Meditations for Advent 2024 - Day 9 - The Handmaiden of the Lord and Virtues of the Annunciation

On Day 9 of our Advent meditations, we promise insights into the virtues of faith and obedience as exemplified by Mary, the new Eve. Drawing from the profound teachings of Bishop Jacques Bossuet, we reflect on Mary's acceptance of God's will and her role in the salvation narrative. Her obedience and humility stand as a stark contrast to Eve's disobedience, highlighting the significant part these virtues play in redemption. As we explore the Annunciation, we delve into Mary's holy virginity and profound humility, revealing how her purity and renunciation of worldly pleasures prepared her to be the Mother of God.

Chapters

• 0:08 Meditations on the Annunciation and Virtues
• 10:01 Reflections on Christ's Role in Creation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Sancte. Sancte, amare morti necradas nos. Good morning everyone and welcome to Day 9 of Advent in our Meditations for Advent from Bishop Jacques Bossuet. I imagine there's not many people watching this as their very first meditation. In case there is someone, these are Meditations for Advent. It's a book of meditations from homilies of Bishop Jacques Boswe. The book is from Sophia Institute Press. You can also find it on Amazon. I put these up on YouTube, twitter, slash X audio podcast and Spirit Juice TV.

Speaker 1: 1:11

We start with the prayer and then go through one or two meditations. We'll be doing two meditations today and, yeah, I throw up an image on screen, nothing to look at. You just listen. So, without further ado, we'll start with our prayer and we'll get going here In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, jesus, my Savior, true God and true man, in the true Christ, promise of the patriarchs and the prophets from the beginning of the world and in time, faithfully bestowed to the holy people you have chosen.

Speaker 1: 1:51

You have said by your holy and divine mouth this is eternal life. That they know thee, the only true God, jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Believing in these words and with the help of thy grace, I wish to be attentive to the task of knowing God and knowing you. So do I draw as near to you as I can, with a lively faith, to know God in you and by you, and to know him in a manner worthy of God, that is, in a manner that leads me to love and obey him, in accord with the words of your beloved disciple he who says I know him but disobeys his commandments is a liar, as well as your very own. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. To know you well, o my God and dear Savior, I wish always, with the help of your grace, to contemplate you in all that befalls you and in all of your mysteries, and, at the same time time, to know your Father, who gave you to us, and the Holy Ghost that you have both sent to us. So do I wish to love you with true faith, a faith working through love. Amen.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Meditation 13. The Handmaiden of the Lord, the angel, continued. And behold your kins. Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren, for with God, nothing will be impossible, luke 1.36-37.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Mary did not need to be presented with examples of divine omnipotence. It was for us, to whom the mystery of her Annunciation would be revealed, that the angel spoke these words. Mary was transported in her admiration of the divine power in all its degrees. She saw that in the frequently repeated miracle of making the barren to be fruitful, god had desired to prepare the world for the unique and new miracle of a child born of a virgin. And transported in spirit with the holy joy by the miracle that God wished to work in her, she said with a submissive voice Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word, luke 1.38.

Speaker 1: 4:13

God did not need the consent and the obedience of the Holy Virgin to do with her what he willed, or even to have Jesus Christ be born of her and to form in her womb the body that he wished to unite with the person of his Son. But he wanted to give great examples to the world and the great mystery of the Incarnation to be accompanied by every sort of virtue in all those who had any part of it. This is the reason the virtues that the Gospel invites us to admire were placed in the Holy Virgin in her chaste spouse, st Joseph. Here's an even loftier mystery. The disobedience of our mother Eve, her incredulity toward God and her miserable credulity toward the deceitful angel had entered into the work of our loss. And God desired also that the obedience of Mary and her humble faith would enter into the work of our redemption. In this way our nature was repaired and everything that had entered into its loss, and so that we would have a new Eve and Mary, just as we have a new Adam in Jesus Christ. So that we might be able to say to this virgin, with holy sighs we cry out to you poor, banished children of Eve, mourning and weeping in this veil of tears offer them to your dear son and show us at our end the blessed fruit of your womb that you have received in this way. This is the solid foundation for the great devotion that the Church has always had for the Blessed Virgin. She has the same part in our salvation that Eve had in our loss. It is a doctrine that has been received throughout the entire Catholic Church and a tradition that stretches back to the very origin of Christianity. It will unfold in all of the mysteries of the Gospel. Let us enter into the profundity of this plan. Let us imitate the obedience of Mary, for it is by her that the human race has been saved and, according to the ancient promise, that the head of the serpent has been crushed Meditation 14.

Speaker 1: 6:37

The Three Virtues of the Annunciation, holy Virginity, had to be the first disposition of the Mother of God, for a purity that transcended that of the angels was necessary in order for her to be united to the Eternal Father and to bear the Son. This disposition prepared her to be overshadowed by the power from on high and visited by the Holy Ghost. The lofty resolution to renounce forever all joys of the senses, as if one were without a body, is what makes a virgin and what prepared an earthly mother for the Son of God. Yet all this would have been nothing without humility. The fallen angels were chased, but for all their chastity, god consigned them to hell because they were proud. It was therefore necessary that Mary be humble to the same extent that these rebels had been proud. This is why she said I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Nothing less would have sufficed to make her Christ's mother.

Speaker 1: 7:45

But the last disposition was faith, for she must conceive the Son of God in her spirit before conceiving him in her body. And this was the work of faith alone. Let it be to me according to thy word. From that moment, the word entered into the Blessed Virgin like a celestial sowing, as she had received it, so she conceived the word in her spirit. Let us then have a firm faith and let us hope for everything from the divine goodness and the divine promises. The word will become incarnate in us. We will participate in the dignity of the mother of God. In accord with Christ's teaching. My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it. Luke 8, 21.

Speaker 1: 8:40

And there are our two meditations for today. And there are our two meditations for today, also great meditations for a day in which many Catholics will be celebrating the Immaculate Conception, even though the feast really was yesterday, on the 8th. The church, in all her glorious and modern wisdom, decided that the 9th should be the day of the year that it was celebrated on this year, that's besides the point. Anyways, a lot of Catholics will be celebrating the Immaculate Conception today as a holy day of obligation. So those were great meditations for that, going through the virtues that Our Lady had besides just virginity, her humility and her faith and also showing showing that she needed basically all the virtues that Eve lacked in order to fulfill the prophecy of her crushing the head of the serpent.

Speaker 1: 10:01

So it looks like tomorrow we're going to get a little bit away from Mariology. Our meditations for tomorrow are talking about how, in the beginning was the Word, and then it looks like how all things were made through Christ. So a couple of meditations on Christ himself tomorrow and, yeah, by the end of the week. Here we are going to be through through half of them. So thank you all for joining me. I hope you are finding these fruitful and are enjoying them. I hope you are finding these fruitful and are enjoying them, and for any who are watching these at the time of recording, we still have two shows this week without Anthony, who is in Italy, so we have Mike Pantil tomorrow as guest host and then Keith and Esther on Thursday as guest host. Anyways, thank you all. I hope you have a great day. God bless and I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you.