“Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his birth, for he shall be great before the Lord. . . . And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, that he may turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people.” Luke 1:13-17
ZacharyDetailFromLievensVisitation-sm1. The story is the first distinct shadow of the great event that is to come. It is cast first upon the Temple, upon the most sacred spot of the Temple, at the most sacred time, while “all the multitude was praying without at the hour of incense,” on the most sacred person, the priest Zachary, whose lot it then was “to offer incense, going into the Temple of the Lord,” and after the most sacred manner, for “there appeared to him an Angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.” Zachary saw “the Angel, was troubled, and fear fell upon him”; Mary later saw the Angel and “was troubled”; he before the Angel spoke, she after; which helps us to see the difference in their fear.
2. Then comes the foreshadowing of the person, the last of that procession that has “gone before the Lord,” stretching from Adam until this time. Zachary’s son shall be called John, that “is, the grace of God.” He shall be a joy to his parents, a joy to many; already the note of joy in the Incarnation is being sounded, so resonant later in all the Angels songs. Then come the characteristic graces with which the precursor is to be endowed. He shall be great before the Lord. He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost. He shall convert many. He shall go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, that he may turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people. This is he of whom Our Lord afterwards said that he was “a prophet and more than a prophet.”
3. Zachary feared, and his fear was a fear of doubt. There were apparently insuperable difficulties to the fulfillment of this promise. He forgot that “nothing is impossible with God.” Unlike the humility of Mary, which only looked to serve in whatever capacity, his humility hesitated to let God use it as He would. But God had patience; He gave him the evidence he wanted; the evidence of an Angel’s witness, and that Angel Gabriel; the evidence in his own dumbness, that he might learn better how to speak; the evidence in his own secret heart, purifying his humility, and filling himself with consolation as he dwelt upon the words: “Thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth.”
Summary Meditation Points:
1. St. John is the last of the line of forerunners of Our Lord. His coming is surrounded with much of the mystery and awe which belongs to like scenes in the Old Testament.
2. The character and description of John are such as to put him apart from other men. Of no one has Scripture said so much; even Our Lord Himself has given him praise that is unique.
3. Zachary, his father, was a saint, yet a saint who hesitated; and God dealt with him severely yet tenderly, inflicting a trial that He might fill him with the greater joy.
Category Archives: Advent
Advent
Wilderness of Sin
Magdalene, O Magdalene,
With you in the wilderness of sin,
Together, we rejoice.
As sisters, embracing.
Dawn rose as the sun
Hope entered our lives with our Savior
Sinister evil fled at His Presence
In our souls.
Jesus, Son of God,
Son of Man,
Freed us of all gods,
Loosed all obsession.
Magdalene, O Magdalene
Cry out with me,
Emmanuel, God with us.
by Joann Nelander
Come Lord Jesus! A Meditation on the Stunning Glory of Being Gathered to Christ on the Last Day « Archdiocese of Washington
“In Advent, as we continue to meditate on the Parousia (the magnificent Second Coming of the Lord), we do well to allow our imaginations to be engaged in contemplating the glory that awaits those who are faithful, to meditate on the joy and ecstasy of the culmination of all things!
Though we have soberly meditated on the need to be ready and on the great danger that many who are not serious may be lost, for those who ARE ready, what glories await! The great and terrible day of the Lord will indeed be great for those who have allowed the Lord to prepare them.
I was stirred this past month in reading a magnificent book by Cardinal Jean Danielou on Angelology (usually pronounced an-GELL-o-gee), the study of angels. The book is entitled The Angels and their Mission: According to the Fathers of the Church. It is must reading and very accessible—only 114 pages—but packed full of stirring and edifying accounts of the wonderful works of the angels, according to Scripture and the Fathers of the Church.
The final chapters on the eschaton (the last things) and the Parousia (the Second Coming) are particularly magnificent. I would like to distill them here, adding some material and reworking it just a bit. However, the research is that of Jean Cardinal Danielou. I hope you will be stirred with as much joy and zeal as I was in reading and preparing this material. And thus we proceed:
Perhaps as a beginning point, we may wonder what happens to the ministry of our Guardian Angel when we die. Even if our souls are in heaven, our bodies are still awaiting the resurrection. Ancient Christian tradition maintains that during this time the angels keep watch over the tombs of the saints. In the Jewish apocalyptic book The Assumption of Moses, it is said that Joshua saw Moses’ soul rising to Heaven with the angels (40:1–7). However, the Epistle of Jude also says that the Archangel Michael fiercely disputed with the devil about the body of Moses (cf Jude 1:9). Stories such as these, combined with the ancient Christian practice of frequently depicting angels in cemetery art and funeral monuments, indicate a role for the angels in guarding the bodily remains of the elect, even those sadly scattered about or buried in the depths of the sea.
Scripture is replete with descriptions of the role of angels in the great Second Coming of the Lord. In the Gospel of Matthew there is a text that may refer to 70 AD, but surely also describes the end of time:
Then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matt 24:30-31).
The first epistle to the Thessalonians also says,
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise … (1 Thess 4:16).
St Cyril goes on to describe the extraordinary magnificence that the presence of the immense multitude of angels gives to the final judgment. He considers how the great depth and breadth of the spiritual world has been invisible until now, except to the eyes of faith. But suddenly it is made manifest! He asks us to try to imagine the immense multitude of angels by considering the vast numbers of human beings who ever existed, from the time of Adam to the present day, now standing before the Lord Jesus. And then he asks us to imagine that the angels are vastly more numerous than we are. For they are the 99 sheep whereas humanity is but the one sheep! Such vast numbers can only be spoken of as myriads and myriads! Or as Daniel poetically says,
Thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his throne. His clothing was white as snow, the hair on his head like pure wool; His throne was flames of fire, with wheels of burning fire. A river of fire surged forth, flowing from where he sat; Thousands upon thousands were ministering to him, and myriads upon myriads stood before him (Dan 7:9-10).”READ MORE:via Come Lord Jesus! A Meditation on the Stunning Glory of Being Gathered to Christ on the Last Day « Archdiocese of Washington.
The House of David Catholic Spiritual Direction
By Dan Burke via Spiritualdirection.com | Catholic Spiritual Direction
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David his father: and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
Luke 1:32-33
It is wonderful to notice in the prophecies of the Old Testament how, from the time of David onward, they settle down more and more upon the House of David. This at least was to be one sure sign; and so much had it become an essential part of the Messiah, that those who in His lifetime wished to proclaim their acceptance of His miracles and teaching called Him at once the “Son of David.” The Angel alluded to it at the first announcement; Zachary proclaimed it at the Benedictus; “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,” cried the beggar on the roadside; the enthusiastic crowd on Palm Sunday shouted: “Hosanna to the Son of David”; even Our Lord Himself, when facing His enemies, used this belief of theirs for their confusion.
“And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying: ‘What think you of Christ? Whose Son is He? They say to Him: ‘David’s.’ He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call Him ‘Lord’, saying: ‘The Lord said to My Lord, sit on My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool?’ If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his Son? And no man was able to answer Him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any further questions” (Matthew 22:41-46).
2. The genealogy of Our Lord from David, in that imperfect-perfect manner recognized by the Jews, has been preserved to us. When we look at the line we are struck with many things. David himself was a great saint, but also a great sinner, and Our Lord came from that union which had followed on David’s great sin. Moreover, she that had been the wife of Uriah was not even a Jew. So we can follow down the line of His ancestors and notice that there were others of their kind; that though Our Lord provided for Himself a spotless Mother, He by no means provided spotless forefathers. In this, as in many other ways, “He became like to man”; though in Him sin was not, yet so near did He suffer Himself to be allied to it.
3. Again, though the House of David was not suffered to perish, still it was suffered to be buried for centuries in obscurity; for centuries, too, it was a house divided against itself, and only in its undercurrents did the stream flow on. Kings were born of it, and slew each other, and their families were blotted out; while unknown members carried on the line in hidden places, little suspecting in their obscurity that their lives and the families they reared around them were the most precious, the most significant in all the world. This is to look at life along the plane of God. From the next world how differently will perspectives appear!
“The base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that He may bring to nought things that are : that no flesh should glory in His sight” (1 Corinthians 1:28-29).
Malta: “Patriots” protest against illegal aliens; fear Muslim takeover of Malta « Refugee Resettlement Watch
Though the news is full of U,S. illegal aliens dilemma, we are not alone. With the rise of refugees around the world immigration problems abound. Here are some of Malta’s concerns. Keep in mind that the Maltese have shared their turf with many peoples in their long history including Arab conquerors, the Brits, the French etc. and their land mass ( roughly 119 sq. miles ) makes hospitality very difficult in the face of the influx and the problems arising from a non-assimilating immigrant population.
Malta: “Patriots” protest against illegal aliens; fear Muslim takeover of Malta
Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 25, 2014
“Some of the people of Malta have had it with the huge influx of illegal aliens from Africa and the Middle East and have now joined France, the UK, Sweden, and Italy (among others) in forming a political movement in an effort to halt immigration into Europe.From Malta Today:
Malta could become a Muslim state within the next 20 years, according to Alex Pisani, the president of the self-declared Organisation of Maltese Patriots (Ghaqda Patrijotti Maltin).
“The people don’t yet know what integration means, it is like giving people full citizenship rights,” Pisani said. “These people will then also be able to bring their family members over. At this rate, we expect Malta to become an African or Muslim state within the next 20 years. Islam is slowly taking over Europe, but we have one religion- Catholicism, and we are proud of it.”
He was speaking right before the organisation’s second anti-immigration protest on Saturday morning, this time with a specific emphasis on their perceived problems brought about by integration with foreign cultures.
Pisani, 61, of Valletta, and the owner of a confectionery, again denied being a racist.
“I’m not fighting for my skin colour but for my Maltese identity,” he explained.”
Although here I must say, watching Ferguson, MO burn while the US has a black President could make one wonder if the white race is under siege around the world. Race relations in America have probably been set back decades by lack of respect for the rule of law and the violent mobs destroying other peoples’ lives and property in Ferguson.
Urging the fearful to come out and express their opinions publicly, Pisani went on to say this this:
“This is your future we’re fighting for,” Pisani told onlookers. “You should be ashamed of yourselves for not uniting with us in this protest.”
The protest ended outside Castille, with Pisani praising the cheering crowd for being “true patriots” and criticising the people who only share their anti-immigration views on Facebook.
Puppets of the EU!
When asked whether his support for such parties means that he is in favour of Malta leaving the European Union, Pisani said that it will work out well for Malta as “we have become puppets of the EU.”
For our extensive archive on Malta’s illegal alien problem going back seven years, click here. Maltese readers topped our list of the largest number of readers outside the US two weeks ago, here.
New readers should know that we are bringing hundreds of those illegal aliens to the US every year. See our most recent post on that subject.
Our ‘Invasion of Europe’ series is here. You really need to know what is happening in Europe because the American press is not saying a word about the popular anti-immigration uprising on the Continent.
read more via Malta: “Patriots” protest against illegal aliens; fear Muslim takeover of Malta « Refugee Resettlement Watch.
Gift of Love
Take a moment from your busy day to say the Lord’s Prayer for your loved ones in purgatory. It will also warm our Lord’s heart.
Be Holy! 