MEDITATIO

Come, you nations; come, all peoples of every race and language, every age and rank. Joyfully let us celebrate the nativity of the whole world’s joy! If even the pagans honor the birthday of their king (…) what ought not we to do to honor that of the Mother of God, through whom all humanity has been transformed and the pain of Eve, our first mother, has been turned to joy? For Eve heard God’s sentence: “You will bring forth children in pain” (Gn 3:16), but Mary: “Rejoice, most highly favored (…), the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). (…) Let all creation celebrate and sing the holy childbirth of a holy woman, for she has brought a lasting treasure into the world. (…) Through her the creative Word of God has been united to the whole creation and we celebrate the ending of human barrenness, the ending of the sickness that kept us from possessing all our good. (…) Nature has given way to grace (…). As the Virgin Mother of God had to be born of barren Anna, so nature remained without fruit until grace had produced its own. It was to open the womb of its mother, she who would give birth to “The Firstborn of all creation” in whom “all things hold together” (Col 1:15,17). O blessed couple, Joachim and Anne! All creation owes you thanks; through you it has offered the Creator the best of all his gifts: a mother worthy of veneration, the only mother worthy of the one who created her.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

We cannot find God in noise or agitation (…). In silence He listens to us; in silence He speaks to our souls. In silence we are granted the privilege of listening to His voice: Silence of our eyes. Silence of our ears. Silence of our mouths. Silence of our minds. In the silence of the heart God will speak. Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere – in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals. If we are careful of silence it will be easy to pray. There is so much talk, so much repetition, so much carrying on of tales in words and in writing. Our prayer life suffers so much because our hearts are not silent. I shall keep the silence of my heart with greater care, so that in the silence of my heart I hear His words of comfort and from the fullness of my heart I comfort Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

That world is best which has been done and which we see taking place, since that is what he wills; and this one can hardly refuse to believe. For if the movement of creation were irrational, and the universe were borne along without plan, a man might fairly disbelieve what we say. But if it subsists in reason and wisdom and skill and is perfectly ordered throughout, it follows that He that is over it and has ordered it is none other than the Logos or Word of God. (…) Being the good Word of the Good Father He produced the order of all things, combining one thing with its contrary, and reducing them to one harmonious order. He, being “the Power of God and Wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24), causes the heaven to revolve and has suspended the earth, and made it fast, though resting upon nothing, by His own will (cf. Heb 1:3). Illumined by Him, the sun gives light to the world and the moon has her measured period of shining. By reason of Him the water is suspended in the clouds; the rains shower upon the earth, and the sea is kept within bounds, while the earth bears grasses and is clothed with all manner of plants (cf. Ps 103). (…) But the reason why the Word, the Word of God, has united himself with created things is truly wonderful. (…) For the nature of created things, inasmuch as they are brought into being out of nothing, is of a fleeting sort and weak and mortal, if composed of itself only. But the God of all is good and exceedingly noble by nature and therefore is kind. (…) Seeing, then, that all created nature, as far as its own laws are concerned, is fleeting and subject to dissolution, lest it should come to this and lest the Universe should be broken up again into nothingness (…) God gave substantive existence to creation (…) so that by the governance and providence and ordering action of the Word, Creation may have light and be enabled always to abide securely. (…) lest that should come to it which would have come but for the maintenance of it by the Word, namely dissolution. “For he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, for through him and in him all things exist, things visible and things invisible, and he is the head of the Church” (Col 1:15-18).

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team