+++AMDG+++

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ THE SECOND COMING OF OUR BLESSED LORD

(Read Luke xxi, 25-33.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that the Church proposes to us in to-day’s Gospel the last judgement as a preparation for Christmas, and this for three reasons. The first is that we may prepare well to welcome Christ with love and with reverential fear: with love because He is about to be born for us at Bethlehem as a little babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, poor, an outcast, laid in a manger, and all of this in order to be our Saviour; with fear, because shortly He will come again with great power and majesty as our supreme and final judge in the valley of Jehosaphat.

APPLICATION: Reflect for a while on the meaning of these two comings. The former was in lowliness, the next will be in majesty; the one was in love, the other will be in the rigour of justice; the one as an infant upon a bed of straw weeping and yearning for your salvation, the other as your judge, who will award you the eternal enjoyment of His Kingdom or sentence you to the woes of an everlasting death. You must then or necessity receive Him in this second coming either with great love or with unspeakable fear.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight no man living be justified. (Ps. cxlii, 2.)

CONSIDER SECONDLY that another reason why to-day we are reminded of the last judgment is in order that, as Jesus comes at Christmas-time to teach us by the word and by the example to despise worldly greatness and embrace evangelical poverty, we may more easily and fully grasp those truths of which men ordinarily take so little notice. At the day of judgment all worldly greatness will have an end, all earthly things will perish by fire and be reduced to ashes. He alone will then triumph and be truly rich, who in order to follow Christ now despises them and tramples them under foot. How the positions of the poor Lazarus and of the rich glutton will be reversed.

APPLICATION: In what position will you then find yourself? Even at the hour of death these truths will be made quite clear to you. As you are about to breath your last, the world will be already dead to you, and you will never again see it until it is reduced to ashes at the last day.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: The Lord had pity on them that fear him, for he knoweth whereof we are made. He remembereth that we are but dust. (Ps. cii, 13-14)

CONSIDER THIRDLY a last reason why the last judgment is proposed to us to-day is that, as our Lord in His first coming shows us a throne of grace and in His second will display a throne of rigorous justice, so now we may so strive to approach the throne of His grace as hereafter to rejoice in the effects of His mercy. Thus then, at His second coming in the valley of Jehosaphat, we shall not have to experience the rigours of His justice. I will judge thee, He says by the prophet Ezekiel, according to thy ways, and my eye shall not spare thee, and I will show thee no pity. (Ezek. vii, 3, 4.)

APPLICATION:  Exceeding great is the abundance of His mercy in the cave of Bethlehem. Let us go therefore, with St Paul, with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy (Heb. Iv, 16), in order that, as the Church prays on Christmas eve, we may then with all assurance behold Him coming as our Judge Whom now with such joy we welcome as our Saviour.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Hear me, O Lord, for thy mercy is kind; look upon me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. (Ps. lviii, 17.)

+ + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

MONDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ THE SIN OF THE ANGELS

Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

(Matt. xxv, 41.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY how extremely rigorous was the justice of God against the angels, who for one sin – and that of thought only – were all included in one common sentence of eternal damnation and in a moment were cast down into the depths of hell. Exceeding great on the other hand was the mercy which God showed towards mankind, in order the better to manifest the splendour and the glory of His Divine attributes. He could have repaired our ruin in other ways, as for example by the simple forgiveness of our sins or by taking upon Himself and angelic nature. But He wished to redeem us by becoming man, because only one who was both God and man could fully satisfy Divine justice for our debt; and He desired to raise human nature from the depths of its miseries to the height of the right hand of the Divine Father.

APPLICATION: If you find not in yourself how to praise and thank God worthily for all these blessings, then unite your praise with that of the angelic spirits who, overawed at the glory of God which is so singularly resplendent in this sublime mystery, cry out incessantly before His throne: Holy, Holy, Holy heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart, for thou hast heard the words of my mouth. I will sing praise unto thee in the sight of the angels. (Ps. Cxxxvii, 1.)

CONSIDER SECONDLY that God after having manifested His justice against the rebel angels, would also make manifest His mercy towards all mankind, who by the original sin of Adam, and still more by their own personal sins lay under sentence of eternal death. Thereby He would teach us that He is both merciful and just.

APPLICATION: Will you not then love the divine goodness which so disinterestedly condescended to show towards mankind such mercy, the fruits of which you now enjoy? What loss would God have suffered had a miserable creature like yourself, perished together with the whole human race, when His happiness remained unimpaired by so many hosts of angels being cast into perdition? At least thank Him from your heart that His redeeming mercy towards all mankind has been has been also extended to you personally, just as if in the whole world there had been no other to redeem excepting yourself.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Praise the Lord, all ye nations, praise Him, all ye people; for His mercy is confirmed upon us. (Ps, cxvi, 1-2.)

CONSIDER THIRDLY that, after God has shown such extreme mercy towards mankind, He will not fail to exercise rigorous justice  towards those who unworthily abuse it, and all the more so as it has been given to them more fully to experience the effects of His mercy.

APPLICATION: To you God has granted to know this great mystery by a clear light of faith. He allowed you to be born in the noonday sun of Christianity, and by many inspirations has invited you to the school of Christ as a disciple and a follower. If then you do not profit by these blessings which have been denied to so many others far better than yourself, then at least have a dread of the rigors of His justice, for not to fear them is to stand in very great danger.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Convert us, O God our Saviour; and turn away thine anger from us. (Ps. Lxxxiv, 5.)

+ + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

TUESDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ DECREE OF THE INCARNATION

God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son. (John iii, 16.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY how wonderful it is that God should love anything that is exterior to Himself, since within Himself He contains in an infinite degree all that there can exist of good outside of Himself. Still greater wonder is it, however, that from all eternity He has loved the world, that is the human race, with all the tender love of a father whilst therefrom He has met with nothing but the blackest ingratitude  and the most abominable wickedness.

APPLICATION: Examine yourself and see whether you yourself are not the object of greatest wonder, who possessing within yourself nothing of good and having received all from God, do not give Him Who so loved you, but only love yourself.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: What is man that thou art mindful of Him? Or the son of man that thou visitest him? (Ps. Viii, 6.)

CONSIDER SECONDLY to what an excess the divine love towards you has urged Him. He so loved as to give His only-begotten Son. What greater gift could be conceived than this? To give you not a mere man, not an angel, nor a seraph, but His only-begotten Son, not an adopted one but His own Divine Son consubstantial with Him, one and the same with the Father in substance and only differing in person. In giving you Jesus Christ He has vouchsafed to bestow on you all the treasures that there are in Him as man, as God, and as both man and God: He that spared not His own Son: but delivered Him up for us all, how hast He not also with Him given us all things? (Rom. Viii, 6.)

APPLICATION: And will you not make sacrifice of even one sin or one fault for love of this Lord, Who with such infinite goodness has given you such marvellous proof of His love?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever. (Ps. Lxxii, 26.

CONSIDER THIRDLY how very great would have been the Father’s love for you, had He given His Son to reign on earth, to receive the homage of mankind, to give laws, and to make known to mankind His heavenly doctrine. But is it not a far more stupendous proof of His love, that He should have given Him to suffer and to die for the salvation of me?

In order that you might become a partaker of the divine nature, He humbled the divine to the human. In order that you might be freed from the guilt of sin and eternal punishment, He delivered up His only-begotten Son to death, the most painful and infamous death of the cross.

APPLICATION: And you, although you have seen this excess of love which passes all bounds and this so unutterable abasement of your Lord, can you still remain so proud that for the love of Him you cannot bear the least slight upon your reputation?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: It is good for me that thou hast humbled me. (Ps. cxviii, 71.)

+ + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

WEDNESDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ BENEFITS OF THE INCARNATION

He was the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. (John i, 9.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY the state of utter misery in which the human race lay before the coming of our Saviour. It was a state of complete blindness of intellect with no knowledge of man’s last end or of his Creator. Its will was perverted by the irregular passions of corrupt nature. It lay beneath the tyranny of demons which held it plunged down in an abyss of vice, forced it to adore as its gods the most impious of mankind, and even the devil himself.

APPLICATION: Oh, what would have become of you had your lot been casted in such calamitous and miserable times? And yet, how little you remember to thank God that He willed that you should be born at a time when with facility you can come to know your last end, and that He should have given you so m any means to attain that end, of which even now so large a proportion of mankind born among the heathen k now nothing whatever.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Blessed be the Lord, for He hath shown His wonderful mercy to me. (Ps xxxi, 22.)

CONSIDER SECONDLY that the divine Father gave His son as a guide and a master to raise the human race from this state of utter ruin, so that with His teaching He might enlighten our darkness, and by the example of His life be a guide to us for the attainment of our eternal salvation, and an encouragement to fight against our enemies. Oh, how great a benefit is this! Yet how little valued it is by mankind, who choose rather to follow the maxims of the world than the teachings of Jesus Christ, and who prefer the allurements of the flesh and the deceits of the devil to the invitation of our Saviour, and to the example which He set.

APPLICATION: Deplore indeed this universal blindness, but at the same time look well into yourself lest you too be found  to be of the number of those ungrateful people who are all but countless.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Enlighten mine eyes, that I sleep not ever in death. (Ps. xii, 5.)

CONSIDER THIRDLY the claims that oblige you to embrace the teachings and to follow the example of Jesus Christ. Firstly, as a Christian in your holy Baptism you renounced the slavery of the world, the flesh and the devil, and you were enrolled among the servants of Christ. But the servant should follow closely in the footsteps of his master. Secondly, as a child and member of the Holy Catholic Church, possibly an ecclesiastic or a religious, you are numbered among His soldiers and closest companions, and as such you are under the strictest obligation to imitate Him and to fight under His standard against His enemies.

AAPPLICATION: Is it possible then that you, a servant, a soldier, and a companion of Jesus Christ, instead of following Him closely, should be ashamed  to imitate His example, and instead of fighting on His side should join yourself with His enemies? Reflect then seriously upon yourself, and see whether in your actions and life you conform yourself to the dictates of the world or to the maxims of the Gospel, to the allurements of the devil or to the example of Jesus Christ.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Turn away mine eyes lest they behold vanity. (Ps. cxviii, 37.)

 + + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

THURSDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ THE MANNER OF THE INCARNATION

And the Word was made flesh. (John i, 14.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that when the Eternal Father decreed that Jesus Christ should clothe Himself with our human nature in order to work out our redemption, Jesus Christ might have chosen a glorified body and that of a perfect man, without submitting Himself to the weakness and sufferings of infancy. Notwithstanding all this, He chose for our greater profit and advantage to be born an infant as we are: It behoved Him in all things to be made like unto us, so that we, seeing Him in this utter state of abasement and become like to one of ourselves in all things, might be the more easily moved to imitate Him and to become like Him.

APPLICATION: Upon this do you also ponder well, seeing that all your progress and perfection consist in making yourself like to your Creator, Who was made like unto you in all things in order thereby to become your Redeemer.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I have said: Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. (Ps. lxxxii, 6.)

CONSIDER SECONDLY that the first way in which you must imitate Him is by making yourself a little child: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. If then in order to be saved you must needs become small, still more in order to arrive at the perfection of your state in life you must become a little child. What then does this mean, to become a little child? It means casting yourself into the arms of Divine Providence, and submitting entirely to the Divine Will, laying aside all anxiety and all thought of yourself like a babe nestling in the arms of its mother.

APPLICATION: Reflect for a moment, if at times you find it hard to be bound down by certain rules and regulations and to dependent upon the will of others, how much harder it must have been for Jesus to remain for nine months enclosed in His Mother’s womb all the while endowed with feeling and the perfect use of reason. This was the first suffering that Jesus Christ bore for you. This reflection is the first step that you must take towards the perfection of your state.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: The declaration of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto little ones. (Ps. cxviii, 130.)

CONSIDER THIRDLY that Jesus Christ not only became a child, but that He willed to be born of a mother in order that being Himself our own flesh and our own brother, His Mother should become our mother also. In like manner as Eve was one with Adam in bringing about the fall of man, so for our salvation it was suitable that the Divine Son should co-operate also with His Blessed Mother. The Son was to be our head, the source of all our graces, the Mother the dispenser of these His gifts; the Son our Advocate with the Father, the Mother our Advocate with the Son. Oh, what tender proofs of our Blessed Redeemer’s immense love!

APPLICATION: Learn then how to profit in all of your needs, by having recourse to and calling to your aid her who b y becoming Mother of our Saviour is made the Mother also of your salvation. “In troubles and in dangers,” says St. Bernard, “call upon Mary, think about Mary,; let not her name leave your lips nor pass away from your heart.”

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: O look upon me and have mercy on me; give thy command unto thy servant, and save the son of the handmaid. (Ps.lxxxvi, 16.)

 + + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

FRIDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ THE ELECTION OF THE MOTHER OF GOD

Blessed art thou among women. (Luke i, 42.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY, after it had been decreed that the Redeemer should be born of a mother, it was determined in the Council of the Most Holy Trinity who she should be who was to be elected to so exalted a position. Who then would not have thought that for so sublime an office, she would be chosen who was the most noble and most revered lady to be found upon the earth? And yet how different are the thoughts of God and those of men! He elected as the Mother of the Most High a virgin utterly unknown to the rest of mankind and the spouse of a poor carpenter.

APPLICATION: And is this alone not enough to make you realize what account God makes of all worldly greatness which is prized so highly by man? Truly the poorest ragged beggar, who has even one degree of grace, is in the sight of God of much more worth than is the greatest monarch on earth. Every least act of virtue, even the giving of a cup of cold water in the name of God, He counts as much more precious than all the gifts of genius, of science, of rank or of wealth.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: O Lord, I am thy servant: I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid. (Ps. cxv, 16.)

CONSIDER SECONDLY that Almighty God beholding from all eternity all possible things, and how in any given condition of things they would act, saw in the Virgin Mary one who in virtue of the grace conferred upon her by the merits of Jesus Christ, would most fully correspond with the gifts of God and in every detail act with the utmost perfection, submitting herself with absolute resignation and humility in all things to the Divine Will. He regarded the humility of His handmaid. (Luke i, 48.) Because of all this it was that she was chosen for the great dignity of the Mother of the Lord.

APPLICATION: Let your heart rejoice that to her was given so exalted a position. Remember too that you also may in some degree become the Mother of God, by doing in all things the Divine Will conformably to what Jesus Christ has said: Whosoever shall do the will of God he is My brother, My sister, and mother. (Mark iii, 35.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God. (Ps cxlii, 10.)

CONSIDER THIRDLY that it is proper to God to dispense His gifts in proportion to the office entrusted to any one. Now the dignity of the Mother of God is so sublime that it belongs to an order altogether superior to all creation, approaching as near as may be, says St. Thomas, the limits of the divine. It was therefore decreed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be endowed with gifts of grace far beyond those of any other created beings.

APPLICATION: Learn from this, when God through His ministers imposes some work upon you, for which you seem to yourself not to have sufficient talent or strength, then above all to hope for all the help from heaven, it being the way our Blessed Lord to give with His commission the means of carrying it out.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I am poor and needy, help me, O God, thou art my helper and my deliverer; O Lord, make no delay. (Ps. lxix, 6.)

+ + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

SATURDAY AFTER THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT ~ THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Hail full of grace. (Luke i, 8.)

CONSIDER FIRSTLY, the privileges of the Blessed Virgin which signified in those words of the Book of Proverbs: Wisdom hath built herself a house. The special home of the Word made man was the Blessed Virgin Mary, the abode which the Divine Wisdom designed as His own dwelling place. Consequently He most assuredly would not allow that the demon should first dwell there and take possession of it. And if He would not that the arch-enemy should enter therein before His coming, still less would He permit it afterwards. Thus it came to pass that the Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin in an especially privileged manner, by being forestalled by a grace which preserved her from all sin, and exempted her from the slightest inclination to it.

APPLICATION: You who by your misfortune has incurred the stain of original sin, and who also of your own fault have fallen into so many personal ones, pray earnestly to the Blessed Virgin that to the grace of this her great privilege, she may attain for you from the divine mercy true contrition and the pardon of all your sins.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Ps. 1, 7)

CONSIDER SECONDLY that in order for the Blessed Virgin  should be a worthy dwelling place of God, the Divine Wisdom was not satisfied merely to keep far from her any taint of sin, but enriched her at that first moment with a fullness of grace greater than that possessed by any of the greatest saints, even at the end of their lives: Her foundations are the holy mountains, by which we are to understand that the foundations of this edifice of Mary, which was to be raised to so great a height and to be incomparably above that that of any of the other saints, stood upon the summit of the perfection of them all. Where they indeed ended there she began.

APPLICATION: Rejoice then exceedingly with the Blessed Virgin in this her rich treasury of grace and beg of her, since she is the dispenser of graces, to obtain for you some assistance in your extreme poverty.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: As for me I am poor and needy, but the Lord is careful for me. (Ps. xxxix, 18.)

CONSIDER THIRDLY that the Blessed Virgin never allowed such a treasure to remain inactive but increased it every moment. Being free from the evil inclinations and resistance of corrupt nature, she performed every act of virtue with the utmost perfection of intention, so that through the whole course of her life she doubled her capital in every act, and thus became richer in graces than all the inhabitants of heaven together. Oh, what an infinite treasure was hers!

APPLICATION: And you, who find yourself with an amount of grace so small and so miserable, why do you keep it so idle and so unprofitable? The poorer one is the more industrious he usually becomes, yet you act in the opposite way. All during your life what store of merits or of virtues have you laid up? Rouse yourself then once for all from this your sloth, if you do not want to hear at the hour of your death the reproof given to the slothful servant in the gospel, who, finding himself only with one talent, left it idle and buried in the earth.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I said, now I have begun: this change is of the right hand of the Most High. (Ps. lxxvi, II.)

+ + + + + + + JMJ + + + + + + +

+++AMDG+++