It is not merely as creatures, that we speak to God, but as Children with our Heavenly Father; coming before Him to adore and praise Him, to tell Him of our love, to learn to know His will and to attain from Him the necessary help to accomplish His will…
Prayer only really begins at the moment when the will, set on fire with love, enters supernaturally into contact with Divine Good, yielding itself lovingly to God in order to please Him and fulfill His precepts and desires.
“These remain, faith, hope and love
and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor. 13:13
Faith gives place to the vision of God, Hope vanishes in the possession of God, Love remains and unites us to God… Grace here below, glory above!
In the lord’s advent which we are celebrating, If i fix my gaze on the person of the one who is coming, i will fail to grasp the wonderousness of his majesty. If i fix my attention on those to whom he comes, i am overwhelmed by the magnitude of his condescension. Surely the angels are astonished by the strange situation – seeing below themselves the One whom above them they ever adore and now manifestly both ascending and descending to the Son of Man. (John 1:51)
Once a year the universal Church celebrates a solemn remembrance of the coming of such majesty, such humility, such godly love and indeed such a glorification of ourselves. Would that this be done always as it is done this once ! How much more fitting that would be. What madness for people to desire or to dare to occupy themselves with any other business after the coming of so great a King ! should they not leave all else aside and free themselves entirely for worshiping him, and in his presence be mindful of nothing else ?
Virtues not possessions are the true riches. These conscience carries with itself that it may be rich forever. When our Savior comes, he will transform the body of our humiliation, conforming it to the body of his glory only if our heart has first been transformed and conformed to the humiliation of his heart. That is why he told us, Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart. Consider well these words for humility is twofold: one of thinking the other of feeling – here called the heart. By the former we realize that we are nothing and this we learn from ourselves and from our weakness. By the later we spurn worldly glory and this we learn from Him who emptied himself taking the form of a servant. When they sought him for a kingdom he fled. When they sought him for the great test and shameful suffering of the cross, he willingly offered himself.
All our virtue is far from true virtue as it is from the appearance and all our wings are good for nothing if they are not covered with silver. Great is the wing of poverty by which we fly so swiftly to the kingdom of heaven ! But in the case of the virtues that follow the use of the future tense indicates a promise; poverty is not promised as given ( Mat 5:3 ) . So we are told in the present tense that theirs is the kingdom of heaven while in other cases they will inherit, they shall be comforted and so on.
Let us cover our wings with silver then, in our way of life in Christ just as the holy martyrs washed their robes in his passion. As much as we can, let us imitate him who so loved poverty that although the ends of the earth were in his hand, he had yet no place to lay his head.
From the Sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot
Lord, I pray that You may be a lamp for me in the darkness. Touch my soul and kindle a fire within it, that it may burn brightly and give light to my life. Thus my body may truly become Your temple, lit by Your perpetual flame burning on the altar of my heart. And may the light within me shine on my brothers and sisters that it may drive away the darkness of ignorance and sin from them also. Thus let us be lights to the world, manifesting the bright beauty of Your gospel to all around us.
“There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us.”
Angels constantly guard the servants of this Blessed Virgin from the assaults of Hell.
I understand that, each time we contemplate with desire and devotion the Host in which is hidden Christ’s Eucharistic Body, we increase our merits in heaven and secure special joys to be ours later in the beatific vision of God.
