Vigils Reading

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Vigils Reading

December 22, 2022

Sermon 87 on the Advent of the Lord

by Aelred of Rievaulx

Let us live soberly and piously <and justly> in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God. Christ our Savior, whose advent we celebrate and whose approaching birth we await, is a lover and rewarder of virtue.

For our sake he came from the Father’s bosom into the Virgin’s womb, and he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. So let us also be humbled under his mighty hand so that he may exalt us in the time of visitation…All virtues are necessary for us to imitate the Savior, but especially these three: sobriety, piety, and justice. Sobriety is assigned to us, piety to God, justice to a neighbor.

Let us live soberly so that we turn aside neither to the right nor to the left,

because sobriety holds the middle place, and <in> the middle you may walk most safely. Let us live soberly lest we be broken by adversity or puffed up by prosperity. <Let us live> soberly lest we hope excessively or succumb to fear.

Stupid people who love their own flesh are not uncommon. Such people are made more bold in committing sin as they contrive hope for themselves by considering God’s multitudinous mercies… Just as he rewards the chosen through mercy, so through justice he punishes the condemned…Just aspresumption is dangerous, so despair is similarly dangerous, born from a heap of sin and indiscriminate fear.

It often happens that people when considering their sins and crimes abhor their own lives in <examining> their evils, unwisely fearing God’s wrath, judging themselves unworthy of his mercy, and despairing their own lives, doing what is inappropriate, and even desiring, if it were possible, to be hidden from God’s face… Therefore, let us live soberly, so that we not be enveloped in danger by either of these extremes.

We are also ordered to live piously in this world so that we honor God with our whole life, so that we fear and love him above all. For God, who has made all things, must be loved with our whole <soul>, whole strength, and all our powers. Worship of God is the supreme piety, for fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…Let us live piously, so that having compassion for one another, we bear one another’s burdens, and thus let us fulfill the law of Christ.

Let us live justly so that we give back to all what is <their own>, according to the Lord’s precept: To Caesar, things that <are> Caesar’s, and to God, things that are God’s. We owe body and soul to God because he has created both, he has redeemed both, he will glorify both. In the faith and love of Christ, we owe love and consideration to our neighbors. Therefore one loves justly who loves God according to his own power and does nothing to his neighbor that he would hate to have done to himself.

So let us live soberly <and justly and lovingly> in this world, looking for the blessed hope of eternal blessedness that we will receive on the Day of Judgment, when our Judge and Redeemer says to us, Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

5 Aelred of Rievaulx. The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, 1 of 2, Sermons 85-133. CF81. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2021. 15-19.

 

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December 22, 2022
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