Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum

Advent continues to be difficult, but of course God also continues to supply the means necessary to get through it. Yesterday, the 2nd car broke down and won’t run. We now have 2 cars which are not running. When I called my mother to ask if I might borrow her 2nd car for a couple of days, I learned that her 2nd car is also not running. O, the joys of Advent. I think that God uses Advent to trim away my pride, and to curtail my personal power, so that I will become ever more dependent on Him—or at least realize the extent to which I am dependent on Him already. I expect that by the 23rd I will be begging fot Christ to come ever more quickly. Indeed, although we pray for the second coming every time we pray the Our Father, I rarely do it consciously. But this past weekend I found myself actually praying with intensity that God would bring the final judgment and put an end to the world of sin, especially my sin.

We had a great homily at mass yesterday, and then when I got home I prayed the Office of Readings, which contained a reading from a homily by St. Augustine. Both of them spoke of the difference between the voice of John the Baptist, and the Word that both preceded and outlasted him. Both the homilist at Holy Ghost and St. Augustine spoke about how the voice fades away, but the Word is everlasting. St. Augustine went on to talking about his own experience of sharing the Word, and spreading the faith to others. He says:

In my search for a way to let this message reach you, so that the word already in my heart may find place also in yours, I use my voice to speak to you. The sound of my voice brings the meaning of the word to you and then passes away. The word which the sound has brought to you is now in your heart, and yet it is still also in mine.

When the word has been conveyed to you, does not the sound seem to say: The word ought to grow, and I should diminish? The sound of the voice has made itself heard in the service of the word, and has gone away, as though it were saying: My joy is complete. Let us hold on to the word; we must not lose the word conceived inwardly in our hearts.Do you need proof that the voice passes away but the divine Word remains? Where is John’s baptism today? It served its purpose, and it went away. Now it is Christ’s baptism that we celebrate. It is in Christ that we all believe; we hope for salvation in him. This is the message the voice cried out.

So it goes with me and Advent. I must follow John who says “He must increase; I must decrease”

Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum