Category: Lent

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Spiritual Reading for the Fourth Sunday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

Octavius Augustus, the Emperor of Rome, wishing to know the strength of his empire, decreed that there be a general numbering of all his subjects; and for this purpose he ordered the governors of all the provinces — and, among the rest, Cyrinus, governor of Judea — to make every one come to enroll himself, and at the same time pay a certain tribute as a sign of vassalage: There went out a decree … that the whole world should be enrolled (Luke ii. 1).

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Morning Meditation for the Fourth Sunday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

The Saviour of the world, Whom, according to the Prophet Isaias, men were to see one day on the earth — and all flesh shall see the salvation of God — has come. And He came on earth, says St. Augustine, that men might know how much God loves them. And how is it, O my dear Jesus, that Thou dost meet with so much ingratitude from the greater number of men?

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Evening Meditations for the Third Saturday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

Consider the painful life that Jesus led in the womb of His Mother, and the long, close and dark imprisonment that He suffered there for nine months. Other infants are, indeed, in the same state, but they do not feel the miseries of it because they do not know them. But Jesus knew them well, because from the first moment of His life He had the perfect use of His reason, He had His senses, but He could not use them; eyes, but He could not see; a tongue, but He could not speak; hands, but He could not stretch them out; feet, but He could not walk — so that for nine months He had to remain in the womb of Mary like a dead man shut up in the tomb: I am become as a man without help, free among the dead (Ps. lxxxvii. 5, 6).

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Spiritual Reading for the Third Saturday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

My beloved reader and brother in Mary: Since the devotion that led me to write, and moves you to read what I write, makes us happy children of the same good Mother, should you hear it remarked that I might have spared myself the labour, as there are already so many celebrated and learned books on the same subject, I beg that you will reply that “the praise of Mary is an inexhaustible fount.

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Morning Meditation for the Third Saturday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

The divine Mother loves all men. How much, then, does not this great Queen love Religious who have consecrated their liberty, their life, and their all to the love of Jesus Christ, her Son? My happiness on this earth, O Mary, shall be to serve, bless and to love thee.

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Evening Meditations for the Third Friday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

The divine Word, from the first instant that He was made Man and an Infant in Mary’s womb, offered Himself of His own accord to suffer and to die for the ransom of the world: He was offered because it was his own will (Is. liii. 7). He knew that all the sacrifices of goats and bulls offered to God in times past had not been able to satisfy for the sins of men, but that it required a divine Person to pay the price of their redemption; wherefore He said, as the Apostle tells us: When he cometh into the world he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast fitted to me … Then said I: Behold, I come (Heb. x. 5).

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Spiritual Reading for the Third Friday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

Finally, let him who wishes to enter Religion resolve to become a Saint, and to suffer every exterior and interior pain in order to be faithful to God, and not to lose his Vocation. And if he be not thus resolved, I exhort him not to deceive the Superiors and himself, and not to enter at all, for this is a sign that he is not called, or, which is a still greater evil, that he has not the will to correspond as he ought, with the grace of his Vocation. Hence, with so bad a disposition, it is better to remain in the world, there to dispose himself better, so as to give himself entirely to God, and to suffer all for Him.

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Morning Meditation for the Third Friday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

In order to understand the love the Son of God has borne us it is enough to consider what St. Paul says of Jesus Christ: He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant … he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. O my Jesus, only too much, indeed, hast Thou obliged me to love Thee.

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Evening Meditations for the Third Thursday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

Consider how, after so many centuries, after so many prayers and sighs, the Messias Whom the holy Patriarchs and Prophets were not worthy to see, for Whom the nations sighed, the desire of the eternal hills, our Saviour, is come! He is already born and has given Himself entirely to us. A child is born to us, and a son is given to us (Is. ix. 6).

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Spiritual Reading for the Third Thursday in Advent ~ St Alphonsus Liguori

When, then, a person has actually entered Religion, however genuine his Vocation may be, and though he may have conquered all his passions and his earthly affections, let him not imagine that he will be exempt from other temptations and trials, which God Himself will send him, such as tediousness, darkness, various fears, in order to establish him more firmly in his Vocation. We must remember that even the Saints, who loved their Vocation most, have sometimes suffered great darkness with regard to it, and that it seemed to them that they were deceived, and would not be able to save themselves in that state.