17. Third Tuesday of Advent
Meditations no. 17 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
During Advent we wait for our Lord with watchful love.
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. We must stay wide awake as we await our Saviour. Advent in fact is a summary of our life. When we first answered Godâs call, we set out in search of him. And until our final and complete union, Christ himself asks us to be on the alert. We are to be like the ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom and the bride.
We should await Christâs arrival with lamps ablaze with love. Jesus comes to us with his grace each day in Holy Communion, and at many other times throughout the day. We must await him with a watchful spirit, ever mindful of his words: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour? We do not know when that day will come for us. It will be our last day, but weâre not afraid of it. Trusting firmly in Godâs grace, we are ready from this very moment to be generous and courageous, and take loving care of little things: we are ready to go to meet our Lord with our lamps burning brightly.
At times keeping our love aflame isnât easy. Selfishness, comfort, or lack of mortification, threaten to snuff out the flame Christ has enkindled in our soul. But the Psalmist reminds us: The Lord is near to the broken-hearted. We must keep feeding this flame, shaking off the drowsiness of routine, struggling to keep alert. St Augustine says: Watch with the heart, with faith, with charity, with deeds ⌠Trim the lamps; make sure they do not go out. Feed them with the interior oil of an upright conscience. Stay united to the Bridegroom through love, so that he may lead you to the banquet hall where your lamps will never go out.
Love cannot be taken for granted. When it is not nurtured, it dies. But if we feed the flame, if we stay awake, then far from weakening our love, any difficulties that arise will only serve to strengthen it. The grace of Advent helps us: Now we have learned to discover, with the help of God, in the succession of apparently similar days, spatium verae poenitentiae, a time for true penance, and in these moments we resolve to seek an emendatio vitae, to improve our life. This is the way to prepare ourselves for the grace and inspirations of the Holy Spirit in our soul.
The ascetical struggle: a sure sign of vigilance.
Our lamps, our fire, must not go out. Our love for Christ must never be allowed to die. Bear in mind, our Father reminds us, that if Christians are not more effective, it is because few of them pray; and those of us who do pray, pray little. We should dedicate all our efforts, night and day, to uniting our soul and our spirit to our Father God through prayer, through a ceaseless loving contemplation. When your senses, your imagination, the faculties of the soul, are all immersed in God, then you wonât have any personal problems, and, being âdivinizedâ, you will be able to say: vivo autem iam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. You will then acquire an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God, and will experience in your life the truth of the words: Those who eat me will hunger for more, and those who drink me will thirst for more.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. We should not become discouraged or neglect our duties, but we should carry on persevering in our daily struggle, so that the Lord may find us ready when he comes. St Augustine asks: Did not the virgins who persevered to the end show prudence? Only because of their perseverance, and for no other reason, were they allowed to enter ⌠It was because their lamps were burning until the final moment that the bridegroomâs doors were opened wide and they were told to enter.
When we stop being vigilant and start habitually giving in to lukewarmness, our good habits are weakened, and we may even lose virtues which we had won by grace and by many years of effort. The flame of our lamp flickers and finally goes out. As St John Chrysostom comments: After so much work, after so much effort, after a valiant fight, after the battle had been won against the evil inclinations of nature, the foolish virgins had to go away shamefaced, their lamps extinguished and their heads hung low. Sanctity lies not so much in beginning, as in persevering and fighting to the end.
I know your good spirit, our Father writes, and I can see how you fight to make the spiritual formation the Work gives you part of your very being, your very life. I know that, with the help of our Norms, you try to find that intimacy with God which comes from the union of his grace with your own efforts. And I also know that you have the experience that when the Norms are fulfilled with love - and they can be fulfilled anywhere - they will rescue you from all dangers, they will launch you into the attack, and they will spur you on, so that you never become spiritually soft and mediocre.
The role of small mortifications in our ascetical struggle.
Ascetical struggle keeps our charity, our love for God, ablaze. We can never let it be extinguished. God awaits us in our work, in our prayer, in our family life. These are loving encounters, which we attend punctually when he says so, when he arrives. If we do everything at its appointed time, when God expects it, we shall succeed in keeping alight the lamp of our watchful charity. We are invited by our Father to examine our consciences more deeply: My child, ask yourself: Why am I sometimes late for family gatherings? Why do I sometimes go to bed and get up at the wrong time? Why do I neglect the work I am given to do? Why so much disorder?⌠They are small things, but they are the oil.
Advent reminds us that mortification is the seasoning of our life. And the best mortification is that which overcomes the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life in little things throughout the day. Ours should be mortifications that do not mortify others, that make us more considerate, more understanding, more open with everybody. You are not mortified, if you are touchy; if your every thought is for yourself; if you humiliate others; if you donât know how to give up what is unnecessary and, at times, what is necessary; if you become gloomy because things donât turn out the way you had hoped. On the other hand, you can be sure you are mortified, if you know how to make yourself all things to all men, in order to save all.
When we offer God small mortifications, which are so much a part of our spirit, we give a supernatural and even heroic tone to our day, as we carry out very many small things connected with our work, our Norms, our apostolate, and our family life. Live in Godâs presence.
To do so is a characteristic of contemplative souls and a clear feature of our vocation. Our presence of God makes us pay attention to little things. If I donât need to go upstairs, I wonât go up. If I donât need to go downstairs, I wonât go down. If I donât need to open a window, I wonât open it. And so on, in thousands of little details. That is where our sanctity lies.
How many of these acts of consideration for others must our Lady have performed, as a way of expressing her love, as she awaited the birth of her Son!
The result of this meditation could be a resolution on our part to update our small mortifications to ensure that they remain effective and that our interior struggle is not weakened. This will enable us to remain alert and watchful as we wait for the Lordâs coming.