Day 22 (Dec 18) O Adonai & The General Judgment (Advent Meditations)

O Adonai

The Lord, O Adonai, sits upon a throne ready for the Apocalypse of the General Judgement

“O’ Lord, and Leader of the house of Israel, Who didst appear to Moses in a flame of fire in the bush, and didst give to him the law on Mount Sinai, come to redeem us with Thy stretched out arm.” 

1.  The Saviour for Whom we look is also Our Lord (Adonai), the Leader and Chief to whom we have sworn fealty.  We speak of Him continually under the familiar name of Our Lord, and each time we do so we reassert our acknowledgment of the obligation to follow where He leads, and to be subject to Him in all things.  O happy followers of such a Leader!  If we tread in His footsteps, and obey His voice, He will set our feet in green pastures, and lead us to the fountains of the water of life. 

2.  The flame of fire in the burning bush was a figure of Jesus in Mary’s sacred womb.  Holy indeed was the place where God was present, and whence He promised to His people their deliverance from Egypt.  So He still speaks as if concealed in Mary’s womb, and reminds us that He has made her holy with a holiness second only to His own; and when we draw nigh to her we hear His voice announcing to us that He has heard our prayers offered through her, and will come to deliver us from our enemies. 

3.  What shall be our prayer to Him when He inspires us to make our request with boldness at the throne of grace?
Come to redeem us with Thy stretched-out arm.
Come to deliver us from the effects of our past sins.
Come to deliver us from the attachment to some sin that still lurks within us.
Come to deliver us from all our countless negligences and imperfections. 

Come with Thine arm stretched out to ward us from the foe, O Lord and Lover of our souls!

 

The General Judgment

Behold He cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him. (Apoc. i. 7.) 

1.  At the General Judgment Christ as man will be the Judge of men, because He is at once God and man.  He will therefore have not only the most intimate knowledge of all our lives, but a sympathy with us, an understanding of our nature from experience, that will give Him in the natural order the highest qualifications for being our Judge. 

2.  On that day what a complete reverse there will be of all the world’s unjust verdicts!  How many, now ridiculed, despised, condemned, will then be glorious and honored before men and angels!  What will my sentiments be on that day when the thoughts of all hearts will be revealed?  

3.  On the right of the Judge will be the sheep, on the left, the goats; the one overflowing with celestial delights, the other already filled with the despair of hell.  What will distinguish between them?  Simply this, whether they have shown charity to others for Christ’s sake.  This and nothing else will be the test — “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of My least brethren you have done it to Me.”  How shall I stand this test?  

Ask God to teach you how to secure a place on the right hand of the Judge.

 


This article, Day 22 (Dec 18) O Adonai & The General Judgment (Advent Meditations) is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/devotional/the-catholic-daily/advent-short-meditations-and-the-great-truths/day-22-dec-18-o-adonai-the-general-judgment-advent-meditations/
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