Isaias 40:1

Then I said, “Isaiah thus foretold John’s forerunning: ‘And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which He spake: Let there be peace and righteousness in my days.’ And, ‘Encourage the people; ye priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and encourage her, because her humiliation is accomplished. Her sin is annulled; for she has received of the Lord’s hand double for her sins. A voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the ways of the Lord; make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough way shall be plain ways; and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God: for the Lord hath spoken it. …

Blessed art thou, all-blessed, and to be desired of all. Blessed of the Lord is thy name, full of divine grace, and grateful exceedingly to God, mother of God, thou that givest light to the faithful. Thou art the circumscription, so to speak, of Him who cannot be circumscribed; the root of the most beautiful flower; the mother of the Creator; the nurse of the Nourisher; the circumference of Him who embraces all things; the upholder of Him who upholds all things by His word; the gate through which God appears in the flesh; the tongs of that cleansing coal; the bosom in small of that bosom which is all-containing; the fleece of wool, the mystery of which cannot be solved; the well of Bethlehem, that reservoir of life which David longed for, out of which the draught of immortality gushed forth; the mercy-seat from which God in human form was made known unto men; the spotless robe of Him who …

1. We rejoice at your numbers, for you have come together with readiness and in greater numbers than we could have hoped. This it is that delights and consoles us in all the labors and dangers of this life, your love towards God, and pious zeal, and assured hope, and fervor of spirit. You heard when the psalm was read, “that the needy and poor man cries to God in this world.” For it is the voice, as you have often heard, and ought to remember, not of one man, and yet of one man; not of one, because the faithful are many, many grains groaning amid the chaff diffused throughout the whole world, but of one, because all are members of Christ, and thus one body. This people, then, poor and needy, does not know to rejoice with the world: its grief is within, and its joy is within, where no one sees but He who listens to him who groans, and crowns him who hopes. …

6. Paul also demonstrated this: for when he was reproaching the Corinthians with a certain sin he said, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you.” Therefore also Christ first removes the cause of the evil, and having said “Son! be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” He uplifts the spirit and rouses the downcast soul: for the speech became an efficient cause and having entered into the conscience it laid hold of the soul itself and cast out of it all distress. For nothing creates pleasure and affords confidence so much as freedom from self-reproach. For where remission of sins is there is sonship. Even so at least we are not able to call God Father until we have washed away our sins in the pool of the sacred water. …

And if even this advice is now of no use to him since he has run his course, yet at least let those of the rich who labor under the same disease, and follow him to the tomb, hear it. For although beforehand through the intoxication of wealth, they have no such thing in mind, yet at that season when the sight of him that is laid out even confirms what is said, let them be sober, let them be instructed: reflecting that yet a little while and they will come that shall bear them away to that fearful account, and to suffer the penalty of their acts of rapacity and extortion. ‘And what is this to the poor?’ saith one. Why, to many this also is a satisfaction, to see him that hath wronged them punished. …