Epiphany to the Baptism of the Lord, Monastic Office of Vigils,

COMMENT: Sermon in the Chapter House on monastic observance and asceticism.

Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar enter the Crib

 JULIAN OF VEZELAY** (1080 - 1160): ... Julian of Vezelay was a Benedictine monk noted for the sermons he gave in the chapterhouse of his monastery to stimulatemonastic observance and asceticism. ...

FideCogitActio : omnis per gratiam: Wisdom from... [January 14]

veniaminov.blogspot.com/2008/01/wisdom-from-january-14.html‎

After Epiphany to the Baptism of the Lord.

Year II

MONDAY 6^th Jan 2014

First Reading    Isaiah 54:1-17

Responsory   Is 54:8.10; 43:11

With an everlasting love I have had compassion on you, says the Lord your Redeemer. + My mercy will not leave you, and my cove­nant of peace will not be changed.

V. I am the Lord, there is no savior but me, says the Lord. + My mercy will ...

Second Reading

From a sermon by Julian of Vezelay (Sermon 11: SC 192, 80-85)

Imitate the faith of the magi and follow their path

Herod is troubled, the prince of this world is troubled, when they learn that a heaven-appointed king has been born. Herod hides his resentment, however, and pledges his homage. Guided by the star, the magi reach Bethlehem. They enter the house, which they recognize by the pointing star that stands over the place where the child was. They find the child with his mother, but a mother who is a virgin. "His mother": but who is meant by "his"? The one who had neither father nor mother, the one who had both a Father and a mother: where he had a Father, he did not have a mother; where he had a mother; he did not have a father. Here is a marvel for the human beings for whose sake God is born and dies a man!

The magi fell down and worshiped him. Do you do likewise? The magi, experts in divine worship, teach you how you are to worship God. Luke says: They fell down and worshiped him. But that is not how you act: rather, when you enter the house of prayer, the house in which we pray to Jesus, you immediately collapse or sit down, overpowered by your idleness or negligence as by a heavy load; then, carelessly, or even eagerly, you settle yourself not for prayer but for sleep. Not only do you not kneel for prayer, but you yawn and scratch yourself, and you cast your wandering gaze now up, now down. As for the  prayers themselves - if they are to be called prayers - and the psalms, you run through them so quickly that you cut the verses short by half.

Yet Solomon had knelt on both knees when, after the temple had been completed, this unwearying petitioner poured out his lengthy prayer. As for David, even though his knees were weakened through fasting and his flesh was changed because of the oil (oil being the supreme luxury which that temperate king allowed himself!), he says that when he prayed, his soul was humbled to the dust and his belly clung to the earth. He prostrated himself in adoration: Come, he says, let us adore and fall down ... before the Lord.

If it seems to you too difficult to imitate kings, who prayed so devoutly and fervently amid the cares and agitation of the court, then imitate at least the magi, who fell down and worshiped him. That was how the devil had wanted the Lord to worship him, when he said to him, after showing him the glory of the world: All these will I  give you if you will fall down and worship me.

The text goes on to say: Opening their treasures, they offered him gifts. Think of the wonderful faith of the magi: they saw before them an infant wrapped in rags and lying in an unworthy inn that was probably a wretched shack; they saw a mother clothed in the cheap garments of the people, her reputation further blackened because of the work done by her carpenter husband; they saw, finally, the carpenter himself, unkempt from his manual toil and labor as a carpenter, and yet called the father of so mighty a king. The magi saw all this, and yet they did not lose heart nor think that they had journeyed foolishly and in vain; they did not even think to themselves: "Is this poor infant, this child of the people, to become the King of the Jews? Was it for such a child that we have travelled this long road? How shall so poor, humble, and lowly a child rise to royal honours? We regret our toil, we are disgusted with our journey. Let us at least take back with us the gifts we brought."

The magi entertained none of these thoughts. Instead, made certain by the grace given them of the royal and divine majesty of the child, they fell humbly down and adored, and then opened their treasures and joyfully offered gold, frankincense, and myrrh.