Tuesday, January 2 : Saint Bernard

Offer your son, O holy Virgin, and present the blessed fruit of your womb to the Lord (Lk 1,42). Offer for the reconciliation of us all the holy victim pleasing to God. Without a doubt God will accept this new offering, this victim of great price of which he himself said: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3,17). But this offering, brethren, seems gentle enough: it is only brought to the Lord, redeemed with some doves and carried out at once. But the day will come when this Son will no longer be offered in the Temple nor in the arms of Simeon but outside the city and in the arms of the cross. The day will come when he will no longer be redeemed with the blood of a victim but when he will redeem others with his own blood… That will be the evening sacrifice; this is the morning sacrifice. This is joyful but that one will be more complete, offered, not at the time of his birth, but in the fulness of manhood. To both can be applied what the prophet predicted: “He was offered because it was his own will” (Is 53,7 Vg). For today, in effect, he was not offered because he needed to be, not because he was subject to the Law, but because it was his own will. And on the cross likewise he will offer himself, not because he was deserving of death, not because his enemies had power over him, but because it was his own will. Therefore, “freely will I offer you a sacrifice, Lord” (Ps 54[53],8), because you offered yourself freely for my salvation… Let us too, brethren, offer him what we have of the best, that is to say ourselves. He has offered his self and you, who are you to hesitate to wholly offer yourself?

maronite readings – rosary,team