Study to love

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew
🇧🇷MT 11.28-30)

At that point, Jesus took the word and said, “Come to me, all you who are weary of your burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Today we celebrate the memory of Saint Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Everyone knows St. Ambrose’s performance in the famous conversion of St. Augustine; But it is important for us to look at the rest of the life of this great saint whom the Church did not hesitate to place among her doctors.

Saint Ambrose belonged to a very Christian family. He had two brothers who were also canonized: Santa Marcelina, the consecrated virgin, and São Sadiro, who was a layman but who also achieved the honor of altars. Coming from such a holy family, Ambrose remained a catechumen at the age of thirty-five.

He was the governor of a part of the Roman Empire. The election of a new bishop was underway in Milan. But there was a great deal of controversy in that election, for Aryan sectarianism still had some strength in the region. There was an Arian candidate and a Catholic candidate.

People began to fight over the election of a new bishop. Ambrose, in his grace, arrives there to restore peace and order, and after reconciling the parties with great grace, a child’s voice is heard from the midst of the crowd: “Ambrose, bishop!” A catechumen.

It was then that all the people saw a word from heaven in the child’s voice. Ambrose, because he was a catechumen, received the dispensations, was baptized, received minor orders, the priesthood, and finally the episcopate. It was December 7, the day he was blessed to the episcopate.

This thirty-five-year-old man, who had never attended a seminary and had studied only in the liberal arts and law, was now in charge of confirming the faith of the brethren. It was then that he set a great example for all of us who should follow him. He was a great scholar, not only a student of the faith, a reader and seeker of encyclopedic knowledge, but also a meditator and meditator when he encountered Christ, the living and incarnate Word of God.

It is important to point this out. In one of the famous passages Confessions, St. Augustine finds St. Ambrose sitting at table, reading and meditating. When you see him, he has that attitude, that intent, that reality of a man who not only studies, but meets the truth, the truth that he is a living being, Jesus is the truth.

So we must know how to meet Jesus in our meditations and prayers. The season of Advent is a time to seek this presence of Christ, which is literally in His Word.

As we meditate in prayer, as we open ourselves to the act of grace, this word enlightens us; After it enlightens us, it warms us; After it embraces us, we see the living person we want to unite with and love.

Saint Ambrose, the great doctor of the Church, knew that by searching for the truth of God’s word, he found the true Christ, the true God, and the true man, and overcame the Arian heresy as defined by the Council of Nicaea. As we prepare for Christmas, we are preparing for this mystery – God becomes man, he comes among us, and comes to enlighten our hearts and see us in our daily lives.