Let us see, therefore, what the voice announces concerning the Word. ‘Prepare,’ says the voice, ‘the way of the Lord.’ What way are we to prepare for the Lord? Is it a material way? Can the Word of God take such a way? Ought we not rather to prepare an inner way for the Lord by making the paths of our heart straight and smooth? Indeed, this is the way by which the Word of God enters in order to take up his abode in the human heart made ready to receive him.
How great is the human heart! What width and capacity it possesses, provided it is pure! Do you wish to know its greatness and width? Look at the extent of the divine knowledge that it embraces. It tells us itself: ‘God gave me sound knowledge of existing things that I might know the organisation of the universe and the force of its elements, the beginning and the end and the mid-point of times, the changes in the sun’s course and the variations of the seasons. Cycles of years, positions of the stars, natures of animals, tempers of beasts, powers of the winds and thoughts of people, uses of plants and virtues of roots.’
Thus, you see that the human heart knows so many things and is of no small compass. But notice that its greatness is not one of size but of the power of thought by which it is capable of knowing so many truths.
In order to make everyone realise how great the human heart is, let us look at a few examples taken from everyday life. We still retain in our minds all the towns which we have ever visited. Their features, the location of their squares, walls, and buildings remain in our hearts. We keep the road which we have travelled painted and engraved in our memories; and the sea over which we have sailed is harboured in our silent thought. As I have just said, the human heart knows so many things and is of no small compass.
Now, if it is not small, and if it can grasp so much, we can prepare the way of the Lord there and make straight the way where the Word, the Wisdom of God, will walk. Let each of you, then, prepare the way of the Lord by a good conscience; make straight the way so that the Word of God may walk within you without stumbling and may give you knowledge of his mysteries and of his coming.
Tuesday after Advent 2
A Reading from a sermon of Bernard of Clairvaux
‘Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar.’ Who could doubt these words of the Prophet? Something superlative was needed in the beginning if the majesty of God was to deign to come down from such a height, for a dwelling so unworthy of it.
And there was, indeed, something superlative about it; great mercy, immense compassion, and abundant charity. Why did Christ come to earth? We shall find the answer without difficulty, since his words and actions clearly reveal to us the reason for his coming.
It is to search for the hundredth lost sheep that came down hurriedly from the hillside. He came because of us, so that the mercies of the Lord might be revealed with greater clarity, and his wonderful works for humankind. What amazing condescension on the part of God, who searches for us, and what great dignity bestowed on the one thus sought!
If we want to glory in it, we can quite reasonably do so, not because we can be anything in ourselves, but because the God who created us has made us of such great worth. Indeed, all the riches and glory of this world, and all that one could wish for in it, is a very small thing and even nothing, in comparison with this glory. ‘What are we that you make much of us, or pay us any heed?’
But then again, I should like to know why Christ determined to come among us himself and why it was not, rather, we who went to him. Surely, it was for our benefit. What is more, it is not the custom of the rich to go to the poor, even if it is their intention to do something for them.
It was, therefore, really our responsibility to go to Jesus: but a double obstacle prevented it. For our eyes were blind, and he dwells in inaccessible Light. We were lying paralysed on our pallet, incapable of reaching the greatness of God.
That is why, in his immense goodness, our Saviour, the doctor of our souls, came down from his great height and tempered for our sick eyes the dazzling brightness of his glory. He clothed himself, as it were, with a lantern, with that luminous body, I mean, free from every stain, which he put on.
Wednesday after Advent 2
A Reading from a commentary on the psalms
by Augustine
God established a time for his promises and a time for their fulfilment. The time for promises was in the time of the prophets, until John the Baptist; from John until the end is the time of fulfilment.
God, who is faithful, put himself in our debt, not by receiving anything but by promising so much. A promise was not sufficient for him; he chose to commit himself in writing as well, as it were making a contract of his promises. He wanted us to be able to see the way in which his promises were redeemed when he began to discharge them. And so the time of the prophets was the foretelling of the promises.
He promised eternal salvation, everlasting happiness with the angels, an immortal inheritance, endless glory, the joyful vision of his face, his holy dwelling in heaven, and after resurrection from the dead, no fear of dying. This is as it were his final promise, the goal of all striving. When we reach it, we shall ask for nothing more. But as to the way in which we are to arrive at our final goal, he has revealed this also, by promise and prophecy.
He has promised humankind divinity, mortals immortality, sinners justification, the poor a rising to glory. But because God’s promises seemed impossible to human beings – equality with the angels in exchange for mortality, corruption, poverty, weakness, dust and ashes – God not only made a written contract with them to win their belief but also established a mediator of his good faith, not a prince or angel or archangel, but his only Son. He wanted, through his Son, to show us and give us the way he would lead us to the goal he has promised.
It was not enough for God to make his Son our guide to the way; he made him the way itself that we might travel with him as leader, and by him as the way.
Therefore, the only Son of God was to come among us, to take our human nature, and in this nature to be born as a man. He was to die, to rise again, to ascend into heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father, and to fulfil his promises among the nations, and after that to come again, to exact now what he had asked for before, to separate those deserving anger from those deserving his mercy, to execute his threats against the wicked, and to reward the just as he had promised.
All this had therefore to be prophesied, foretold, and impressed on us as an event in the future, in order that we might wait for it in faith, and not find it in a sudden and dreadful reality.
Thursday after Advent 2
A Reading from a treatise On the Value of Patience by Cyprian of Carthage
Patience is a precept for salvation given us by our Lord and teacher: ‘Whoever endures to the end will be saved.’ And again, ‘If you persevere in my word, you will truly be my disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’
We must, therefore, endure and persevere if we are to attain the truth and freedom we have been allowed to hope for; faith and hope are the very meaning of our being Christians, but if faith and hope are to bear their fruit, patience is necessary.
We do not seek glory now, in the present, but we look for future glory, as St Paul instructs us when he says: ‘By hope we were saved. Now hope which is seen is not hope: how can we hope for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it in patience.’ Patient waiting is necessary if we are to be perfected in what we have begun to be, and if we are to receive from God what we hope for and believe.
In another place the same apostle instructs and teaches the righteous, and those active in good works, and those who store up for themselves treasures in heaven through the reward God gives them. They are to be patient also, for he says: ‘Therefore