Lesson at Matins – Isaias xli. 8‒16
But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend; in whom I have taken you from the ends of the Earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called you and said to you: You are my servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away. Fear not, for I am with you: turn not aside, for I am your God: I have strengthened you and have helped you, and the right hand of my Just One has upheld you. Behold all that fight against you will be confounded and ashamed: they will be as nothing, and the men will perish that strive against you. You will seek them and will not find the men that resist you: they will be as nothing and as a thing consumed the men that war against you: for I am the Lord your God who takes you by the hand and says to you: Fear not, I have helped you. Fear not, you worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I have made you as a new thrashing wain with teeth like a saw: you will thrash the mountains and break them in pieces: and will make the hills as chaff. You will fan them, and the wind will carry them away, and the whirlwind will scatter them: and you will rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel you will be joyful.
Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
It is thus that you raise us up from our abject lowliness, O Eternal Son of the Father! It is thus that you console us under the fear we so justly feel by reason of our sins. You say to us: “Israel, my servant I Jacob, whom I have chosen! seed of Abraham in whom I have called you from the remote parts of the Earth! Fear not, for I am with you.” But, O divine Word, how low you have had to come that you might be thus with us! We could never have come to you, for between us and you there was fixed an immense chaos. Nay, we had not so much as the desire to see you, so dull of heart had sin made us. And had we desired it, our eyes could never have borne the splendour of your majesty. Then it was that you descended to us in person, yet so that our weakness could look fixedly upon you, because veiled under the cloud of your humanity. “Who could doubt,” says Saint Bernard, “of there being some great cause pending, seeing that so great a Majesty deigned to come down, from so far off, into so unworthy a place! O yes, there is some great thing at stake, for the mercy is great and the commiseration is extreme, and the charity is abundant. And why, think you, did He come? He came from the mountain to seek the hundredth sheep that was lost. O wonderful condescension, a God seeking! O wonderful worth of man, that he should be sought by God! If man should therefore boast, he is surely not unwise, for he boasts not for anything that he sees in himself as of himself, but for His very Maker making such account of him. All the riches and all the glory of the world, and all that men covet in it, all is less than this glory, nay, is nothing, when compared to it. What is man, Lord, that you should magnify him? Or why do you set your Heart upon him?”
Delay not, then, Good Shepherd! Show yourself to your sheep. You know them. Not only have you seen them from Heaven, you also look on them with love from the womb of Mary where you still are concealed. They also wish to know you. They are impatient to behold your divine features, to hear your voice, and to follow you to the pastures you have promised them.
