Thursday, December 11 : Saint Hilary

Just as the owner of the fig tree in Luke’s Gospel visits his barren tree three times, in the same way, each year the Holy Mother Church marks the coming of the Lord with a distinct period of three weeks. “The Son of Man comes to search out and save what was lost” (Lk 19,10). He has come before the Law, because by the means of natural reasoning he revealed to everyone what they were supposed to do or follow (Rom 1,20). He has come under the Law because, through the example of the patriarchs and the voice of the prophets, he confirmed to the descendants of Abraham the decrees of the Law. He has come a third time after the Law, by grace, to call the pagans, so that from East to West all children learn to praise the name of the Lord” (Ps 112,1-3), these children whom, till the end of the world, he will not stop calling to the praise of his glory… In fact, everything in the Holy Scriptures announces by words, reveals through facts and establishes with examples the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord…By all these prefigurations, real and manifest – by the sleeping of Adam, the Flood of Noah, the justification of Abraham, the birth of Isaac, the servitude of Jacob – in the patriarchs, it is him who generates, washes, sanctifies, chooses and redeems the Church. In one word, all the prophecies, that together reveal progressively God’s secret plan, have been given to us so that we may learn about his coming Incarnation…Each character, each time, each event projects like into a mirror the image of his coming, of his preaching, of his Passion, of his resurrection and of our gathering in the Church…Beginning from Adam, starting point of our knowledge of the human race, is announced since the origin of the world what finds in the Lord its final accomplishment.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team