Advent Meditations: Saturday 14 December
| Sat Dec 14 |
am: 30, 32 pm: 42, 43 |
Haggai 2:1-19 | Rev 3:1-6 | Matt 24:1-14 |
SATURDAY IN THE SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT _ Feast of St John of the Cross – Mystic and Teacher of the Faith, 1591 : Perhaps best the term “the dark night of the soul,” is most associated with John of the Cross . It comes from the poem in which he wrote about “the soul’s happiness in having passed through the dark night of faith, in nakedness, and purgation, to union. For John, a Carmelite Friar, the spiritual life is a continual process of growth or regression. It is never static. Growth in the spiritual life is an integrated development that implies a firm, unrelenting, and enthusiastic search for union with God. It is not a dissipated pursuit of several goals at once
MEDITATION: The words of Psalmist are some of the most well-known is Psalm 42 but also some of the most critical to living the spiritual life. As the deer running through the wood’s longs for water, so his soul is thirsting after God. He has reached the place in his experience where he knows only God can meet his need. He longs to come into a relationship of freshness and revitalizing fellowship that will mean his soul thirst will be quenched. We learn why he so thirsts in the question he asks at the close of Verse 2, “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” In other words, he is experiencing a sense of God’s delay. There is no doubt in his heart but that there is help for him in God. He expects to find it. He knows God has met his need in the past and he expects him to meet it again. But, for some reason, that help is delayed, and this is hard for him to bear
St. John of the Cross has a keen sense of this very reality in his four major writings: The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual Canticle, and The Living Flame of Love. He addressed the yearning for God through sanctification and glorification by reflecting on the need of the purification of the soul, which he maintained allowed us to come to know God as he is in himself and as a result honor him fully. The demanding process of purification, at times active and at others passive, requires our determined effort, but it is God who is the real center; all we can do is dispose ourselves in humility f before the loving work of God and let him restore and refresh the soul.
PRAYER: O Gracious Lord, give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places
and talents in unexpected people; and give, O Lord, the grace to tell them so. Amen. (Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila).
Spiritual Discipline/Activity- Read Chapter I from Dark Night of Soul by St. John of the Cross http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/dark_night.vii.i.html In this chapter, St. John describes the flaws of beginners on the spiritual journey. These descriptions are not given to discourage the beginner but to make them aware of their spiritual imperfections.
ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE: This soul is so near to God that it is transformed in the flames of love, wherein Father, Son and Holy Spirit communicate themselves to it. The effect of the living flames is to make the soul live spiritually in God and experience the life of God. — St. John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love (Stanza 1:#6 and #8
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