Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
November 30, 2016
Today’s Thought from Scripture: Isaiah 25:6-8
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken.
Today’s first reading reminds us that as Catholics, we are a people of fasting and feasting. “The lees well refined” is a reference to anticipated feasting, to the sediment (or “dregs”) that settled to the bottom of a wine bottle that had been left undisturbed for a long time, while “drinking the lees” connotes the endurance of suffering (fasting). It also hints at a particular spiritual temptation that faces those of us who have been blessed with an overabundance of resources (spiritual or material): taking our abundance for granted, or growing indifferent to the needs of others.
In today’s meditation in Advent with St. Teresa of Calcutta, we witness how Mother Teresa ushered those who had experienced even extreme deprivation into the presence of God. Is there someone whose suffering you can alleviate today?
Blessed Trinity,
Draw me ever closer into your union of love,
Where the blessed of all the ages worship you with perfect joy.
Help me to experience a foretaste of that joy today,
That I might share it with others.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!
To read the full readings for today, click here.
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