15. Third Sunday of Advent
Meditations no. 15 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
âMake straight the way of the Lord.â For Christ to fill our hearts, we must be emptied of ourselves and of all personal problems.
Jesus Christ is the joy and happiness of all who look forward to his coming. Let us call upon him and say: Come, Lord, and do not delay! As we proceed through this time of Advent, our longings and hopes intensify. The Lord will come without delay. He will bring to light what darkness hides, and he will reveal himself to all the nations.
In union with the whole Church, we make this time of expectation the main subject of our prayer during these days. Ours is an earnest desire and a joyful hope, for our Saviour is near. John, the Precursor, cries out: Make straight the way of the Lord. And his message never grows old. There are still many souls who do not know Christ; and our own lives are still not sufficiently identified with his. We have not yet fully become ipse Christus. John the Baptist invites us to make Christ our very life. Then there will be no room for personal problems, nor for sterile thoughts that only waste time and reduce the effectiveness of our dedication.
Almost all those who have personal problems, have them because of selfishly thinking about themselves. What we have to do is to give ourselves to others, to serve others for the love of God: thatâs the way to make our sorrows disappear. Most of our difficulties stem from forgetting about the service we owe to others and from dwelling on our own ego.
Make straight the way. We must be emptied of our own selves to make room in our hearts for Christ. Once he becomes our one and only Lord, there will be nothing that can upset us. His interests will be ours. Our desire will be to give God greater glory and to serve the Church and all souls better. The key to it all, the basis of our security, is our filial obedience. That is what makes the path straight and cheerful; and it is a path we travel along in peace and happiness, as Godâs children. Our lives will then reflect the union with Christ which shone forth in our Founderâs life.
As our Father told us: The conclusion I come to every day at the examination of conscience is always: pauper servus et humilis! A poor and humble servant! That is, when I donât have to say instead: Lord, JosemarĂa is not very happy with JosemarĂa. But since humility is truth, it also happens that very often I have to add, as no doubt you do too: Lord, today I havenât thought about myself at all! Iâve been thinking only about you, and for your sake Iâve been concerned only about working for others! Then our contemplative soul exclaims with the Apostle: vivo autem iam non ego: vivit vero in me Christus; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Making straight the way of Christ: using all the means the Work offers us.
Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Peace is the fruit of complete dedication. To achieve it, St Paul reminds us that now is the time to turn confidently to God, asking him to cleanse our hearts of every merely personal concern and anxiety, and every trace of selfishness, which only serves to sow confusion in the soul.
Donât centre your concerns on the state of your health, or your reputation, or your career. This is mine, thatâs yours⌠mine, yours⌠Look, you havenât got anything at all! If youâve really given yourself, then theyâre our things, Godâs things, everybodyâs things. Mine, mine, mine⌠How tiresome! When you spend all day feeling, perhaps, humiliated, because you think your ideas ought to prevail (donât forget that pride is the worst aspect of the fomes peccati, the tinder of sin); when you spend your time thinking all about yourself and about your own things, then thatâs bad, very bad! Youâre killing your own time and youâre in need of us to kill off your self-centredness.
But Godâs grace is effective in those who prepare to receive it properly. Our way becomes filled with light and we find new joy in our dedication when we use the remedies that our Mother the Work offers us.
Personal problems disappear when they cease to be exclusively our own. The sure way of recovering interior peace is to open our hearts in spiritual direction, talking about everything that troubles us, and humbly following the advice we are given. Useless worries, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, things that are hard to understand and that upset us, will all vanish as soon as we speak up. Itâs as if a new day has dawned.
We have to learn to be rid of ourselves, to destroy ourselves, to forget about ourselves. And learn to be on fire before God - out of love for other people and love for God - burning away like the candles beside the altar, giving off light until they are completely consumed. My children, I am leading you by loftier ways, because they are ways that endure. And what I want for my children, as penance, is that they learn to give themselves. We will only learn to give ourselves to God if we forget about ourselves and serve others. Ours will truly be a divine way, because it rests on humility. And God rewards it.
When our own nature reveals itself in all its wretchedness, he comes to us. He extends his powerful - his all-powerful - hand to us when we have thus given ourselves up, and he grants us, ensures us, our vocation, our holiness, the heaven of his love.
To me, love seems more than heaven, although really they are the same. But love sounds better, and so I latch on to Godâs love with all my strength. My children, it is worthwhile forgetting about ourselves, and generously concerning ourselves with the others.
Today, let us ask God to make straight his way in us, so that he alone may fill our lives. And let us tell him that we are ready to use all the means the Work gives us so that our hearts may always enjoy the peace and gladness which he wants all his children to have.
Gaudium cum pace is the result of this effort on our part.
Rejoice greatly, Jerusalem, for your Saviour will come to you. Today the Church anticipates the joy of Christmas, and in this time of preparation and penance she reminds us through St Paul: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.
Joy, the theme of todayâs liturgy, should always be present in our lives. Cheerfulness is a Norm for always, a result of our divine filiation. It is the natural outcome of the fact that we donât have personal problems but instead concentrate on being more and more faithful. In our Fatherâs words: Cheerfulness comes spontaneously when we see ourselves as Godâs children. But at times it takes an effort, and we have to seek refuge -humbled but happy - in the heart of our heavenly Father. Joy stems from divine filiation, from knowing we are loved by our Father God, who always welcomes us and pardons us.
Our Father insists: My children, I want you to be happy. I am, although I ought not to be, when I see my poor life. But I am, because I realize that God is looking for us anew, that he continues being our Father; and I know that you and I will discover what things have to be uprooted in our souls, and we will uproot them, without hesitation; and we will see what things have to be burned and we will burn them, and what things have to be given up and we will give them up.
Let us turn to the Blessed Virgin, Causa nostrae laetitiae, the Cause of our joy, and humbly ask her to help us make straight the paths of God, both in ourselves and in those around us. We have to fill the world with light, because ours is a service that has to be performed joyfully. May good humour always be found wherever there is a child of God in his Work, a good humour that results from interior peace. From interior peace and dedication: serving others is so efficacious that God rewards it with a humility filled with spiritual joy.