Meditation for June 24, Prepare the Way of the Lord

Of St. John the Baptist it is written that his mission was to prepare the way for the coming of the Savior.

Is this not our role as religious - not only because we are teach­ers, nurses or souls charged with apostolic works of various kinds - but simply as religious, by the very fact of our being religious?

In reality what are monasteries and convents in the mind of the Church? Are they just groups of holy souls who by their virtue will increase the treasury of the communion of saints and obtain a progressive increase for the Kingdom of God? St. Theresa, who gave her daughters the mission of praying for priests, understood their meaning well. For what else could they exist than to pre­pare the way of the Lord.

Aside from the particular vocation to the individual Institute, the religious vocation makes of a consecrated soul an important wheel in the salvation of the world. On my greater or lesser degree of virtue depends the greater or lesser growth of the King­dom of God in the world. That is true of every ordinary Christian soul. With a much stronger application is it true of a soul to whom God has given so much and of whom the Church has a right to expect so much.

Am I sufficiently impressed by the realization that upon my sanctification or non-sanctification depends my effectiveness as a herald to prepare the way of the Lord?

"St. John the Baptist, Precursor of Christ and martyr for His love, obtain for me the grace to know how to announce the Savior as you did, and to protect both in myself and my neighbor the integrity of His divine demands."

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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)