ecclesiastics sought in the Gospel of Matthew but could not find, where it was written “Because he will be called a Nazarene,” was taken from this place. But it should be noted that nēṣer was written here with the [Hebrew] letter ṣade [צ], the peculiar sound of which—somewhere between z and s—the Latin language does not express.” (Commentary on Isaiah, 4.)

Collect

Almighty and merciful God,
may no earthly undertaking hinder those
who set out in haste to meet your Son,
but may our learning of heavenly wisdom
gain us admittance into his company.
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

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The voice in the wilderness

Eusebius of Caesarea

Ancient Christian Writer

An excerpt from his Commentary on Isaiah

Second Sunday of Advent

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. The prophecy makes clear that it is to be fulfilled, not in Jerusalem but in the wilderness: it is there that the glory of the Lord is to appear, and God’s salvation is to be made known to all mankind.

It was in the wilderness that God’s saving presence was proclaimed by John the Baptist, and there that God’s salvation was seen. The words of this prophecy were fulfilled when Christ and his glory were made manifest to all: after his baptism the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove rested on him, and the Father’s voice was heard, bearing witness to the Son: This is my beloved Son, listen to him.

The prophecy meant that God was to come to a deserted place, inaccessible from the beginning. None of the pagans had any knowledge of God, since his holy servants and prophets were kept from approaching them. The voice commands that a way be prepared for the Word of God: the rough and trackless ground is to be made level, so that our God may find a highway when he comes. Prepare the way of the Lord: the way is the preaching of the Gospel, the new message of consolation, ready to bring to all mankind the knowledge of God’s saving power.

Climb on a high mountain, bearer of good news to Zion. Lift up your voice in strength, bearer of good news to Jerusalem. These words harmonize very well with the meaning of what has gone before. They refer opportunely to the evangelists and proclaim the coming of God to men, after speaking of the voice crying in the wilderness. Mention of the evangelists suitably follows the prophecy on John the Baptist.

What does Zion mean if not the city previously called Jerusalem? This is the mountain referred to in that passage from Scripture: Here is mount Zion, where you dwelt. The Apostle says: You have come to mount Zion. Does not this refer to the company of the apostles, chosen from the former people of the circumcision?

This is the Zion, the Jerusalem, that received God’s salvation. It stands aloft on the mountain of God, that is, it is raised high on the only-begotten Word of God. It is commanded to climb the high mountain and announce the word of salvation. Who is the bearer of the good news but the company of the evangelists? What does it mean to bear the good news but to preach to all nations, but first of all to the cities of Judah, the coming of Christ on earth?


Also worth pondering this Sunday is a reflection on the Hebrew verb «to prepare.»

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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Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, Priest

“Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few...” (Matthew 9:37.)

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

“An abundant harvest signified the multitude of people. The few laborers signified the dearth of teachers. He commands them to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. These are the laborers of whom the psalmist speaks: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy! He that goes forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”3 And that I may speak in broader terms: an abundant harvest represents all the believing multitude. The few laborers imply the apostles and their imitators who are sent to the harvest.” (Commentary on Matthew)

Collect

O God,
Who through the preaching of
Saint Francis Xavier
won many peoples to Yourself,
grant that the hearts of the faithful
may burn with the same zeal for the faith
and that Holy Church may everywhere rejoice
in an abundance of offspring.
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

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Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel

Saint Francis Xavier

Priest and Missionary

An excerpt from Letters to Saint Ignatius

Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, Priest

We have visited the villages of the new converts who accepted the Christian religion a few years ago. No Portuguese live here—the country is so utterly barren and poor. The native Christians have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s Law.

I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. This means that I have purified a very large number of children so young that, as the saying goes, they could not tell their right hand from their left. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

I could not refuse so devout a request without failing in devotion myself. I taught them, first the confession of faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father and Hail Mary. I noticed among them persons of great intelligence. If only someone could educate them in the Christian way of life, I have no doubt that they would make excellent Christians.

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”

I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.

This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like—even to India.

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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