January 1st - The Eternal Father, The Circumsion of Our Lord and St. Fulgentius

[Elizabeth]

Here is the link for the prayer that is to be said on January 1st: https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=697

The Eternal Father

The entire life of the Father in the Holy Trinity is to speak His Son, His Word; it is to engender, by a unique, simple and eternal act, a Son resembling Himself, to whom He communicates the plenitude of His Being and His perfections. In this Word, infinite like Himself, in this unique and eternal Word, the Father never ceases to recognize His Son, His own image, the splendor of His glory. This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. These words, pronounced on Mount Tabor at the time of the Transfiguration, are the greatest revelation God has made to the earth; they are an echo of the very life of the Father. The Father, in His character of Father, lives by engendering His Son; this generation has neither beginning nor end. In eternity we will behold with astonishment, admiration and love, that procession of the Son engendered in the bosom of the Father, procession which is eternal: Thou art My Son; this day I have engendered Thee. The today is the perpetual present of eternity.

It is an excellent thing in the spiritual life to keep before the eyes of the heart, this testimony of the Father; nothing is more powerful to sustain our faith. And let us then say, Yes, Father, I believe it, and I want to repeat it: this Jesus who is in me through faith, through grace, through Holy Communion, is Your Son. Because You have said it, I believe it. And because I believe it, I adore Your Son, to render Him my homage and through Him, in Him, to render to You also, O Heavenly Father, in union with Your Spirit, all honor and all glory. Such a prayer is very agreeable to our Father in heaven; when it is true, pure and frequent, it makes us the object of the Father's love. God envelops us in the complacency which He finds in His own Son Jesus. It is Our Lord Himself who tells us so: The Father loves you, because you have believed that I have come from Him — that I am His Son. What happiness for a soul to be the object of the Father's love, this Father from whom every perfect gift comes down to rejoice hearts!

The Circumcision of Our Lord

Circumcision was a sacrament of the Old Law, and the first legal observance required of the descendants of Abraham by Almighty God. It was a sacrament of initiation in the service of God, and a promise, an engagement, to believe and act as He had revealed and directed. The law of circumcision continued in force until the death of Christ. Our Saviour having thus been born under the law, it became Him who came to teach mankind obedience to the law of God,to fulfill all justice, and to submit to it. He was circumcised that He might redeem those who were under the law, by freeing them from the servitude of it, and that those who were formerly in the condition of servants might be set at liberty and receive the adoption of sons in Baptism, which, by Christ's institution, succeeded to circumcision. (Cf. Gal. 4:5)

On the day when the divine Infant was circumcised, He received the name of JESUS, which was assigned to Him by the Angel before He was conceived, and which signifies SAVIOUR. That name, so beautiful, so glorious, the divine Child does not wish to bear for one moment without fulfilling its meaning. Even at the moment of His circumcision He showed Himself a SAVIOUR by shedding for us that blood of which a single drop is more than sufficient for the ransom and salvation of the whole world.

Saint Fulgentius
Doctor of the Church, Bishop
(468-533)

Born in Africa of illustrious and Catholic parents, Fulgentius was an excellent student of languages and of various other practical disciplines. His father had died while still young, and Fulgentius soon became the support of his mother and younger brother. He was appointed at an early age procurator of his province at Carthage; but this elevation in the world's esteem was distasteful to him, and he was enlightened by the Spirit of God to see the vanity of the world.

At the age of twenty-two, having read Saint Augustine's treatise on the Psalms, he resolved to embrace monastic life, and began to prepare for it by mental prayer, fasting, and other penances practiced in secret. When he was accepted into a monastery by a holy bishop named Faustus, his mother hoped to change his mind; but when she arrived he remained firm and did not accept to see her. Such are the austerities of the Saints, called to accomplish much for God. He later renounced all his goods on behalf of his mother and younger brother.

After six years of peace, his monastery was attacked by Arian heretics, and Faustus, Fulgentius and the other monks were driven out, destitute, into the desert. Fulgentius entered another monastery on his Superior's advice, and there he shared the duties of the Superior, to the latter's great consolation, until that house was attacked by barbarians. In the refuge to which he then repaired he was persecuted, held captive, and tortured by an Arian priest, but sought no vengeance when authorities offered him support if he would enter a complaint. Fulgentius and his Superior, who was with him, decided to build another monastery in the province they had abandoned.

For a time Fulgentius remained there, but he desired solitude and set out on a journey to the holy places of Rome. There the imperial splendors he beheld spoke to him of the greater glory of the heavenly Jerusalem, his final goal. And at the first lull in the persecution, he returned to his African cell in the year 500.

Elected bishop of Ruspe in 508, he was summoned to face new dangers, and was shortly afterwards banished by the Arian king, with some sixty other Catholic prelates, to Sardinia. Though the youngest of the exiles, he became the spokesman of his brethren and the support of their orphaned flocks. By his books and letters, which are still extant, he confounded both Pelagian and Arian heresiarchs, and strengthened the Catholics in Africa and Gaul. He prayed for all his compatriots in exile: You know, Lord, what is most expedient for the salvation of our souls; assist us in our corporal necessities, that we may not lose the spiritual goods. On the death of the Arian king, the bishops returned to their flocks. Saint Fulgentius was welcomed amid the greatest joy, after eighteen years of exile. He labored with his fellow bishops in the synods as their chosen leader, and re-established discipline. When he felt his end was near, he retired to an island monastery, where after a year's preparation he called for his clergy and religious, and with their aid distributed all his goods to the poor. He died in peace in the year 533.