TOTUS TUUS, MARIA !
ADVENT MEDITATION
Brief meditation inspired by the Mistress of all souls
Advent: The year is drawing to an end, and immerses the souls in its darkest period. It is not a mere coincidence the Creator should avail Himself of this dark period to kindle also within the souls a more in-depth awareness of their own darkness deep inside. This time extends an invitation to undertake a spiritual journey towards the birth of the true Light, and the soul who has understood where the true sense and purpose and the only destination of this earthly life actually lie, knows that God is now trying to open her up so as to recognize her own inner constitution.
Becoming aware of one’s inner darkness and of the darkness in one’s surroundings should have but one single purpose: The soul should experience the awakening and the growth of the desire to allow her own darkness to consciously and voluntarily merge with the Divine Light. In the holy night of the Birth of Christ the immaculate and most holy Virgin gives birth to the Man-God, the Embodiment of God’s Light, in order for Him to give Himself undividedly to every soul of good will and to become united with the latter. God longs to be one with His creature. The Light 'merges into each shadow', in order that the latter may dissolve completely. Perfect Love aims at reaching its absolute accomplishment in that which is weak and faulty. Oh Divine Mystery, oh unfathomable Love...
This goes to show how much this is a time of invitation to the soul so as to encourage her to perfect the Love within her through persistent, many-sided efforts, so that the Light may truly be born inside of her. It would give God but a very limited joy if the birth of the Light within the soul were based solely upon a gift on His part. The Creator’s joy becomes complete only in those cases where a soul contributes to bringing about this birth 'from inside herself', in a manner of speaking, by her actually helping to turn on the Light of which she is already carrying the root within herself (as a force which is yet to be activated) in her germ of sanctity. Turning on the Light can be done through the soul’s longing for the accomplishment of her vocation as a child of God. Longing for one’s accomplishment as a child of God is the domineering wish for sanctification, for practicing God’s Laws in every single detail of daily life, in every action, in every word, in every thought, in every feeling. The soul that longs for accomplishment opens up completely to the influx of Divine Life which is directed towards her from God’s Heart every single day. She then drinks this 'water of Divine Life' and stores it so eagerly that she is completely filled by it, until... she consists of nothing but this water, so to speak. This soul turns into a lushly flourishing garden, in which even every shadow serves God’s Works and Plans, until it is completely absorbed into the Light.
This is how the soul can turn the Advent into a time of inner transformation, thus making it a time for perfecting her true, unselfish Love, which is the source of true Life, of sanctity, of virtuousness which keeps perfecting itself infinitely. True Love is the magnet which is to draw the soul towards the Light from which she has sprung and in which her actual destination lies.
As soon as the soul longs for the Light she becomes more than ever before aware of her own darkness. The celestial origin of her inspirations and the true openness to an unrestricted surrender to celestial guidance during her journey towards the Light becomes clear as soon as the soul is clearly not throttled by the awareness of her own imperfection, her own shadows and dark spots, but is rather woken up and stimulated by this awareness to outgrow herself. Step by step (sometimes quite suddenly) she notices her own deviation from the course Divine Providence had originally set for her with a view to accomplishing her mission in life.
This is how the journey through the Advent towards the Light of Christ’s Birth turns into an expedition through the landscape of one’s own soul. To the extent to which the soul’s will to change into a real child of God dominates her entire life and all of her inner constitutions the soul will henceforth be driven by the will to break her own darkness and to curb the effects thereof within herself and around her.
The darkness is not able to turn into Light all by itself. To achieve this it will need God’s Light to shine into it, in order that it may be able to be absorbed by this Light. That which the soul truly and sincerely longs for, she can bring about. This ability is alive within the soul as a Divine legacy bestowed upon her before the original sin was committed. This legacy was never taken away from the soul, it has merely gotten buried by the mud of sin and the dust of worldly influences hostile to God. In order for the soul to be able to actually drink God’s Light up and to gradually merge into it, it is necessary that the soul should be dominated by a perfect openness and receptiveness to God’s gifts and a longing to be opened up, just like a soil which, when winter is drawing to an end, longs for the sun of spring and the soft rains of grace, so that Divine Intelligence may be able to accomplish the soil’s fruitfulness.
Light is Truth, Wisdom, fullness of reality without the defiling addition of any deception or temptation. Light is the promise of the accomplishment of true Life, the accomplishment of sanctification as the eventual destination of the journey through life. Light is the blooming of the Eternal Spring. Light is the victory over darkness and its disastrous, miserable effects upon everything which, within the soul, by nature longs for the presence of Eternal Love and of bliss. Light is first and foremost the desire to meticulously accomplish God’s Will. It is this desire which turns the soul into a 'soul of good will'. Christ is going to sow all of this into the soul’s soil by His coming in the holy night of the Birth of Redemption. It is dark yet, but should the soul not travel through the depth of night before actually being able to assess the true value of the light at daybreak? Is there any place where God’s Presence would be felt more clearly than wherever the breath of the Holy Spirit takes the place of the suffocating atmosphere of the air filling the dungeon of our inner darkness?
In the first half of the journey towards the Birth of the Light in the grotto of our soul the Creator reminds us of the Immaculate Conception of His perfectly holy royal Daughter, in whom He lets the omnipotence of the Light over darkness radiate in its fullness. This omnipotence derives its radiance first and foremost from the fact God concentrates this power in His Masterpiece, the Immaculate Virgin, a created soul. In the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception the Most High demonstrates that, if given the opportunity to deploy the fullness of His power, even a creature can be filled completely with the purest Light without any shadows, and that in such a creature not even the slightest trace of darkness will be able to take root. After all, this creature is driven by the domineering will to stay united with the Light and to deny the darkness all nourishment.
The Immaculate Conception was the unavoidable condition for Mary to become the Mother of the Redeemer, but it is also a clear-cut invitation from God to the souls to allow their darkness to be embraced by this created Embodiment of His Light in this wonderful Divine Mystery we know by the name of 'total consecration to Mary'. Darkness which is delivered to the Light will dissolve in this Light. The soul who shares her darkness with the Immaculate Conception voluntarily and with a sincere desire to be transformed, can be gradually freed from her darkness.
Just like, in this time of the year, nature longs for rest and quiet, each soul is under the obligation to retreat into the quiet atmosphere of the heart in silent contemplation, for God will only make Himself felt in a heart in which He is able to find something of the Peace of Heaven itself. The essential thing here is the soul’s will to create a peaceful atmosphere inside, i.e. an atmosphere exempt from inner storms. Through any tendency of the soul towards boisterous contacts with her surroundings she shifts the very core of her perceptions outward, thus drifting away from the place where God, the Light, Love, is waiting for her.
In the Advent, the cradle for the Birth of Christ, the Light, is prepared within the soul. The Infant Jesus will be born where the Mother is at home, and He will grow up and live where He will be allowed to work His Wonders freely. These conditions will be satisfied especially in the soul in whom Mary is cherished and enthroned, and in whom all human features are voluntarily sacrificed to be transformed and are put unrestrictedly at the service of God’s Plans and Works. No field yields a more lavish harvest than the field in which the Heavenly seed enters into a wedding with the longing to be fruitful for Eternal Life.
Myriam, December 2012