Saturday, December 23 : Blessed Guerric of Igny

Brethren, we prepare the way of the Lord as we are bidden to do by walking along it; and we can walk along it only by preparing it. However far you journey along it, the way is always waiting to be prepared, so that you must start afresh from the place you have reached and advance along what lies ahead. You are led to do so because at every stage you meet the Lord for whose coming you are preparing the way, and each time you see him in a completely new way and as a much greater figure than you have met before. The just man has the right prayer when he says: “Set your way which justifies as a law for me, Lord, and I will always seek after it.” (Ps 119[118],33). It is therefore eternal life which is probably meant, because although a man can study his route with foresight and determine just how far he can go, from the very nature of goodness there is no limit to the way along which you travel. And so, when the wise and indefatigable traveler has reached his goal he will begin again; forgetting, that is, what lies behind him, so that each day he can say to himself: “Now I begin” (Phil 3,13; Ps 76,11 Vg)… But if only we who speak of the course of this way could understand even the beginning of it. As far as I can see a man who has begun has already gone far, provided he begins properly and “finds the way to the inhabitable city” (Ps 107[106],4). “How few there are,” Truth says, “who find it” (Mt 7,14). And how many “go astray in the wilderness”… O Lord, you have laid down guide-lines for us, if only we would walk properly according to them. You have laid down a law for us, the way of your statutes, through him whom you have given as the Legislator of this holy way of life. “This is the way,” you say, “walk along it, swerving neither to the right nor to the left” (Is 30,21). Clearly this is the way the prophet had promised: “A straight way for us, so that no fool can wander from it” (Is 35,8). I was young once, I am now old (Ps 37[36],25) and if I remember rightly I have not seen a foolish man go astray because of it, though I have hardly seen any wise man able to keep straight along it.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team