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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241206
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DTSTAMP:20260525T190008
CREATED:20241201T212009Z
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UID:12885-1733443200-1733529599@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:THE SUMMIT OF WAITING \nBy André Rétif \n◊◊◊ \nJohn’s stay in the desert was simply a burning expectation of the Savior. \nAll the aspirations of the prophets and the just in Israel and the extremely \nfervent desire of the remnant of the holy people found in him their concentrated \nand almost explosive expression. Christ was certainly present to John in his \nsolitude. And so\, when he saw Him with his eyes\, his body did not quake. His \nfaith was so lively and enlightened that he thought his eyes of flesh had seen \nHim previously. \n“A happy life\,” says St. John Chrysostom\, “is to leave humans\, seek the \ncompany of angels\, flee the cities and find Christ in solitude.” Can better words \nbe found to express at once both the focal point of his expectation and its \nrealization? To find Christ in renouncing and abandoning all. This chaste man \nof faith had been the first to light his lamp and was like a person waiting. He was \ngoing to be the first to hear the shout in the night: “Behold\, the Bridegroom \ncomes!” This friend of the Bridegroom who gives his heart free rein\, is the first \nto leap with celestial joy when his Beloved approaches. He was\, it has been said\, \nstarving\, but only for the One who was to come. Hence\, he continues to be the \nmodel of every Christian and every missionary\, whom each dawn and each \nsunset should find awaiting the return of the Son of Man anxiously\, but without \nagitation\, joining in that expectation of the last things\, which we know throbbed \nin the hearts of the early Christians. \nTo John the outline of the Messiah\, which became clearer as he prayed \nand meditated on the sacred passages\, was exceptionally real\, tangible and \nelectrifying\, and the whole world\, contained in the Baptist’s soul\, was sighing for \nHis presence far more ardently than the stag after living water. \nWe must not think that\, because John the Baptist fled from the world\, he \nwas insensible to the ardent longings of his times. Just as a landscape has to be \nviewed from high above in order that one may appreciate its vast expanse\, John \nhad to leave the world to understand it and discover its immense distress; for\, \nwhen viewed in God\, things become extraordinarily clear and well defined. \nJohn\, preceding his captain\, the Messiah\, was the first to test his strength with \nthe devil and sense that the fate of a great number of souls depended on the \noutcome of the conflict. John was the first to take upon himself responsibility \nfor the crowds whom he reached through the light of God without knowing \nthem\, and to pronounce the cry of pity for the sheep without a shepherd. Was he \nnot already the shepherd of that immense flock that was to be led back to the \nfold of God? Was he not an invisible and unknown shepherd who would be \nimprisoned and decapitated in going to find his sheep? \nJohn the Baptist is like all true contemplatives\, monks and saints in being \neminently of his own times\, which\, however\, he surpasses no matter what angle \nwe view him from. Together with Mary\, whose expectation preceded his own \nand was superior to it\, he is the summit of the waiting for the Messiah\, and he \nresembles those peaks on which the sun is already shedding its faint red rays \nwhen everywhere else night still reigns. If we are really to be men of our own \ntimes\, do we not have to free ourselves from them in order to discover through \nGod the whole of their inner meaning?
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-238/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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