Awaken Thy Power,
O Lord, and come!
by Father Mathurin of the Mother of God Dear brothers and sisters, during the Advent season, the Church invites us to enter into the dispositions of the Prophets, the Patriarchs, all the Saints of the Old Testament who longed for the coming of the Messiah, the Liberator. Before the coming of the Redeemer, the world situation was not good. Everyone felt it. The children of Israel said to themselves: “It is time for the Messiah, the Redeemer, to come. Things are going from bad to worse. We need Him to come and save us.” This is the same disposition that the Church puts us in during Advent; she makes us aware again that without Jesus, things are not going well on the earth. The Church exhorts us to put ourselves in the right dispositions to receive our Redeemer well, to contemplate Him, to enter into His spirit. In the collect of the Mass of the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we make this plea to God: Awaken Thy power, O Lord, and come, we beseech Thee, and succor us with great might; that by the help of Thy grace, that which our sins impede may be hastened by the bounty of Thy mercy.And the Word was made flesh
And how will this great might come to help us? When He comes into this world, the Redeemer will clothe Himself with weakness. He will annihilate Himself, make Himself feeble, very little. What an unfathomable mystery of Divine Wisdom, a mystery very difficult to understand for us poor humans conceived in sin, especially the sin of pride. This immense God, infinitely powerful and strong, had to use great power and strength to make Himself little, because it is so far removed from His divine nature. He made Himself very little, He annihilated Himself to come and work out our salvation. In a way, we are touching here on the very essence of Christianity, on the essence of what the Messiah is coming to teach us. His great strength is to annihilate Himself. His great power is to diminish Himself, reduce Himself to being very, very, very little, to make Himself dependent, make Himself poor and humble. His infinite greatness disappears. And it is by lowering Himself that His great power will overcome all the forces of evil and strike down all the enemies of our salvation, the enemies of our good. We will contemplate this little Child, this frail Infant who came to suffer, to humble Himself, lower Himself, annihilate Himself in difficult conditions: He comes at night in a cold, damp, foul-smelling grotto, in the company of animals. God Himself employed His great power to diminish Himself, to make Himself totally dependent and humble, in extreme poverty. This is the Wisdom that God wanted to manifest to us. But what motivated our Saviour to annihilate Himself like this? His infinite love. He loves man, He loves us so much! In order to have us with Him, He needed to show us the way. He saw what a mess, what a morass man had fallen into. And He decided to pull him out of it in this manner: He made Himself smaller in every way. In His infinite love, to win the heart of man, He used all His power to annihilate Himself, reducing Himself to this state of weakness and dependence. This is certainly one of the most important truths that we must understand as we draw near to this great mystery of Christmas, a mystery of salvation, a mystery of redemption which is beginning. It is through the same mystery of abasement that the salvation of humanity will be made again. It seems humanly impossible for man to make himself little, annihilate himself, make himself obedient, make himself poor, love all these things so contrary to nature. Throughout this Christmas season, let us repeat this plea within our heart: “My Jesus, give me Your sentiments. Use Your power to transform my heart, to make it like Yours. My Jesus, my God, use Your power to overcome this obstacle of pride that I carry within myself, this obstacle of vanity, self-sufficiency and independence, this fear of suffering.”The Light shineth in the darkness...
...and the darkness did not comprehend it. 1 The righteous, sincere souls who loved God desired salvation, suffered so that this salvation might take place. But in general, in a very human way, they imagined the Messiah working wonders beyond the ordinary capacities of men. The Gospel of the Second Sunday of Advent helps us to understand a little of the mystery surrounding this God made man. When the disciples sent by John the Baptist asked Jesus: Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another? He replied: Go and tell John what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Up to that point, He was really just as the Jews imagined the Messiah to be. By listing these expected wonders, Jesus shows them that He fulfills them. But then comes this mysterious word: Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized in Me. 2 In spite of all the wonders that the Saviour performed, few in number are those who have believed in Him, two thousand years ago and up until today. This is precisely because at Christmas, Jesus begins His life by becoming a little baby: humble, dependent, submissive, docile, poor, subject to suffering, subject to all the aggravations of human beings, subject to the mishaps of events and of nature, to bad weather. God incarnate lets Himself be inconvenienced by all these things like the most fragile, the smallest of mortals. This is how He begins His life. Soon He will go much further, He will lead us all the way to the Cross. Blessed is the one for whom I will not be an occasion of falling, an occasion of scandal. To respond to the thought of the Church which submits these texts for our meditation during Advent, I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to put your hearts in this disposition of humility, this disposition of accepting everything that is contrary to our proud nature, our sensual nature which makes us love enjoyment, love to take advantage of life, love to have a good time. Our Redeemer shows us precisely the opposite. And everything that is contrary to our nature alarms us, frightens us.The Cross, scandal for the worldly
In every age, humanity has been unceasingly beset by suffering. And in the present time, it is no secret that suffering is increasingly greater, increasingly universal. It is imposed on everyone, whether we like it or not. But more than ever, we try to distract ourselves from it and flee from it. Who has not heard these comments: “Why live? What is the point in living?” I have even heard children tell their parents, “I didn’t ask to live, I didn’t ask you to come into the world.” We do not want to suffer. Things have gone too far, to the point that people who are suffering can now ask for medical assistance in order to die. I was told that specialized clinics have long waiting lists for those who want to end their lives. For people without faith, the seriously ill and the elderly impotent are no longer useful to society, so they are suffering for nothing. The medical staff very nicely suggests to their relatives that they can shorten their days. According to the prevailing mentality in today’s society, suffering must be avoided at all costs. This is a diabolical mentality. When Jesus disclosed to His Apostles that He would have to go to Jerusalem, and that He would have much to suffer from the elders and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death... Peter, taking Him aside, began to protest, saying, “God forbid, Lord, this will never happen to You,” Jesus, turning to Peter, said: “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a scandal to Me, for you do not understand the things that are of God, but those that are of man.” 3 Jesus went so far as to call Simon Peter a Satan, because he reasoned in the manner of men and not according to the thought of God. My brothers and sisters, the world is suffering a great deal at this moment. We must enter into the views of God and not think as men do. But how is it possible for you and me not to think like human beings? It is by suspending our reasoning, our human evaluation, in order to apply our interior faculties, our heart, our whole soul, to humbly submit to God, to accept the suffering, the woes and contradictions that come in all sorts of ways. Let us not make too many comments on the sufferings and events that take place. We can relay information to each other as needed. But be careful! Suffering is so contrary to us that we can easily make negative comments, we can lead our neighbor into a state of mind that is contrary to God. We must be very attentive to humility, love and acceptance of suffering in a spirit of faith. We must look at everything from the standpoint of little Jesus, who will eventually die on the cross for our salvation. When Jesus was born, the whole world was in total ignorance of the mystery of the Cross, because this truth is so contrary to humanity. Original sin has completely clouded our intelligence, our understanding of the ways of God. Sin has damaged us. We do not like to be told that we are damaged, but original sin really did make us damaged goods. And to the original sin committed six thousand years ago, we have added the sum of our personal sins. What is it that has damaged us, that has taken away our intelligence, our understanding of the things of God? It is this infernal venom of pride, of independence. We do not want to depend, we do not want to obey. As for the little Child who comes, that is what He shows us first of all ‒ humility and dependence ‒ in order to repair the damage. Things were not going well when Jesus came to the earth. What did He do? Saint Paul says: He emptied Himself, taking the nature of a slave... He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross. 4 Aware of our frailty, our weakness, our ignorance, our inability to perceive these mysteries, Jesus came in person to show us the example. With infinite love, He made Himself little, He made Himself a slave, He annihilated Himself, and He went up to Calvary to work out our salvation. This can never be repeated enough. If I mention these sufferings to you, my brothers and sisters, it is to show the need for salvation. God is going to manifest Himself again. If humanity is entering this period of more intense suffering, it is because God wants to accomplish a work of salvation once again. We must believe in this work of salvation and adhere to it in the way that Jesus accomplished it: voluntarily, from the Crib to Calvary, He made Himself little, He annihilated Himself, He made Himself dependent.To suffer and to love
In order to save this world, which is faring so badly today, it will take people who, following Jesus, will humble themselves, make themselves little, accept and love suffering through faith. How can we acquire the love of suffering? By following, out of love, our God who became incarnate to teach us, through His word and His example, the narrow road to Heaven. God reveals Himself in a very intimate, very secret way to the person that accepts the cross in a spirit of faith, who really accepts suffering with a docile heart, the little suffering like all the others that continue to increase. “My God, I accept, I embrace this path for You alone, because You embraced it. I want to accept it with more docility, gratitude and love. I want to do it with love, my God, I want to!” God reveals Himself to the person who puts himself in these dispositions, not by the words or ideas He gives him; His action takes place in the heart. What is Heaven? Heaven is God, it is the knowledge of God more and more, it is ever-increasing intimacy with Him. Let us put love interiorly in suffering, a voluntary love, by contemplating Jesus. This is the road He has drawn out for us; there is no other. He says to us: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me. 5 As I contemplate my Saviour who took this path of suffering for love of me, yes, I love suffering, because it is the path He chose in His totally divine wisdom, to ensure my presence with Him for eternity. In my heart, I develop a sentiment of gratitude for all that contradicts me, thwarts me, breaks me, humbles me, all that demolishes me physically, morally, intellectually. I accept it, I embrace it, I love it, I even give thanks for it. God then communicates Himself to my soul, and that is how salvation will take place. We must be convinced of this and weep before God, humbling ourselves over our misery: My God, I want to think like You, I want my whole heart, my whole being to adhere to Your Will. I want it, my God! Good Mother, good Saint Joseph, ask this little Child who comes to show us the way of salvation to grant us this grace. Awaken Thy power, O Lord, and come! Use Thy great power to help us, to convert us, to make us humble, docile, obedient, lovers of the suffering Thou didst embrace. Give us the grace to adhere absolutely to this mystery. Awaken Thy power, O Lord. Use Thy great strength to help us, to make us conform to Thy teaching and Thine example. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and of the Mother of God. Amen.
Sermon
for
Advent
1.
St. John 1:5.
2.
St. Matthew 11:2-10.
3.
Cf. St. Matthew 16:21-23.
4.
Philippians 2:7-8.
5.
St. John 14:6.
Awaken Thy Power,
O Lord, and come!
by Father Mathurin of the Mother of God Dear brothers and sisters, during the Advent season, the Church invites us to enter into the dispositions of the Prophets, the Patriarchs, all the Saints of the Old Testament who longed for the coming of the Messiah, the Liberator. Before the coming of the Redeemer, the world situation was not good. Everyone felt it. The children of Israel said to themselves: “It is time for the Messiah, the Redeemer, to come. Things are going from bad to worse. We need Him to come and save us.” This is the same disposition that the Church puts us in during Advent; she makes us aware again that without Jesus, things are not going well on the earth. The Church exhorts us to put ourselves in the right dispositions to receive our Redeemer well, to contemplate Him, to enter into His spirit. In the collect of the Mass of the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we make this plea to God: Awaken Thy power, O Lord, and come, we beseech Thee, and succor us with great might; that by the help of Thy grace, that which our sins impede may be hastened by the bounty of Thy mercy.And the Word was made flesh
And how will this great might come to help us? When He comes into this world, the Redeemer will clothe Himself with weakness. He will annihilate Himself, make Himself feeble, very little. What an unfathomable mystery of Divine Wisdom, a mystery very difficult to understand for us poor humans conceived in sin, especially the sin of pride. This immense God, infinitely powerful and strong, had to use great power and strength to make Himself little, because it is so far removed from His divine nature. He made Himself very little, He annihilated Himself to come and work out our salvation. In a way, we are touching here on the very essence of Christianity, on the essence of what the Messiah is coming to teach us. His great strength is to annihilate Himself. His great power is to diminish Himself, reduce Himself to being very, very, very little, to make Himself dependent, make Himself poor and humble. His infinite greatness disappears. And it is by lowering Himself that His great power will overcome all the forces of evil and strike down all the enemies of our salvation, the enemies of our good. We will contemplate this little Child, this frail Infant who came to suffer, to humble Himself, lower Himself, annihilate Himself in difficult conditions: He comes at night in a cold, damp, foul-smelling grotto, in the company of animals. God Himself employed His great power to diminish Himself, to make Himself totally dependent and humble, in extreme poverty. This is the Wisdom that God wanted to manifest to us. But what motivated our Saviour to annihilate Himself like this? His infinite love. He loves man, He loves us so much! In order to have us with Him, He needed to show us the way. He saw what a mess, what a morass man had fallen into. And He decided to pull him out of it in this manner: He made Himself smaller in every way. In His infinite love, to win the heart of man, He used all His power to annihilate Himself, reducing Himself to this state of weakness and dependence. This is certainly one of the most important truths that we must understand as we draw near to this great mystery of Christmas, a mystery of salvation, a mystery of redemption which is beginning. It is through the same mystery of abasement that the salvation of humanity will be made again. It seems humanly impossible for man to make himself little, annihilate himself, make himself obedient, make himself poor, love all these things so contrary to nature. Throughout this Christmas season, let us repeat this plea within our heart: “My Jesus, give me Your sentiments. Use Your power to transform my heart, to make it like Yours. My Jesus, my God, use Your power to overcome this obstacle of pride that I carry within myself, this obstacle of vanity, self-sufficiency and independence, this fear of suffering.”The Light shineth in the darkness...
...and the darkness did not comprehend it. 1 The righteous, sincere souls who loved God desired salvation, suffered so that this salvation might take place. But in general, in a very human way, they imagined the Messiah working wonders beyond the ordinary capacities of men. The Gospel of the Second Sunday of Advent helps us to understand a little of the mystery surrounding this God made man. When the disciples sent by John the Baptist asked Jesus: Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another? He replied: Go and tell John what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. Up to that point, He was really just as the Jews imagined the Messiah to be. By listing these expected wonders, Jesus shows them that He fulfills them. But then comes this mysterious word: Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized in Me. 2 In spite of all the wonders that the Saviour performed, few in number are those who have believed in Him, two thousand years ago and up until today. This is precisely because at Christmas, Jesus begins His life by becoming a little baby: humble, dependent, submissive, docile, poor, subject to suffering, subject to all the aggravations of human beings, subject to the mishaps of events and of nature, to bad weather. God incarnate lets Himself be inconvenienced by all these things like the most fragile, the smallest of mortals. This is how He begins His life. Soon He will go much further, He will lead us all the way to the Cross. Blessed is the one for whom I will not be an occasion of falling, an occasion of scandal. To respond to the thought of the Church which submits these texts for our meditation during Advent, I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to put your hearts in this disposition of humility, this disposition of accepting everything that is contrary to our proud nature, our sensual nature which makes us love enjoyment, love to take advantage of life, love to have a good time. Our Redeemer shows us precisely the opposite. And everything that is contrary to our nature alarms us, frightens us.The Cross, scandal for the worldly
In every age, humanity has been unceasingly beset by suffering. And in the present time, it is no secret that suffering is increasingly greater, increasingly universal. It is imposed on everyone, whether we like it or not. But more than ever, we try to distract ourselves from it and flee from it. Who has not heard these comments: “Why live? What is the point in living?” I have even heard children tell their parents, “I didn’t ask to live, I didn’t ask you to come into the world.” We do not want to suffer. Things have gone too far, to the point that people who are suffering can now ask for medical assistance in order to die. I was told that specialized clinics have long waiting lists for those who want to end their lives. For people without faith, the seriously ill and the elderly impotent are no longer useful to society, so they are suffering for nothing. The medical staff very nicely suggests to their relatives that they can shorten their days. According to the prevailing mentality in today’s society, suffering must be avoided at all costs. This is a diabolical mentality. When Jesus disclosed to His Apostles that He would have to go to Jerusalem, and that He would have much to suffer from the elders and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death... Peter, taking Him aside, began to protest, saying, “God forbid, Lord, this will never happen to You,” Jesus, turning to Peter, said: “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a scandal to Me, for you do not understand the things that are of God, but those that are of man.” 3 Jesus went so far as to call Simon Peter a Satan, because he reasoned in the manner of men and not according to the thought of God. My brothers and sisters, the world is suffering a great deal at this moment. We must enter into the views of God and not think as men do. But how is it possible for you and me not to think like human beings? It is by suspending our reasoning, our human evaluation, in order to apply our interior faculties, our heart, our whole soul, to humbly submit to God, to accept the suffering, the woes and contradictions that come in all sorts of ways. Let us not make too many comments on the sufferings and events that take place. We can relay information to each other as needed. But be careful! Suffering is so contrary to us that we can easily make negative comments, we can lead our neighbor into a state of mind that is contrary to God. We must be very attentive to humility, love and acceptance of suffering in a spirit of faith. We must look at everything from the standpoint of little Jesus, who will eventually die on the cross for our salvation. When Jesus was born, the whole world was in total ignorance of the mystery of the Cross, because this truth is so contrary to humanity. Original sin has completely clouded our intelligence, our understanding of the ways of God. Sin has damaged us. We do not like to be told that we are damaged, but original sin really did make us damaged goods. And to the original sin committed six thousand years ago, we have added the sum of our personal sins. What is it that has damaged us, that has taken away our intelligence, our understanding of the things of God? It is this infernal venom of pride, of independence. We do not want to depend, we do not want to obey. As for the little Child who comes, that is what He shows us first of all ‒ humility and dependence ‒ in order to repair the damage. Things were not going well when Jesus came to the earth. What did He do? Saint Paul says: He emptied Himself, taking the nature of a slave... He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross. 4 Aware of our frailty, our weakness, our ignorance, our inability to perceive these mysteries, Jesus came in person to show us the example. With infinite love, He made Himself little, He made Himself a slave, He annihilated Himself, and He went up to Calvary to work out our salvation. This can never be repeated enough. If I mention these sufferings to you, my brothers and sisters, it is to show the need for salvation. God is going to manifest Himself again. If humanity is entering this period of more intense suffering, it is because God wants to accomplish a work of salvation once again. We must believe in this work of salvation and adhere to it in the way that Jesus accomplished it: voluntarily, from the Crib to Calvary, He made Himself little, He annihilated Himself, He made Himself dependent.To suffer and to love
In order to save this world, which is faring so badly today, it will take people who, following Jesus, will humble themselves, make themselves little, accept and love suffering through faith. How can we acquire the love of suffering? By following, out of love, our God who became incarnate to teach us, through His word and His example, the narrow road to Heaven. God reveals Himself in a very intimate, very secret way to the person that accepts the cross in a spirit of faith, who really accepts suffering with a docile heart, the little suffering like all the others that continue to increase. “My God, I accept, I embrace this path for You alone, because You embraced it. I want to accept it with more docility, gratitude and love. I want to do it with love, my God, I want to!” God reveals Himself to the person who puts himself in these dispositions, not by the words or ideas He gives him; His action takes place in the heart. What is Heaven? Heaven is God, it is the knowledge of God more and more, it is ever-increasing intimacy with Him. Let us put love interiorly in suffering, a voluntary love, by contemplating Jesus. This is the road He has drawn out for us; there is no other. He says to us: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me. 5 As I contemplate my Saviour who took this path of suffering for love of me, yes, I love suffering, because it is the path He chose in His totally divine wisdom, to ensure my presence with Him for eternity. In my heart, I develop a sentiment of gratitude for all that contradicts me, thwarts me, breaks me, humbles me, all that demolishes me physically, morally, intellectually. I accept it, I embrace it, I love it, I even give thanks for it. God then communicates Himself to my soul, and that is how salvation will take place. We must be convinced of this and weep before God, humbling ourselves over our misery: My God, I want to think like You, I want my whole heart, my whole being to adhere to Your Will. I want it, my God! Good Mother, good Saint Joseph, ask this little Child who comes to show us the way of salvation to grant us this grace. Awaken Thy power, O Lord, and come! Use Thy great power to help us, to convert us, to make us humble, docile, obedient, lovers of the suffering Thou didst embrace. Give us the grace to adhere absolutely to this mystery. Awaken Thy power, O Lord. Use Thy great strength to help us, to make us conform to Thy teaching and Thine example. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and of the Mother of God. Amen.
1.
St. John 1:5.
2.
St. Matthew 11:2-10.
3.
Cf. St. Matthew 16:21-23.
4.
Philippians 2:7-8.
5.
St. John 14:6.
