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O ORIENS!

December 21st. Feast of St. Thomas.

"O Orient! (Dawn of the East, Rising Sun. Dayspring) Splendour of the Light Eternal and Sun of Justice, come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."

(Is. ix. 2, Zach. iii. 8, vi. 12, Mal. iv 2, St. Luke i. 78).

1st. Prelude. "The light of the morning when the sun riseth" (2 Kings xxiii. 4).

2nd. Prelude. Grace to tread always the "Way of Peace."

Point I. The Orient

"Behold I will bring my Servant the Orient." (Zach. iii. 8). Now God has kept His promise for Zachary has already sung: "The Orient from on high has visited us." But where is He, this Servant of God Who has come to do His Will, this Man Who is also God, this Splendour of the Light Eternal and Sun of Justice? As yet He is hiding His light, but "fear not for on the fifth day Our Lord will come unto you" (Antiphon of the Benedictus for to-day). He will come and He will not tarry; but when He comes He will still hide His light under the swaddling clothes and the helplessness and dependence of a little babe. Why is this, O Orient? Thou art the Light Eternal and the Sun of Justice and yet Thy rising seems to make so little difference in the world. Hardly any know that Thou hast risen. My child, it is true that I am the Light of the world, true that I am the bright and morning Star, but the light can only reach the world by faith. Those who have faith like Zachary and his wife and infant son know that I have visited them, not because they have seen me, but by faith. It is the same with my own sweet Mother: "Blessed art thou that hast believed" (St. Luke i. 45). It will be the same when I am born in a few days' time. Most will see nothing beyond a babe in swaddling clothes, but to a chosen few who have the gift of faith the Sun of Justice will have risen, the Star will have appeared, their cry will be: "Behold a Man," even the Man-God, "the Orient is His name." It will be the same all through My life on earth, only the few will recognize the Light of the world; most will not come to Me, but will prefer darkness rather than light. It will be the same with My sacramental life in the Church. I shall be there, but only the eye of faith will detect Me. The Sun of Justice has risen with health in His Wings, but only very gradually will He make Himself felt in a world that is sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.

And why, O Orient, Splendour of the Light Eternal, why dost Thou not cast Thy bright beams over the whole world at once that all may know and recognize Thee as the Dayspring which has risen?

Because, My child, I love faith and it is by faith that I intend men to know Me. I do enlighten "every man that cometh into this world" (St. John i. 9), that is I give to each sufficient light to save his soul, to one more, to another less, and I shall judge according to the light I have given; but what I want from all is co-operation, I want their faith, I want them to believe, not because they can see and understand, but because by means of My grace in their hearts and especially by means of the revelation given to My Church I enlighten their minds. Yes, the Sun has risen with health in His Wings, and gradually He will increase in strength till the "uttermost parts of the earth" respond to His light. It is a work of time just as it is a work of time in each individual soul. The soul does not see clearly as soon as the light enters; there is a period when men seem like trees walking (St. Mark viii. 24); but if only it will respond and hold on by faith, the time will come when it will see all things clearly.

O Orient, come and enlighten those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death with the light of faith. It is faith that is needed on the earth, it is faith that is needed in each individual soul. It is faith that I need, more faith, more confidence in Thy dealings. Many shadows are still cast on my soul by sin – even a wilful imperfection casts a shadow. Oh What need I have of Thee, O Orient from on high, to come and visit me and chase away the shadows of the night! "Till the day break and the shadows retire" (Cant. ii. 17, iv. 6).

Point II. St. Thomas

It is a coincidence, if not something more, that puts the antiphon O Oriens! on the same day as the Feast of St. Thomas. It was on account of St. Thomas' doubt that the great principle was given to the Church: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." It is on account of St. Thomas' faith that countless Indulgences are granted every day to the faithful who make use of his words: "My Lord and my God" when their sight shows them nothing but a little Host elevated by a priest. It was St. Thomas' zeal which made him go to the Indies and proclaim that the Orient had visited His people and that God had become incarnate for men. "Thou didst make all the Indies shine with much light" (Hymn of the Greek Church to St. Thomas), and that light was the light of faith in Him Whom they had not seen. It is St. Thomas who comes to-day to revive our flagging faith, to introduce us to the Babe of Bethlehem and tell us that He is indeed the Orient though He is hiding His light, to warn us to give no heed to temptations against the faith, to tell us that when we are contemplating the humility and nothingness of our God and the temptation comes to us, as it did to him to say: Unless I see for myself, "I will not believe," to remember the words of the Master: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."

O blessed Saint Thomas! who art now in the land of light and vision, intercede for us that we may be as little children, believing all we are told and quietly waiting till the day dawn and the Orient arises in all His majesty and strength, preparing as a giant to run His course, but for the moment hiding everything under the form of a helpless babe. We do not ask for sight but for the light which will lead us to Him, the light of faith, so that when we see Him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger we may cry out with you: "My Lord and My God."

Point III. The way of Peace

The Orient visited us not only "to enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death," but also "to direct our feet into the way of peace" (St. Luke i. 79). And what is the way of peace but the way of faith, which He is coming to light up? Nothing can bring peace to this dark and sin-stricken world but faith. The Sun of Justice is rising with health in His Wings and that health is faith. It is the remedy for all ills. Men try every other remedy but they leave out God and His faith and the result is that the world remains in chaos. The Light has risen, the Orient has visited us, but men shut their eyes to the light and prefer the darkness, because their deeds are evil.

The Way of Peace is made by the Prince of Peace, it is the Highway to the Heaven of Peace. Am I on it? Yes, for I am one of "the household of faith" and can never thank Him sufficiently for having directed my feet into the City of Peace. But this is not all. Many people, even those of the "household of faith" have very little real peace in their lives. They spend their time in complaints, regrets, criticisms, anxieties. Is this what the King of Peace intends? Oh no! He is ever there waiting to direct their feet towards the "green pastures" and "the still waters," but the Way of Peace is the way of faith, of trust and confidence. Until I can really trust Him, the peaceful pastures can never be mine, I can never lie down in them and rest. I am His sheep, but I do not wholly trust my Shepherd. If I did, I should believe that whatever He chose and arranged for me was the best; I could not complain of what He had planned for me, however hard it might be. I could not criticize His arrangements and want to make my own. May my trust be so absolute this Christmas that it is apparent to everyone that I possess the peace which the Babe of Bethlehem comes to bring. O Orient come once more and direct my feet into the way of peace.

Colloquy with the Orient.

Resolution. "Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him." (Job. xiii. 15).

Spiritual Bouquet.O Oriens!

O REX GENTIUM!

December 22nd.

"O King of nations and their desired One and the Corner-stone that makest both one, come and save man whom Thou didst form out of slime!"

(Gen. xlix. 10, Agg. ii. 8, Isaias xxviii. 16, Gen. ii. 7).

1st. Prelude. Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem. "Behold thy King will come to thee… He is poor and riding upon an ass." (Zach. ix. 9).

2nd. Prelude. Grace to welcome my King.

Point I. "The Desired of all nations shall come."

King of nations He has always been, for He created them; in Him they live and move and are. (Acts xvii. 2). He has been in His earth ever since He created it, governing it, sustaining and preserving the life which He gave, co-operating always with His creatures. We must not think of Him as creating the world and then leaving it to do the best it could till the time came for Him to be incarnate. That is a false idea. His delights were always to be with the children of men and though the Orient did not begin to dawn till the time of the Incarnation, the Light had been in the world all along; the Sun of Justice had existed from all eternity. "He was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not." (St. John i. 10). But though it knew Him not, the world had enough light to desire Him. Ever since God at the time of man's fall had made His great promise concerning the Woman and her Seed, He that was to come had been to the nations "their desired One." That promise had been carefully cherished, handed on from father to son till Moses came and recorded it in the book of Genesis; and though of necessity one nation had to be selected to which the Woman and her Seed were to belong, yet the promise was given to all nations and all claimed their share in it. The chosen nation through whom all the others were to be blessed was Abraham's. Through him and his seed the great promise was to be fulfilled (Gen. xii. 3). The time was hinted at in the patriarch Jacob's blessing to Juda: "The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till He come that is to be sent and He shall be the expectation of nations" (Gen. xlix. 10). The house or family which was to have the joy of realizing the promise was David's; the place where the Woman was to bring forth her Seed was Bethlehem. Here "she that travaileth shall bring forth" and here "shall He come … that is to be the Ruler in Israel" (Mich. v. 2-3). Each subsequent prophecy or promise developed and enlarged the original one given in Eden, but in that one the nations had all that they needed upon which to build up their hopes and nourish their desires – the Woman and her Seed, the "Child with His Mother" – and though the promise belonged to the chosen nation (Rom. ix. 4), the first great promise had been handed down through the other nations and they knew enough to make them desire, enough to find the Light if they sought it as did the Wise Kings of the East.

O King of nations, as I look back through the ages and see the Child and His Mother so clearly set forth in promise and prophecy, in type and example, when I think of Thy plans for the redemption of the world, made from all eternity and gradually unfolding as the fulness of time approached, when I think of the nations all desiring Thy coming, when I think of the intense desire of Thy loving Heart, there is one thing that seems to jar and to be out of harmony with the rest, and that is the lamentable want of desire in my own heart! The time is very short now, the Child with His Mother are already on the way to Bethlehem. Oh! Let me multiply my Acts of Desire that my little King when He comes may be indeed my "desired One" too. "I sat down under His shadow, Whom I desired." (Cant. ii. 3).

Point II. The Corner-stone that maketh both one

"Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner-stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundations" (Isaias xxviii. 16), "the stone which the builders rejected" (Ps. cxvii. 22).

This is one of the promises confided to the chosen nation. Our Blessed Lord claims it as applying to Himself (St. Matt. xxi. 42, St. Luke xx. 17), and St. Peter and St. Paul both speak of it as if it were well known. (Acts iv. 11, 1 Peter ii. 6-8, Rom. ix. 33, Eph. ii. 20).

He is the Corner-stone Who is coming to make both one (Eph. ii. 14), both the Jews to whom belongs the promise (Rom. ix. 4) and the Gentiles who are "co-partners of His promise" (Eph. iii. 6). He is coming to preach peace to them that are far off as well as to them that are nigh, coming to make "the strangers and foreigners" feel that they are "fellow-citizens with the saints and the domestics of God," coming to weld all together into one great building of which He Himself is to be the chief Corner-stone, binding together the two walls (Jews and Gentiles), supporting each stone and keeping each in its place, a holy temple in the Lord, "a habitation of God in the spirit." Such is the picture St. Paul draws for us (Eph. ii), and such is the picture which the antiphon for to-day brings before our minds. "All one in Christ Jesus." He is the King of all nations, the Desired of all nations, the Corner-stone of the whole building; with Him there is neither Jew nor Gentile (Gal. iii. 28).

Let me tell Him even now before He comes how I long to share in the great work so dear to His Sacred Heart, let me offer myself to co-operate with Him in His designs for the human race which He loves so well.

Let me be ready to labour, to suffer, to pray, to spend and be spent, if only I may thus bring Him a few stones for His Holy Temple. I was "sometime afar off" but now have been "made nigh by the Blood of Christ" (Eph. ii. 13). "What shall I render?" (Ps. cxv. 12).

Point III. Come and save man whom Thou didst form out of the dust

"Their desired One" Who has never been far from the hearts of His children, knows the need of the nations. He Who formed man out of the dust knows his need of a Saviour. What are the desires of the nations compared with His desire? From all eternity He has desired the time to come when by taking the nature of man He could fulfil their desires and be to them both a King and a Saviour. Very soon now will the Angels be telling the glad tidings to man: To you is born the Saviour. Very soon will the heavenly choirs be singing the praises of the new-born King, and the question will be asked even by distant nations: "Where is He that is born King?"

Oh! come, little King, come and fulfil the desires of all hearts. Thou hast given them and Thou also must satisfy them. Art Thou really the one desire of my heart, around which all my hopes centre? If Thou wert not there, I know that life would be nothing but a blank. Come and create a greater desire than ever after the perfection Thou wouldst have, and then show me how to follow after it. "In what place soever Thou shalt be, my Lord King … there will Thy servant be" (2 Kings xv. 21). To-day then I will journey with Thy blessed Mother, for surely the closer I keep to her, the greater must be my desires.

Colloquy with "the desired One."

Resolution. Grace to desire Him more ardently.

Spiritual Bouquet.O Rex Gentium!

O EMMANUEL!

December 23rd.

"O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Expectation and Saviour of the nations! Come and save us, O Lord our God."

(Is. vii. 14, viii. 8, xxxiii. 22, St. Jas. iv. 12).

1st. Prelude. Mary and Joseph in the temple at Jerusalem.

2nd. Prelude. Grace to worship with them.

Point I. Emmanuel, God with us

On the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem lies Jerusalem and we may be quite sure that a happy event for Mary and Joseph on this long and tiring journey now nearing its end would be their visit to the Temple, near which Mary, and probably Joseph too, had spent most of her life. We may think, then, of Mary to-day taking her Son into His own Temple. We may think of the joy of the Angels as they lifted high the gates to let the hidden King come in. In the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple was the Ark of the Covenant, inside which were the Tables of God's law and upon which was manifested the presence of the All-Holy. But here kneeling in the Temple, in the women's court afar off, was the real Ark of the Covenant of which the other was only a type, hiding within her chaste womb the new Lawgiver Whose Presence was known only to the Angels who were worshipping round His Shrine, and to Mary and Joseph the only earthly worshippers in the Temple that day who understood.

Here was the Virgin with her Son, the prophecy was fulfilled – God with us. "His name shall be called Emmanuel."

Yet Mary and Joseph were not the only worshippers in the Temple that day – there was a Human Soul worshipping God as He had never been worshipped before. The Heart of Jesus now so near the end of the first stage of Its existence on earth was offering to God all Its homage and all Its love, offering to Him all the work that had been done during the nine months passed in the holy "Ark of the Covenant," all the humiliation and self-abasement, the silence and dependence, the suffering and patience, the satisfaction and merit. He had been doing all the time the things that pleased His Father, the things that He had made Himself man to be able to do. Now He is waiting – and the very waiting is another Act of worship – waiting for the moment to come when He can take the next step in His earthly journey, waiting with His Mother whose intense desire is only second to His Own.

O Emmanuel! God with us! I feel that I must go too to Thy Sacred Courts to-day and make one more worshipper before that Holy Shrine. Advent is nearly over, my time of preparation is well-nigh at an end. What have I to offer as I kneel in adoration? Feeble desires, broken resolutions, failure again in the thing I did so want not to fail in this Advent, good intentions, but little else. Dare I come and kneel there where all is so holy and so perfect? Yes, for He is Emmanuel, God incarnate for me. Let me hand Him through His Mother all my poverty and wretchedness and weakness and failure, together with my contrition and repentance and love, and in exchange He will hand me His forgiveness and the promise to offer my inadequate worship, together with His own Divine perfections, to His Father, Who will be satisfied. This is what Emmanuel means.

Point II. Our Lawgiver

"The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King He will save us." (Is. xxxiii. 22).

He is our King, therefore He has a right to make laws for us. And who could be a better Judge of how the laws are kept than He Who made them? Am I afraid at the sterner aspect which things seem to have taken? There is no need, for He is still our Emmanuel, but He can only be thus our Friend and Companion by being also the One Who has an absolute right to make laws for us and to expect our obedience. "You are My friends, if you do the things I command you" (St. John xv. 14). The reason for all His titles is that He wills to save us. He is first of all the Saviour and then, in order that our salvation may be accomplished, He makes Himself our King, our Lawgiver and finally our Judge. "If you love Me, keep My commandments." Such is our Lawgiver's appeal. Surely His commandments are not grievous. He Who did always the things which pleased His Father, asks us to try to do the same.

O my little Lawgiver, accomplishing so silently and so perfectly the Will of Thy Father, command me and I will obey, give Thy orders through whom Thou wilt; be they hard or easy, be they in accordance with my will or contrary to my whole nature! I will think of Thy perfect submission to Thy Father's Will during those nine months for me and will say: I, too, will do always the things which please Him no matter what they cost.

Point III. The Expectation of the nations

Jesus is waiting, Mary is waiting, the Angels are waiting, all nations, all the earth, and Heaven too is waiting – waiting for our Emmanuel to come and save us. The empty manger speaks of the Church's expectation to-day. We can count the hours now, all things are ready. Oh! come and save us! Come and begin Thy blessed work over again, come and save the many who as yet know Thee not and who are expecting everything this Christmas except a Saviour. May the sight of the empty crib remind me to look well into my preparations to-day to see that nothing is wanting in the welcome I am going to give to the King!

Colloquy with our Emmanuel. At the Incarnation, at Thy birth, all through Thy life, Thou didst dwell with us; on every altar Thou hast promised to be with us all days; in Holy Communion Thou hast said I will dwell with them; in the hour of death I will fear no evil for Thou wilt be with me; and Thou hast secured Heaven for me by Thy prayer: "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am." "Emmanuel, God with us."

Resolution. Grace to expect Him to-day in all that I do.

Spiritual Bouquet. O Emmanuel!