Meditations for Advent 2024 - Day 18 - The Mercy Promised to Our Fathers

The arrival of Christ heralds a profound transformation, and in our latest episode, we reflect on this pivotal moment from "Meditations for Advent," taken from Bishop Jacques Bossuet's homilies. We explore Zechariah's exuberant canticle that celebrates Jesus as the horn of salvation, fulfilling ancient promises and conquering formidable foes—both seen and unseen. As we consider the true enemies within—our sins, vices, and evil desires—we are prompted to realign our lives with the divine justice and grace that Christ offers, inviting us to serve with genuine holiness and righteousness. This meditation challenges us to look beyond the surface and embrace a life that honors God not just in appearance but in spirit and truth.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meditations for Advent
• 13:11 Message of Gratitude & Encouragement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

SANTE, sante AMARE, morti NECRADAS NOS IN TEI, speraverus In tes vera veros nine and 30 out of 40. So at the end of today we will be three quarters of the way through our meditations and roughly three quarters of the way through Advent. A week from today is Christmas, christmas day. So we are, we are rapidly coming to the end here, which it feels like we just started these, so that means they've been good For anyone just joining us. These are from a book called Meditations for Advent. They are taken from the homilies and sermons of Bishop Jacques Benyany Bosway, and you can find the book at Sophia Institute Press, amazon, things like that. I put these up on YouTube, on Twitter, slash X, on all the different audio podcasts as well as spiritualistvcom, so you can find it all over the place, and we'll start with our prayer and we'll get going. So give me just a moment here, in the name of the Father and of the Son and 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 have chosen, you have said by your holy and divine mouth. This is eternal life that they know thee the only true God, and 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 to 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, oh, 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 true faith, a faith working through love. Amen. Meditation 29. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel. Blessed be the Lord, god of Israel. Luke 1 68.

Speaker 1: 3:23

After having been speechless for so long, zechariah suddenly cries out to express the marvel that Christ had come and would soon appear. He proclaims what he sees, and he sees at the same time the part that his son will play in this great work. This testimony of a priest renowned among his people and as wise as he was, pious, was spoken to give glory to Jesus Christ. All the words of his canticle testify to the promises made to our fathers and to the prophets of old. He begins by blessing God, for he has visited and redeemed his people by sending them his Son, in whom he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, david. See how the whole world knew that the Son of Mary came forth through her, from David and inherited his royalty. The word horn is one of magnificence and terror that, in Scripture, signifies at once glory and an incomparable power for defeating our enemies. This is the task of the Savior born of David for the redemption of mankind. The Holy Priest makes us see two things in this redemption the first are the evils from which it frees us, and the second are the graces that it brings us. To the first, then, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, luke 1, 70-71 delivered.

Speaker 1: 5:01

They are, in the first place, the invisible enemies who hold us captive by our sins, our vices and all our evil desires. These are our true enemies, the only ones that can bring about our perdition. Jesus Christ also delivers us from visible enemies by His teaching. We ought to fear them, but conquer them by charity and patience, according to St Paul saying Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good, being careful to win over by your charity your brothers who persecute you, heaping coals upon their heads to warm up and melt their icy hardened hearts.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Romans 12, 21, 20 this is the way the Savior has taught us to vanquish our enemies. Yet if it is necessary that they be vanquished openly, god will put them at our feet in another way, as he did with the persecuting tyrants of Egypt. When God allows his people to prosper against enemies who oppress them, they should look upon this happy success as a grace and profit from it in order to better serve God. If, however, they abuse it by leading a licentious life, their peace is no holy and Christian peace, but a scourge more terrible than war itself. Yet the true enemies, whose defeat has been promised by the Savior, are the demons, our conquerors since the beginning of the world. Our desires which make war in our members, our sins which overwhelm us, our weaknesses which kill us, the terrors of our conscience which give us no rest these are the true evils from which Jesus Christ delivers us to make us walk without fear in his presence Luke 1.74. It does not suffice to deliver us from evils.

Speaker 1: 7:02

The reign of Jesus Christ brings us holiness, which should have two qualities. The first is expressed by these words that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him. Luke 1, 74-75. That is to say in a perfect and true holiness, not in the eyes of men, but in the eyes of God. For the reign of Jesus Christ is not a question of exterior purifications or of vain ceremonies or superficial justice. We must be entirely holy. We must maintain ourselves in the sight of God and do everything for the one who sounds the depths of our hearts and think only of pleasing Him. That is not enough, however. We must also persevere in this estate. No fleeting virtue is worthy of Jesus Christ. Those who, moved by the sweetness of newfound devotion, fall back at the first temptation are the rocky ground Mark 4, 16 Because they are righteous only for a time. The proof of a true Christian is perseverance, and the grace that Jesus Christ brings to us is a grace that makes us truly just before God and also makes us persevering, walking both humbly and with courage in the sight of God throughout the whole of our lives. Let us begin a new life under the reign of Jesus Christ. Let us begin a new life under the reign of Jesus Christ. Let us be just in His sight, exterminating for the love of Him every stain that would offend His regard and practicing a firm and austere virtue that never retreats for any reason.

Speaker 1: 8:44

Meditation 30 the Mercy Promised to Our Fathers To perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, luke 1, 72-73. It seems needful to say that God exercises His mercy upon us in memory of our fathers, to disabuse us of any confidence in our own justice and to make us better understand that we are saved by grace. The holy priest Zechariah prefers to say that God performs His mercy toward our fathers, who have pleased Him, rather than to their ungrateful children, that God saves us by His goodness, not according to our merits. That is, to satisfy His promise rather than to repay our works, which are so evil. We must believe that the merits of the saints are graces from God. The grace that gives good works to us is given without our meriting it. When one is holy, one has merit. Yet to be holy there must first be a promise made from God's pure goodness. The reward is indeed due to those who do good works, but the grace which is not merited precedes those good works and enables them to be done. Children of grace and of the promise live in this faith. It is the new alliance that God has made with us, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God and so that he who boasts boasts of the Lord.

Speaker 1: 10:23

1 Corinthians 1, 29 and 31. According to the oath which he swore to our father, abraham. The mystery of these words cannot be better expressed than by the letter to the Hebrews. When God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself. Hebrews 6.13. Thus it is written by myself. I have sworn, says the Lord. So Abraham, the apostle, continues, having patiently endured, obtained the promise, for as men swear by a greater than themselves in the oath by which they bring the omnipotence and truth of God into their engagement, is, in all their disputes, final for confirmation. So also, when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of His purpose, he interposed with an oath so that through two unchangeable things, that is, god's word and the oath that confirmed it, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. Hebrews 6, 16-18.

Speaker 1: 11:41

No commentary need be offered here. All we need do is listen to the words and let them penetrate us. Let us only take care that in attaching ourselves to the promise, we do not presume on it. God has promised the remission of sins to the penitent, but he has not promised unlimited patience to those who endlessly tax it. And there are our two meditations for today, so we're now three quarters of the way through them. We have 10 left after today. 10 meditations and six days to get through them. Tomorrow's meditations are we. We have the prophet of the most high and the virginity of the holy mother of God.

Speaker 1: 12:40

Let's see here. The first one looks rather long tomorrow. First one looks rather long tomorrow, but anyways, um, thank you all for joining me. Um, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 13:11

I got a uh, a message um from uh, from someone, uh, someone named Michael, who, um who thanked me for doing those, these and um, let me know what sort of impact they had on him. Um, so, first off, michael, if you're listening, thank you for sending that to me. Um, stuff like that is a big encouragement to, to me and to you know, to Anthony, to um, just hearing the sort of impact that are you know what started as a silly little trivia show, a silly little hobby for us, what sort of impact it can have on people. It really gives us a lot of encouragement. It really gives us a lot of encouragement. So, thank you very much and we will continue to do our best to make fruitful content, hopefully make stuff that can be impactful to people. So I just wanted to say thank you to Michael and I wanted to thank you all for watching these and joining me in them. So thank you all. I hope you all have a great day today and I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you.