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First Sunday of
Advent
Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk
1st December 2013
Advent
Taken from The Liturgical Year
of Dom Prosper Gueranger O.S.B. Vol. 1
We should endeavour during Advent, to enter into the spirit
of preparation, which is, as we have seen, that of the
Church herself.
In
order to fulfil this duty with fervour, let us go hack in
thought to those four thousand years, represented by the
four weeks of Advent, and reflect on the darkness and crime
which filled the world before our Saviour's coming. Let our
hearts be filled with lively gratitude towards Him who saved
His creature man from death, and who came down from heaven
that He might know our miseries by Himself experiencing
them, yes, all of them excepting sin. Let us cry to Him with
confidence from the depths of our misery; for,
notwithstanding His having saved the work of His hands, He
still wishes us to beseech Him to save us. Let therefore our
desires and our confidence have their free utterance in the
ardent supplications of the ancient prophets, which the
Church puts on our lips during these days of expectation;
let us give our closest attention to the sentiments which
they express. This first duty complied with, we must next
turn our minds to the coming which our Saviour wishes to
accomplish in our own hearts.
This glorious solemnity, as often as it comes round, finds
three classes of men. The first, and the smallest number,
are those who live, in all its plenitude, the life of Jesus
who is within them, and aspire incessantly after the
increase of this life. The second class of souls is more
numerous; they are living, it is true, because Jesus is in
them; but they are sick and weakly, because they care not to
grow in this divine life; their charity has become cold!
Now, during the season of Advent, our Lord knocks at the
door of all men's hearts, at one time so forcibly that they
must needs notice Him; at another, so softly that it
requires attention to know that Jesus is asking admission.
He comes to ask them if they have room for Him, for He
wishes to be born in their house. Make room for the divine
Infant, for He desires to grow within your soul. The time of
His coming is close at hand: let your heart, then, be on the
watch; and lest you should slumber when He arrives, watch
and pray, yea, sing. Let those, then, who are not touched by
the tidings of the coming of the heavenly Physician and the
good Shepherd who giveth His life for His sheep, meditate
during Advent on the awful yet certain truth, that so many
render the redemption unavailable to themselves by refusing
to co-operate in their own salvation. Let them, above all
things, pray with the Church. And when our Lord comes, they
may hope that He will not pass them by, but that He will
enter and dwell within them, for He spoke of all when He
said these words: "Behold I stand at the gate: and knock: if
any man shall hear My voice and open to Me the door, I will
come in unto him."
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