Lesson at Matins – Isaias ii. 1‒3
The word that Isaias the son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be prepared on the top of mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills: and all nations will flow to it. And many people will go, and say: “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us his ways: and we will walk in his paths, for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
How the Church loves to hear and say these grand words of the Prophet: “Come let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord!” She repeats them in the Lauds of every Feria in Advent, and her children bless the Lord who, that we might have no difficulty in finding Him, has made Himself like a high mountain. High, indeed, yet can we all ascend it. It is true that at first this mountain is, as we learn from another Prophet, a small stone which is scarce perceptible, and this to show the humility of the Messiah at His birth. But it soon becomes great, and all people see it and are invited to dwell on its fertile slopes, yes, to go up to its very summit, bright with the rays of the Sun of Justice. It is thus, Jesus, that you call us all, and that you approach towards all, and the greatness and sublimity of thy mysteries are put within the reach of our littleness. We desire to join, without delay, that happy multitude of people which is journeying on towards you. We are already with them. We are resolved to fix our tent under your shadow, O Mountain ever blessed! There shelter us, and let us be out of reach of the noise of the world beneath us. Suffer us to go so far up that we may lose all sight of that same world’s vanities. May we never forget those paths which lead even to the blissful summit where the mountain, the figure, disappears, and the soul finds herself face to face with Him whose vision eternally keeps the Angels in rapture, and whose delight is to be with the children of men! (Proverbs viii. 31).
