Monday in Advent 4: No comforting ointment without the fire of reproof

Opening Sentence

Watch, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. Mark 13:35, 36

Collect of the Day

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Psalter: Psalm 61, 62

Lessons: Zephaniah 3:14-20, Titus 1, Luke 1:1-25

One who remains uncorrected, and who does not correct others, becomes like a limb which putrefies, and corrupts the whole body. It is like an inept physician who, when a limb had already begun to be corrupted, placed ointment immediately upon it, without having first burnt the wound. So it is with the pastor or any other person having received the duty of care of souls, on seeing someone putrefying from the corruption of mortal sin. If one applies to him the ointment of soft words of encouragement alone, without reproof, one would never cure him. The putrefacation would rather spread to the other members, who, with him, form one body under the same pastor. But if he were a good physician who cares about those souls, as were those glorious pastors of old, he would not give comforting ointment without the fire of reproof. . . . Many do not act this way today, but rather when they see evil, they pretend not to see.

Catherine of Sienna

A Treatise on Prayer

Emmanuel