MORNING MEDITATION: FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Morning Meditation: The Salvation of the Lord
     And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. – (Gospel of Sunday. Luke. iii., 1-6).
     The Saviour of the world, Whom, according to the Prophet Isaias, men were to see one day on the earth – and all flesh shall see the salvation of God – has come. And He came on earth, says St. Augustine, that men might know how much God loves them. And how is it, O my dear Jesus, that Thou dost meet with so much ingratitude from the greater number of men?

Meditation I:
     Adam, our first father, sins, and is condemned to eternal death along with all his posterity. Seeing the whole human race doomed to perdition, God resolved to send a Redeemer to save mankind. Who shall come to be man’s salvation? Perhaps an Angel or a Seraph? No, the Son of God, the supreme and true God, equal to the Father, offers Himself to come on earth, and there to take human flesh and die for the salvation of men. O prodigy of divine love! Man, says, St. Fulgentius, despises God and separates himself from God, and through love for him God comes on earth to seek after rebellious man. Since we would not go to our Physician, He deigned to come to us, says St. Augustine. And why did Jesus resolve to come to us? Christ came, says the same holy Doctor, that man might know how much God loves him.
     Hence the Apostle writes: The goodness and kindness of God, our Saviour, appeared. – (Tit. iii., 4). The singular love of God, towards men appeared, as the Greek Text has it. And what greater love and goodness could the Son of God show us than to become Man and a worm like us, in order to save us from perdition? What astonishment should we not feel if we saw a prince become a worm to save the worms of his kingdom! And what shall we say at the sight of a God made Man like us to deliver us from eternal death! The Word was made flesh. – (Jo. i., 14). A God made flesh! If Faith did not assure us of it, who could ever believe it?
     O my sweet, amiable, holy Child, Thou art at a loss to know what more to do t make Thyself loved by men! It is enough to say that from being the Son of God, Thou wert made the Son of man, and that Thou didst choose to be born among men like the rest of infants, only poorer and more meanly lodged than the rest, selecting a stable for Thy abode, a manger for Thy cradle, a little straw for Thy bed. And yet few there are who know Thee! Few there are who love Thee!