Author Archives: monks4christ

Advent Hymns

O come o come Emmanuel click here

O come, O come, Emmanuel!
Redeem thy captive Israel
That into exile drear is gone,
Far from the face of God’s dear Son.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Branch of Jesse! draw
The quarry from the lion’s claw;
From the dread caverns of the grave,
From nether hell, thy people save.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, thou Dayspring bright!
Pour on our souls thy healing light;
Dispel the long night’s lingering gloom,
And pierce the shadows of the tomb.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O Come, thou Lord of David’s Key!
The royal door fling wide and free;
Safeguard for us the heavenward road,
And bar the way to death’s abode.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Adonai,
Who in thy glorious majesty
From that high mountain clothed in awe,
Gavest thy folk the elder Law.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

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Second Week of Advent

O Judah and Jerusalem

‘O Judah and Jerusalem fear not.’ We are addressing true Jews, Jews not in letter but in spirit, Abraham’s offspring, whose promised increase we see realized ( Gal3:29 ).

Fear not true confessors, you who confess the Lord not only with your mouths but just as much with all and every part of you! True confession is when all your works are God’s works and confess him. Let them however confess with a twofold confession, so that you are clothed with double garments – that is with confession of your sins and confession of divine praise. Then will you be true Jews, if your whole life confesses that you are sinners deserving of far greater punishments but that God is supremely good and exchanges the eternal punishments you have deserved for these light and transitory ones.

As for you be true Jews; be the true Jerusalem so that you may no longer fear anything. Jerusalem is the vision of peace – vision, not possession – to whose borders – the Lord has brought peace. If therefore you do not have peace – or indeed because in this world you cannot have perfect peace – at least look at it, ponder it, consider it and long for it. Let the eyes of your heart ( Eph1:18 ) be turned toward it and your intention be turned toward peace so that everything you do you do out of longing for this peace which surpasses all understanding, that being reconciled you may have peace with God.

And so Judah and Jerusalem, fear not if you cannot yet attain the perfection you are longing for. Let your humbleness of your confession supply what the imperfection of your way of life lacks. God’s eyes have beheld your imperfect being. On that account has he commanded his commandments to be kept absolutely so that when we see our imperfect being failing and unable to fulfill its obligation we may flee toward mercy and say ‘because your mercy is better than life’.

Then we who cannot appear in the garments of innocence or righteousness can appear garbed in confession. Confession and beauty are in the Lord’s sight , provided that they come not from the mouth alone but from the whole person so that all our bones may ask, ‘Lord who is like you’ and ask it with a gaze fixed on peace along and with a longing for reconciliation with God. To such persons is said O Judah and Jerusalem, fear not; tomorrow you shall go forth.

St Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot
the Advent Sermons

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Venerable Fulton Sheen

“To every Christian…there comes the supreme moment when he must choose between temporal pleasure and eternal freedom. In order to save our souls, we must often run the risk of losing our bodies.”

“To do God’s Will until death, that is the inner heart of all holiness.”

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Advent Hymns

Advent Hymns
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Comfort, comfort, O my people,
Speak of peace, now says our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning ’neath their sorrows’ load.

Speak unto Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them;
Tell of all the sins I cover,
And that warfare now is over.

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Joy is the echo of God’s life within us

Christ, Light of the Soul

by Blessed Columba Marmiam

on Prayer

It is not merely as creatures, that we speak to God, but as Children with our Heavenly Father; coming before Him to adore and praise Him, to tell Him of our love, to learn to know His will and to attain from Him the necessary help to accomplish His will…

Prayer only really begins at the moment when the will, set on fire with love, enters supernaturally into contact with Divine Good, yielding itself lovingly to God in order to please Him and fulfill His precepts and desires.

“These remain, faith, hope and love
and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor. 13:13

Faith gives place to the vision of God,
Hope vanishes in the possession of God,
Love remains and unites us to God…
Grace here below, glory above!

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First Week of Advent

In the lord’s advent which we are celebrating, If i fix my gaze on the person of the one who is coming, i will fail to grasp the wonderousness of his majesty. If i fix my attention on those to whom he comes, i am overwhelmed by the magnitude of his condescension. Surely the angels are astonished by the strange situation – seeing below themselves the One whom above them they ever adore and now manifestly both ascending and descending to the Son of Man. (John 1:51)

Once a year the universal Church celebrates a solemn remembrance of the coming of such majesty, such humility, such godly love and indeed such a glorification of ourselves. Would that this be done always as it is done this once ! How much more fitting that would be. What madness for people to desire or to dare to occupy themselves with any other business after the coming of so great a King ! should they not leave all else aside and free themselves entirely for worshiping him, and in his presence be mindful of nothing else ?

Virtues not possessions are the true riches. These conscience carries with itself that it may be rich forever. When our Savior comes, he will transform the body of our humiliation, conforming it to the body of his glory only if our heart has first been transformed and conformed to the humiliation of his heart. That is why he told us, Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart. Consider well these words for humility is twofold: one of thinking the other of feeling – here called the heart. By the former we realize that we are nothing and this we learn from ourselves and from our weakness. By the later we spurn worldly glory and this we learn from Him who emptied himself taking the form of a servant. When they sought him for a kingdom he fled. When they sought him for the great test and shameful suffering of the cross, he willingly offered himself.

All our virtue is far from true virtue as it is from the appearance and all our wings are good for nothing if they are not covered with silver. Great is the wing of poverty by which we fly so swiftly to the kingdom of heaven ! But in the case of the virtues that follow the use of the future tense indicates a promise; poverty is not promised as given ( Mat 5:3 ) . So we are told in the present tense that theirs is the kingdom of heaven while in other cases they will inherit, they shall be comforted and so on.

Let us cover our wings with silver then, in our way of life in Christ just as the holy martyrs washed their robes in his passion. As much as we can, let us imitate him who so loved poverty that although the ends of the earth were in his hand, he had yet no place to lay his head.

From the Sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot

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