MEDITATIO

It is not easy to distinguish the Word from the voice, and that is why they thought John was the Messiah. They took the voice for the Word; but the voice introduced itself in order to not interfere with the Word. “I am not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet.” So they asked him, “What are you then?” He answered: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert” (Jn 1,23): it is the voice that breaks the silence. “Make straight the way of the Lord”, meaning: I ring so that the Lord may enter your heart; but he will not come in if you don’t prepare him the way. What does “Make straight the way” mean, if not: “Pray, as you should”? And what does “Make straight the way” mean, if not: “Have humble thoughts”? John gives you an example of humility. They take him for the Messiah and he affirms he is not what they think he is; he does not take advantage of their mistake to glory himself. If he would have said: I am the Messiah, they would have easily believed him, because they thought so, even before he spoke. He denied: he introduced himself, he defined himself, and he humbled himself. He saw where salvation was. He understood that he was only the lamp (Jn 5,35), and he feared it might be blown out by the wind of pride.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

I beg you, my very dear son in Christ, the sweet Jesus, to learn from this sweet spotless lamb how to always lower yourself by sincere humility, so that you retain and that you increase your virtue, in whatever state you are found. Because for those who are humble, all his spiritual and temporal works will gain him for heaven, because he does them with grace. His temporal works give him life, because he made them, their look fixed on God; His spiritual works spread the scent of virtue before God and before men of the world: and if he is called to command, he spreads the good smell of holy justice; Because the one who is humble is not unfair to his neighbor; He does not despise him, but he loves him as himself. I therefore pray to you, my very dear son, in your present position, to always do justice to the small and to the big, to the poor as in the rich; Also give everyone what is due to them, as the justice wants with mercy. I am sure that the goodness of God will do it to you; And I invite you as much as I know and I can. Be in this sweet Advent and in this holy feast near the Humble Lamb in the crèche. You will find Mary worshiping her son; This poor traveler, who has the richness of the Son of God, has no suitable swaddling clothes ​​to wrap him, and fire to warm him, divine fire, the spotless lamb; And these are animals that bow over the child’s body to warm it up with their breath. Should he not blush from pride, in the delights of men and wealth of the world, seeing such a humiliated God?

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

Concerning John the Baptist, we read in Luke: “He will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare a people fit for the Lord,” (Lk 1,15.17). For whom, then, did he prepare a people and in the sight of which Lord was he great? Without any doubt, before him who said that John had something about him that was “more than a prophet” and that “among those born of women, none has arisen greater than John the Baptist,” (Mt 11,9.11). For John prepared a people by announcing beforehand to his companions in servitude the coming of the Lord and by preaching repentance to them, so that, when the Lord came, they would be ready to receive his forgiveness and might return to him from whom they had been estranged by their sins and transgressions… This is why, by drawing them back to their Lord, John prepared for the Lord a people who were ready and willing, in the spirit and power of Elijah… John the Evangelist tells us: “A man named John was sent by God. He came for testimony, to testify to the Light. He was not the Light but came to testify to the Light,” (Jn 1,6-8). This man John the Baptist, the Forerunner, who gave testimony to the light, had undoubtedly been sent by God who… had promised by the prophets to send his messenger before the face of his Son to prepare his way, (Mal 3,1; Mk 1,2), that is to say, to give testimony to the Light in the spirit and power of Elijah… It was precisely because John was a witness that the Lord said he was more than a prophet. All the other prophets had announced the coming of the Father’s light and had longed to be accounted worthy of seeing the one they were preaching about. John prophesied as they did but saw him present; he made him known and persuaded many to believe in him, so that, at one and the same time, he filled the place of both prophet and apostle. That is why Christ said of him that he was “more than a prophet.”
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team