Thought for the Day – 25 December – Meditations with Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900)
Meditations for Advent
From “The Devout Year”
By Fr Richard Frederick Clarke SJ (1839-1900)
“O Oriens”
“O Orient, Splendour of Eternal Light and Sun of Justice;
Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death.”
- The night of pagan times was long and dark and seemed hopeless. Deeper and deeper the nations were sinking in misery and vice. But at length the Orient, the brightness of the Eternal Light of Heaven, rose and scattered the darkness , changing the gloom into a brilliant day.
So too for those who have been long shrouded in the dense gloom of sin or sorrow, there waits the same Divine Light, ready to scatter their darkness in a moment, if only they will draw nigh to Him.
He waits for me, ready to brighten my path, to scatter my sins and sorrows, if I will avail myself of His Love.
+2. That rising Light is the Sun of Justice, Who shall exercise His Justice in delivering the captive and in recompensing His friends a hundred, nay, a thousandfold, for every little service done for Him. For His Justice is virtually identical with His Mercy and rejoices to employ itself in works of pity and of love.
+3. Come then, O Orient, O Sun of Justice; shine upon those who sit in darkness, upon those who are enveloped in the thick mists of heathendom and heresy. Come and enlighten their
ignorance that they may not perish Come and deliver them from the shadow of death, for they cannot deliver themselves. Pour upon them such a flood of Light and Grace, as may guide their feet into the way of peace.
AnaStpaul 