Meditations for Advent 2024 - Day 20 - He Will Be Called Emmanuel

The episode reflects on the deeper meanings behind the nativity story and the significance of Christ being born in a stable. We explore themes of humility, vulnerability, and the call to embrace simplicity as we prepare to celebrate Christmas.

• Meditation explores the significance of Emmanuel, God with us 
• Discussion on the implications of Christ's birth in a stable 
• Reflection on modern comforts contradicting spiritual principles 
• Examples of saints embracing simplicity and poverty 
• Encouragement to find richness in spiritual over material wealth 
• Call for personal reflection and meaningful celebration of Christ’s coming

Chapters

• 0:02 Meditations on Emmanuel and Manger
• 12:22 Reflections on Simple and Humble Faith

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Sancte, sancte, amare morti. Necradas nos in te speraverum. In taste, fair love and love. Good morning everyone. Welcome to Day 20 of Advent.

Speaker 1: 0:39

We are rapidly getting to the end here and Sunday. So today's Friday. So, yeah, sunday is the fourth Sunday of Advent and we have a very short fourth week of Advent this year. Well, I shouldn't say very short, but it's on the shorter side, anyways. So we will get to our two meditations today. And just to give everyone a heads up, let's see, it's friday morning. I did not record saturday and sunday yet, which means I will be doing those from a hotel using earpods as a microphone. So, yeah, I'm sure the audio on those are going to be just wonderful. So I pre-apologize because they are not going to be as polished as most of this. So, anyways, let's not worry about that now, let's just get through today. So let me put up an image here and we will get going.

Speaker 1: 1:45

The name of the father and the son and the holy ghost, amen jesus my savior, true god and true man and 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 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 as a liar as well as your very own. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he, it is who loves me 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 that I wish to love you with the true faith, a faith working through love. Amen, meditation 33.

Speaker 1: 3:15

He will be called Emmanuel. His name will be Emmanuel, god with us. If we understand the significance of this name, emmanuel, we will find it includes the notion of Savior. For what is a Savior unless one who takes away sin, just as the angel said. Yet with sins having been taken away and there no longer being any separation between God and us, what remains other than our perfect union with God? We are then perfectly and eternally saved, and we recognize in Jesus, the one who saves us, a true Emmanuel. He is the Savior because in Him God is with us. He is God united to our nature. Having been reconciled with God, we are God and man together.

Speaker 1: 4:19

In Christ, god was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them 2 Corinthians 5.19. Thus, god is with them because they no longer have their sins. This would be nothing, however, were God not also, at the same time, to prevent them from committing new sins In the style of scripture. To say that God is with you means that God protects you, god helps you, and with so powerful an assistance that your enemy will not prevail against you. They will fight against you, says the prophet, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you. Be with us, o Emmanuel, so that after the pardon of our sins, when their pernicious attractions and temptations return, we will remain victorious.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Is this the extent of the grace of our Emmanuel? No, here is a higher one, the final one of all. He will be with us in eternity, when God will be everything to everyone. He will be with us to purify us from our sins, with us to lead us to the life entirely free from sin. Here, says St Augustine, are three degrees through which we pass in order to gain the salvation we are promised in the name of Jesus and the perfect grace of divine union through our Emmanuel. Happy not only when we will no longer falter under the yoke of our sins, but when we will be free of the temptations that imperil our deliverance. O Jesus, o Emmanuel, o Savior, o God with us, o victor over sin, o mediator of divine union with faith, I await this blessed day on which you will receive the name of Jesus, the day on which you will be my Emmanuel, always with me, who live amid so many temptations and perils. Protect me with your grace, unite me to yourself, and may all that is in me be subject to your will. That is in me be subject to your will.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Meditation 34 the Stable in the Manger of Jesus Christ, god prepared a great and new spectacle for the world when he caused a king to be born poor. It was necessary to prepare a fitting place and cradle for him. John 1.11. The crowd and the lords of the earth had filled the inns. All that Jesus had was an abandoned and deserted stable and a manger to be laid in Luke 1, 7. It was a fitting shelter for the one who, when he had come of age, would say Foxes have holes and birds of the air that is, the true nomads of the earth have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Luke 9.58. He did not utter this as a complaint. He was accustomed to this sort of abandonment From his very birth. He had no place to lay his head. He himself willed it to be this way. Let us leave the places inhabited by men. Let us leave the ends where the tumult, tumult and the press of the world holds sway. Seek a more simple and innocent retreat for me, among the animals. At last we have found a place worthy of the abandoned one.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Come out, divine child. Everything has been prepared to announce your poverty. He comes forth like a flash of light, like a ray of the sun. His mother is astonished to see him appear all at once. This birth is free from weeping, whether of sorrow or pain. Miraculously conceived. His birth is still more miraculous. Enter into the possession of your impoverished throne. The angels are coming to adore you upon it. When God introduced you to the world, this commandment came forth from the high throne of his majesty. Let all God's angels worship him.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Hebrews 1 6. Who can doubt that his mother and his adopted father also adored him at the same time? It was as a figure of jesus that joseph of old had been worshiped by his father and mother. But the adoration of jesus by mary and joseph was of an entirely different order, for he was blessed and adored as the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever.

Speaker 1: 9:23

Do not think to approach this impoverished throne with the love of wealth and the highest state. Undeceive yourselves, disabuse yourselves and dispossess yourselves, at least in spirit. All you who come to the Savior in the manger. Do we lack the courage to leave everything in order to follow the king of the poor? Let us at least leave everything in spirit and instead of glorying in the rich belongings that surround us. Let us blush for being so pampered when Jesus Christ is naked and abandoned. And yet he was not naked. His mother wrapped him in swaddling clothes with her chaste hands Luke 2.7. It was necessary to cover the new Adam whom the air attacked and whom modesty demanded to be clothed. O Mary, cover this tender body and lift him to that virginal breast, adore him while nursing him. The angels are bringing others to adore him too. There we go. Those are our meditations for today. So the next two days, saturday and Sunday, we will have one meditation apiece. Tomorrow will be the Angels Bring Good News to the Shepherds, and Sunday will be the Song of the Angels.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Um, yeah, so I think, in our day, um, in our day and age and for, for I would imagine most of our listeners are probably here in america or, uh, if not in america, then somewhere in the West, we have become far too comfortable with being comfortable, it's. I don't think we always see all of the implications of Christ coming to us. Um, in being laid in a manger, uh, you know. In a stable, um, you know when, when Bishop Oswego here talks about how, uh, in the gospel, christ notes that even animals have homes and nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head and has had nowhere to lay his head since the moment he was born.

Speaker 1: 12:22

You know, bishop Osweway talks about how Christ wanted to come to us away from the press of the world, away from where the world holds sway. It wanted to come to us in a more simple and innocent manner. In a more simple and innocent manner, I think we find it so easy to make our lives as easy as possible with everything, as comfortable as possible with everything. I mean, that is almost the driving force of what we all do every single day. And, yeah, we right now live in a time where the so-called American dream is harder to achieve than many points in our history many points in our history, um, but yet that doesn't belie the fact that we have, even for those who who maybe are struggling financially right now, we have more comfortable lives than anyone at any point in history. And meanwhile, the, the savior of mankind, um, and meanwhile the savior of mankind comes to us in a poor family and is born in a stable. So so we just have to contemplate that, because so many of the saints did radical things to debase themselves to the point where they were as poor as our Lord.

Speaker 1: 14:24

Um, you know, st Francis obviously is one of the more famous uh choices, but, um, so many of the saints, um, so many of the, you know you have uh saints, uh, the, you know, the desert fathers living in the desert eating nuts and locusts and things like that. And here we are. You know, I've complained about waking up early to do these meditations and yet I wake up, you know, in a soft, warm bed with nice, soft sheets. Uh, so what am I complaining about? Anyways, anyways, just, uh, just, contemplate the fact that the king of the universe came to us in a manger, and, yeah, so today is Ember Friday. So fast, abstain from meat, do penance, pray for your priest, and I will see you all tomorrow, on Ember Saturday. Have a good day, thank you.