Avoiding Babylon was started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these difficult and dark days, when most of us were isolated from family, friends, our parishes, and even the Sacraments themselves, this channel was started as a statement of standing against the tyrannical mandates that many of us were living under. Since those early days, this channel has morphed into an amazing community of friends…no…more than friends…Christian brothers and sisters…who have grown in joy and charity.
As we see it, our job here at Avoiding Babylon is to remind ourselves and those who enjoy the channel that being Catholic is a joyful and exciting experience. We seek true Catholic fraternity and eutrapelia with other Catholics who, like us, are doing their best to live out their vocation with the help of God’s Grace. Above all, we try to bring humor and joy to the craziness of this fallen world, for as Hillaire Belloc has famously said:
Embark on a spiritual journey with us on this thirteenth day of Advent. What does it mean to truly embrace the essence of Advent as a time of penance, reflection, and preparation? Today, we promise you'll discover the profound significance of meditation and prayer in aligning your heart with God. As we reflect on meditation 21 of 40, we delve into the timeless wisdom of the prophets and Jesus Christ, seeking to strengthen our spiritual resolve and deepen our faith as Christmas draws near.
Our exploration leads us to the heart of sacrifice — the ultimate offering of Jesus Christ, as beautifully interpreted by St. Paul and foretold in the Psalms. We unravel the mystery of Jesus's unwavering obedience and devotion, illustrated by His willingness to take on a form prepared for suffering. From His infancy, He stood as the supreme testament of divine fulfillment. Allow these reflections on Christ's life and sacrifice to illuminate your path this Advent season, guiding you toward a more profound understanding of faith and devotion.
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SANTE, sante AMARE MORTI DECLARAS NOS IN TEIS BELAVEROS. Good morning everyone. Welcome to day 13 of Advent, on Friday the 13th. So yeah, we are on day 13. We are past the halfway mark. We will be. Our first meditation today is meditation 21 of 40. So we're past the halfway mark there as well, and before we know it, christmas will be here.
Speaker 1:
So let's make sure to finish off Advent strong, with our meditations, with prayer, with whatever additional penances you may be doing, because Advent is a season of penance. So, as we've been doing, we'll start with our prayer. We'll go through two meditations today and, yeah, so sorry, I am a little tired this morning. Having kids is lovely at times most of the time, not so much at night sometimes. So, anyways, let me uh get ready here. I'm going to throw up our the image on screen, like usual, and we will. We will say the prayer here. Give me a second, okay, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, amen, jesus, my Savior, true God and true man in the true Christ, promised to the patriarchs and the prophets from the beginning of the world and, in time, faithfully bestowed to the holy people you had chosen, you have said by your holy and divine mouth, this is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God in 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 the 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 to obey him, in accord with the words of your beloved disciple. He who says I know him but disobeys his commandments as 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 thy grace, to contemplate you in all that befalls you and in all of your mysteries and, at the same time, to know your Father, who gave you to us, and the Holy Ghost that you both have sent to us. So do I wish to love you with the true faith, a faith working through love, amen. Meditation 21.
Speaker 1:
The oblation of Jesus Christ. He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, said St Paul, hebrews 9.26. It is his very self, his own body and blood, that he is offered on the cross. It is still his own body and blood that he offers in the daily sacrifice. It is not, then, without reason that David, seeing in the Spirit the first act that Jesus Christ would accomplish in making himself man, said Burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not required. Then I said Lo, I come in the role of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do your will, o my God, psalm 46-8. Interpreting this prophecy, st Paul added Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me, hebrews 10.5.
Speaker 1:
By these words, jesus Christ places himself at the head of all the ancient victims. And because there was nothing in his divinity that he could sacrifice to God, god gave him a body suitable for suffering and proportioned to the condition of victim in which he placed himself. Once he had begun this great action, he never ceased and he remained, from infancy and even in His mother's womb, in the condition of victim, abandoned to the commands of God, to suffer and do what he willed. I come to do Thy will, as it is written at the beginning of your book In Capite Libre. There is an eternal book in which is written what God wills for all His elect and, at the head of it, what he wills in particular for Jesus Christ, who is the head of the elect. The first article of this book is that Jesus Christ will take the place of every victim by doing the will of God with perfect obedience. It is to God's will that he submits himself, which is why David added I delight to do your will, o my God. Thy law is written within my heart, psalm 48.
Speaker 1:
Let us then follow the example of Jesus Christ, with the spirit of a victim who was abandoned to the will of God. Otherwise we will have no part in his sacrifice. It was necessary for him to be a burnt offering and a victim entirely consumed by fire. We ought to allow ourselves to be reduced to ashes rather than to oppose God's desires. It is in the holy will of God that equanimity and repose are to be found.
Speaker 1:
In the life of the passions and of self-rule, we think of one thing today and another tomorrow. One thing during the night and another during the day. One thing when we are sad and another when seized by a good mood. One thing when hope smiles upon our desires and another when seized by a good mood. One thing when hope smiles upon our desires and another when it withdraws from us. The only remedy for these vagaries and inconsistencies in our lives is complete submission to the will of God, as God is always the same amid all the changes he brings about in his creation, so the man submitted to do his will is always the same, for reason to be sovereign is what God wants.
Speaker 1:
The will of God entirely holy is itself our reason. Let us nevertheless take care that it be not through laziness or kind of despair and to give ourselves a false repose that we have recourse to the will of God. The divine will gives us repose through our own actions and when we do what is required of us. It brings us repose in sorrow as well as in joy, according to the pleasure of the one who knows what is good for us. It brings us repose not in self-satisfaction, but in contentment with God, as we pray to Him to be pleased with us and to do with us what he wills. What does it matter? What becomes of us upon the earth? There is but one thing to ask of the Lord that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple, psalm 27.4. Let us begin that life by singing with David, or rather with Jesus Christ, the hymn of the holy will here I am, lord, I come to do your will.
Speaker 1:
Meditation 22 Mary Goes to Visit Elizabeth. As soon as Mary had conceived the word in her womb, she arose and went with haste to the hill country, to a city of Judah Luke 139, to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Can we not sense the cause of this promptness, of the seriousness with which she took this duty? When one is filled with Jesus Christ, one is at the same time filled with charity, with the holy vivacity and with lofty ideals whose execution leaves no time for languishing. Mary, who carried grace with Jesus Christ in her womb, was called forth by a divine instinct to take that grace to the house of Zechariah, where John the Baptist had been recently conceived. It is for superiors to abase themselves and to serve. Mary, knowing herself to have been served by the Word who had descended into her womb, could not fail to be touched by the desire to humble herself and to abase herself according to his examples. Jesus would need to be preceded by St John externally, but internally, interiorly, it is Jesus who must precede, because he must sanctify John. It was necessary that John receive from Jesus the first touch of grace.
Speaker 1:
In all the visits that we make, let us imitate Mary. Let us visit one another in charity, for under even a simple civility, great mysteries may be hidden. Grace will grow where it is made known by humility and by the exercise of holy friendship. Highest souls cultivate the duties of family life. Be friends, christian women, as Mary and Elizabeth were. Let your friendship be a work of piety in your conversations, full of God. Then Jesus will be in your midst and you will feel his presence. Men, you too should imitate these pious women. O God, sanctify our conversations. Remove from them curiosity, dissipation, anxiety, dissimulation and trickery. Allow cordiality and good examples to reign in them, for this day is a miracle.
Speaker 1:
Jesus Christ is hidden, and yet he is the one who accomplishes everything. Neither movement nor sound comes forth from him, yet he causes the infant in elizabeth's womb to move. Jesus, who is the mover of all things, is the only one here who seems to be without an action. His action is apparent only in those he inspires. In the others, we see here three persons whom jesus christ, upon three different dispositions of the souls, he approaches. Why is this, granted me, says Elizabeth, luke 1.43. She is astonished at the approach of God. Not being able to discover the reason for it in her own merit, she is astounded by God's goodness. In other souls God works the motion and the holy effort to make them come to him. This is what is apparent in the leaping of John the Baptist. His last work is peace and the glorification of the divine power. This is what is apparent in the Blessed Virgin. Let us then see in these three persons, moved in three different ways, the three divine operations of Jesus Christ and Christian souls In Elizabeth, the humble astonishment of a soul he approaches. In John the Baptist, the holy transport of a soul he draws toward himself. And in Mary, the ineffable peace of a soul he possesses.
Speaker 1:
Okay, those are our meditations for today and, if I edited it correctly, you will not realize how long it took to get through them and how difficult it was it took to get through them and how difficult it was. Um, as I've said the last day or two, I have some sort of, some sort of cold or something, uh, nothing terrible. Just enough to make my voice sound like absolute crap, um, to the point where I'm having to to pause the recording and cough, or, uh, go through and delete portions of the recording and redo them, things of that nature. So what made it in was the best of what I had, and I apologize if it sounds terrible, which I'm sure it does. Um, so, yeah, uh, yeah, uh, you know, that's the thing with these recordings, these meditations, is, uh, is, if, if I was recording an audiobook or you know one long reading of something, um, I would probably just wait the three, four days that I have this until it's all gone.
Speaker 1:
But with daily meditations, you just really can't do that. And, of course, both Advent and Lent are kind of at times of the year where you tend to get something like this within a month or within the 40 days of lend. So we just have to deal with it. So I apologize, but there's not much I can do, uh, other than, like I said, edit out what I can edit out. So, so, because it took much longer to record this than the 16, 17 minutes it's going to end up being, we will just end it there. So let's see here.
Speaker 1:
So tomorrow our meditations start off continuing with Elizabeth. We have the humble astonishment of Elizabeth and then we kind of go into yeah, then we continue with Elizabeth, with my soul magnifies the Lord, or actually no, that will be Sunday. So tomorrow and Sunday we only have one meditation of peace. So the next two days we'll be continuing with the visitation to Elizabeth and we'll go from there. So okay, so thank you everyone. Um, I hope you have a good day today. It is Friday, so no meat, if that's what you do, um, but I'll see you all tomorrow, on Saturday, and don't be surprised if the meditation tomorrow gets released a little later. If my children allow it, I'm going to try to sleep in a little, so it might not release at 7 am, it might be 8 9 am, but I'll get it out tomorrow morning at some point, don't worry. Anyways, thank you all have have a great day. See you tomorrow, thank you.
