‘The antiphon speaks of the Son as having already effected the gathering (“of the mighty arch of man” would read, in a literal translation, “who make the two one,” an allusion to Ephesians 2.14). The Church begs him to come and save man, whom God has fashioned in his own image but whose features sin has distorted. We await the return of Christ, who is the Keystone, or, in a somewhat different image, the Cornerstone upon which the Church, as the definitive ingathering of mankind, is built’. 

from The Liturgical Year, 1977, by Adrien Nocent OSB, 1913-1996

​‘Not sacred history but nature inspires today’s “O” antiphon. The sun as a symbol of Christ is one of the finest figures in Sacred Scripture and in the liturgy. And never is the metaphor more beautifully worded or more expressive of an entire season’s liturgy than in our present Magnificat antiphon.
 
The message is readily grasped and offers much material for meditation. Three metaphors link the Redeemer to Light eternal; He is the Sun of Justice. The expression “Rising Dawn” occurs in Zachary 3.8; 6.12; more familiar, however, is its use daily in the Benedictus, Oriens ex alto. In spirit the aged priest Zachary beheld Christ rising as the sun “to enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” The verse is incorporated in our antiphon. Christ is the Rising Sun that disperses spiritual darkness and death. From the sun in the sky comes light and life; from Christ the divine Sun likewise comes light and life. Remember how Jesus called Himself the light and the life of the world. Let us summarise the points our comparison yields. The sun gives life, light, warm, joy, health. Now imagine a place where the sun’s rays do not penetrate, a dark cellar for example, wet with rottenness, darkness, death. And apply the proper deduction – spiritually.
 
… What the sun does for the realm of nature, that Christ as the Sun of grace does for the kingdom of God. Which makes the closing petition obvious. We ask Christ to enlighten us by His coming. Whoa re they who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death? Pagans and unbelievers, sinners and atheists. But also in us “the faithful” there is still much darkness, much of death’s shadow. Open your soul and let the divine light shine in’.
​
​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1959, by Pius Parsch 1884-1954

‘Let me… refer briefly to the three heralds of Advent who once more appear before us in today’s Mass, and let me present them to you as types of the Christian priest. Isaias is the great prophet sent by God to herald the Kingdom. He was a man who yearned for Christ. The priest, surely, is a spiritual son of this great prophet. Does he not kindle in men the desire to seek the kingdom of grace, and to find it? John the Baptist is also a type of the priest – especially so. He prepared the way for Christ, as the priest too must prepare the way for Christ’s coming in grace. A priest’s deference and humility must match those same virtues as found in John the Baptist, who claimed for himself no more exalted titled than “the Bridegroom’s friend”. His sole task was to lead Israel to Christ, then to retire into the background. That too is the priest’s task. Christ is the Bridegroom of the soul. The soul in grace is His bride. The priest wants nothing more than to bring the bride and Bridegroom together, and then to retire. As St Paul said so well: “My jealousy on your behalf is the jealousy of God Himself; I have betrothed you to Christ, so that no other but he should claim you, his bride without spot” (2 Corinthians 11.2). Christ, then, is the Bridegroom, our soul the bride, the priest the Bridegroom’s friend who prepares the soul for grace.
 
Finally, God’s Mother is also a type of the priest as mediator of grace. Mary gave the Saviour to the world. She gave Him birth, laid Him tenderly in a manger, bound Him in swaddling-clothes, and showed Him to the shepherds, the wise men, the aged Simeon. Beneath the cross she shared in His sacrifice by her own compassion. And what of the priest? He too gives Christ to the world in the Eucharist, in the word of God, in grace. May he do it with the same tender, loving care as Mary showed. And may Christians lay hold of grace, joyfully, eagerly, as did the shepherds and the wise men, Simeon and Anna’.
 
from Seasons of Grace, 1963, by Pius Parsch, 1884–1954
 
Raise up, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us: that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sorely hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. – Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Divine Worship: The Missal

​‘The Lord made himself known to Moses by telling him his name. For a Semite, to tell another your name is to give him power over you. It is clear, of course, that the God of Israel cannot hand himself over to the power of men like a pagan god whose devotees invoke him with the idea that they can coerce him by magical practices and will therefore be heard. But the name “Yahweh” will always remind Israel of the great deeds God has done for her deliverance.
 
This antiphon puts us in the context of the paschal mystery, since the coming of the Son is directly related to his redemptive mission.
 
The last part of the antiphon contains a profound thought to which we rarely attend. The words “come… [and deliver us]” express, of course, the purpose of the incarnation and are a short statement of the theology of the incarnation that was current at the end of the sixth century. The rest of the words, however, namely [“an outstretched arm”], say something more, at least if we translate the Latin words literally: “come to redeem us with outstretched arm.” The phrase “with outstretched arm” is scriptural and occurs, for example in Exodus 6.6. The Hebrew root… means “to sow, to pour out or spread, to make fruitful.”
 
… He who is to come is the “shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Is. 11.1); he is the Messiah; he is also the one who comes in order to restore life to his people; he is power, support, and help. We must, of course, avoid pushing these juxtapositions too far, but it is at least worth noting that several times in his work Against the Heresies St Irenaeus uses the expression: “He stretched out his hand when he suffered [his Passion]”. This phrasing is rarely found elsewhere, but it does occur in the Eucharistic Prayer in St Hippolytus’s Traditio Apostolica (beginning of the third century): “He stretched out his hands when he suffered in order to deliver from suffering those who believed in him.”
 
Here, then, we call on Christ, and we expect him to continue his work of redemption in our world until the end of time’.
 
from The Liturgical Year, 1977, by Adrien Nocent OSB, 1913-1996

​‘As if to underline our longing for the coming of the Saviour, and the fact that the Feast of the Nativity is now not far away, the Church has for many centuries prescribed a series of antiphons to be recited before and after the Magnificat at the evening office. These ‘Great O’ antiphons are cries from the heart expressing an earnest yearning for Christ. In temperament they contrast with the text of the Magnificat itself but complement it. The hymn, recorded only in the Gospel of Luke, was sung by Mary at her Visitation with Elizabeth, when the birth of Jesus was still nine months away and, perhaps, the yearning ‘O’ not far from her lips.
 
Mary gave herself in love to God’s service with this response to Gabriel’s Annunciation: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to thy word.” After only a few days Mary is with Elizabeth and in joy cries out: “He who is mighty has done great things for me.” It is a hymn about God’s doing what we least expect; about how he can turn our values and certainties upside down. It is a song sung in humility, and reflects the Song of Hannah, the mother of Samuel.
 
The ‘O’ of each antiphon sums up the longing of Israel for the Messiah and for redemption, and consequently our longing that we may ourselves reveal something of the life and love of Christ’.
 
Geoffrey Rowell, 1943-2017
(Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, 2001-2013)

Hills of the North, rejoice,
Echoing songs arise,
Hail with united voice
Him who made earth and skies:
He comes in righteousness and love,
He brings salvation from above.

Isles of the Southern seas,
Sing to the listening earth,
Carry on every breeze
Hope of a world’s new birth:
In Christ shall all be made anew,
His word is sure, his promise true.

Lands of the East, arise,
He is your brightest morn,
Greet him with joyous eyes,
Praise shall his path adorn:
The God whom you have longed to know
In Christ draws near, and calls you now.

Shores of the utmost West,
Lands of the setting sun,
Welcome the heavenly guest
In whom the dawn has come:
He brings a never-ending light
Who triumphed o’er our darkest night.

Shout, as you journey on,
Songs be in every mouth,
Lo, from the North they come,
From East and West and South:
In Jesus all shall find their rest,
In him the sons of earth be blest.

Editors of the New English Hymnal
based on C.E. Oakley, 1832-1865

Yet if his Majesty our Sovereign Lord
Should of his own accord
Friendly himself invite,
And say, ‘I’ll be your guest tomorrow night,’
How should we stir ourselves, call and command
All hands to work! ‘Let no man idle stand!
Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall,
See they be fitted all;
Let there be room to eat,
And order taken that there want no meat!
See every sconce and candlestick made bright,
That without tapers they may give a light!
Look to the presence: are the carpets spread,
The dais o’er the head,
The cushions in the chairs,
And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
Perfume the chambers, and in any case
Let each man give attendance in his place’.
Thus if the king were coming would we do,
And ’twere good reason too;
For ’tis a duteous thing
To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So he be pleased, to think no labour lost.
But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All’s set at six and seven;
We wallow in our sin,
Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain Him always like a stranger,
And, as at first, still lodge Him in the manger.
 
from a manuscript, Christ Church College, Oxford

‘It would seem that Advent has two different and contradictory moods: penance and joyful expectation. As he goes to the altar during Advent the priest is clothed in purple vestments, and he does not say the Gloria. And yet in other respects Advent is a season of joy. The antiphons are invariably joyful and end with Alleluia. The Sunday Masses become more and more joyful in character. Last Sunday’s Mass was full of joyful texts and chants, and today, the third Sunday, is as joyful a Sunday as you will find anywhere in the Church’s. year. It is true, I think, to say that the joyful stratum is the earlier one and derives from the spirit of joy of the early Christians, whereas the penitential stratum is later and is explained by man’s consciousness of sin. Early Christianity stressed the holiness of grace and the accent is on joy. The Middle Ages was, however, obsessed by the holiness of the law, inculcating the fear of sin and the need for penance. And here we are at our theme for this year: Grace is attuned to the key of joy. But we can find yet another connection between this Sunday and grace, for if we ask what is the cause of this joy in today’s Mass, the answer is in the [Introit]: “Joy to you in the Lord at all times; once again I wish you joy… the Lord is near.” Yes, that is the reason: the Lord is near; and it is expressed even more emphatically in the Gospel [in the Extraordinary Form]: “There is one standing in your midst.” Christ is near; He is standing in our midst, and that is the reason for this Sunday’s joy. That is the reason why today the Church adorns herself with rose-coloured vestments. Christ is near; He is standing in our midst, and we cannot be rejoice.’

from Seasons of Grace, 1963, by Pius Parsch, 1884–1954

O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday), Divine Worship: The Missal.

O book! Life’s guide! how shall we part;
And thou so long seiz’d of my heart?
Take this last kiss; and let me weep
True thanks to thee, before I sleep.
Thou wert the first put in my hand,
When yet I could not understand,
And daily didst my young eyes lead
To letters, till I learnt to read.
But as rash youths, when once grown strong,
Fly from their nurses to the throng,
Where they new consorts choose, and stick
To those till either hurt or sick;
So with that first light gain’d from thee
Ran I in chase of vanity,
Cried dross for gold, and never thought
My first cheap book had all I sought.
Long reign’d this vogue; and thou cast by,
With meek, dumb looks didst woo mine eye,
And oft left open wouldst convey
A sudden and most searching ray
Into my soul, with whose quick touch
Refining still, I struggled much.
By this mild art of love at length
Thou overcam’st my sinful strength,
And having brought me home, didst there
Show me that pearl I sought elsewhere,
Gladness, and peace, and hope, and love,
The secret favours of the Dove;
Her quick’ning kindness, smiles and kisses,
Exalted pleasures, crowning blisses,
Fruition, union, glory, life,
Thou didst lead to, and still all strife.
Living, thou wert my soul’s sure ease,
And dying mak’st me go in peace:
Thy next effects no tongue can tell;
Farewell, O book of God! farewell!
 
Henry Vaughan, 1621-1695

​Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent, Divine Worship: The Missal.

‘For centuries this Ember Saturday was the only day in the Church’s year for the conferring of holy orders. Nowadays the sixth sacrament is administered also on other days, feast days and Sundays. But Mother Church has always favoured her Ember days as most appropriate for elevating her levites to the Priesthood of Christ, her Bridegroom.
 
May this Ember day awaken in us a deeper appreciation of the holiness and power of the Catholic priesthood. The sacrament of holy orders places the priest on a high mountain to bring good tidings to Sion, commissions him to lift up his voice with strength, to bring good tidings to Jerusalem. The priest assures his flock: “Behold your God! Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and His arm shall rule! Behold His reward is with Him, and His work is before Him. He shall feed the flock like a shepherd, He shall gather go together the lambs with His arm, and take them up in His bosom, the Lord our God” (cf. 3rd lesson).

Between priests and people must exist an “admirable commercium”, a “wondrous exchange” of giving and taking. The priest as “minister of Christ and dispenser of the mysteries of God” must spend himself for his people, and so attain to eternal life together with the flock committed to his care. The flock must support him by prayer, co-operation and good will so that – as the ordination prayer says – “he may always discharge the duties of his ministry towards God in complete readiness.” Shepherd and flock must support one another and thus fulfil the law of Christ.
 
It is meet and just at all times, but especially in these days of preparation for Christmas, to pray fervently of our priests that the Holy Spirit may fill them with His seven-fold gifts, gifts so necessary for “bringing the tidings of great joy to all the people.” The Church is in need – today more than ever – of holy priests, of men full of zeal for God’s Kingdom, of shepherds with love for the flock, of fathers who will break the bread of life to their children, of “anointed Cyruses” (4th lesson) who will lead men from the Babylonian captivity of sin and misery to the promised land of liberty and peace.
 
May blessed Peter the Apostle to whom the eternal High Priest entrusted His lambs and sheep, and with whom we keep this venerable Ember day, bless priests and people. May he obtain from our Lord Jesus Christ what we ask: Holiness of life, mutual respect and charity, loyalty to the Church and the Apostolic See to both shepherds and flock.
 
“Come, Lord, and show us – priests and people – Thy face!”’.

from a meditation on the Ember Saturday in Advent in Vine and Branches, 1948, by Mgr Martin Hellriegel

‘Magnificat anima mea Dominum! Mary’s great “Fiat”. Gabriel has carried her answer to God’s throne. The Holy Spirit has overshadowed her. Mary is now Virgin and Mother, the blessed tree in the midst of the new Paradise bearing the fruit of life. “He that shall find me, shall find life and shall have salvation from the Lord.”
 
“With haste” the Virgin Mother leaves Nazareth and goes up to Judea to render service to an expectant mother. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord” (Introit). “With haste” she pursues her journey, “because the grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow working” (St Ambrose), all the while “rejoicing in God her Saviour” whom she is carrying with inexpressible love in her chaste womb.
 
The Mother of God with the Son of God on her way to a hill country, to the home of Zachary and Elizabeth, radiating peace and joy! Mary salutes Elizabeth, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and her predestined child is sanctified, leaping for joy in his mother’s womb.
 
And now the divine Spirit descends on Mary, replenishment with such an abundance of heavenly sweetness, that from a heart overflowing with gratitude she chants that sublime canticle which henceforth shall resound throughout the age: “Magnificat, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced in God my Saviour... He that is mighty has done great things unto me, and holy is His name.”
 
Today Mother Church renders present this particular event of the work of redemption. Today our Holy Lord will continue in us the saving work wrought from within the sanctuary of His Mother’s bosom for Elizabeth and her herald-son, John, a truth so strikingly expressed in the postcommunion: “May the holy reception of this sacrament renew our inner life, cleanse us from our former ways and make us partakers of the mystery of salvation.”
 
In conclusion let us take to heart the words of St Ambrose addressed to a group of virgins, and read in today's divine office: ‘"You have learnt, O virgins, the modesty of Mary. Learn also her humility. She went as a relative to her relative, the younger to the elder; and not only did she go there, but she first greeted Elizabeth. For the most chaste a virgin is, the more humble should she be. She will know how to submit to her elders. She who professes chastity should be mistress of humility. For humility is the root of piety, and the very rule of its teaching. It is to be noted that the superior comes to the inferior so that the inferior may be assisted, Mary comes to Elizabeth, Christ to John.”
 
“He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and has exalted the humble!”
 
Let us pray: “Stir up Thy might, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: that they who trust in Thy goodness may be more speedily delivered from all adversity” (collect)

from a meditation on the Ember Friday in Advent in Vine and Branches, 1948, by Mgr Martin Hellriegel

‘The historical event by which God’s own Son became Man, called the annunciation, is commemorated twice each year in the Roman liturgy – today on Ember Wednesday and on March 25. The latter is a Marian feast, while today’s liturgy centres on our Blessed Saviour, even though the stational church is St Mary Major and much of the Mass text is devoted to the Blessed Virgin. In both cases the liturgy stresses history. March 25 commemorates the day of our Lord’s conception, nine months before Christmas; on Ember Wednesday, just before Christmas, the liturgy emphasises the Old Testament background leading to His birth. There is solemn grandeur in the mystery of today’s liturgy, a grandeur which merits it a position along with the chiefest events of Jesus’ life, His birth, and His death.
 
Today the second Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity was united to a human nature, truly the beginning of mankind’s salvation. It would seem that the occasion of Christ’s assuming flesh should be as great a feast as Christmas. Such actually was the thinking during the Middle Ages. At that time March 25 marked the beginning of the civil year. Today’s Mass, the Missa Aurea or “Golden Mass,” was very highly esteemed. Prompted by the text of the formulary, the holy Abbot St Bernard delivered his famous homilies entitled Super Missus est, which occur in part in the Breviary. The fact that the Rorate Mass, still celebrated often in certain places during Advent, is derived from this Mass, indicates wide popular interest. Among the faithful there existed intense devotion toward the mystery of the annunciation. As a result the Hail Mary was developed and added to the Our Father; and three times daily the Angelus bells pealed, reminding everyone of this sublime event in his salvation. At the phrase, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” in the Angelus and in the Last Gospel, as also at the Et incarnatus est in the Credo, a genuflection was introduced to show reverence for the mystery of the incarnation.
 
All this helps us to realise the wealth of meaning inherent in today’s liturgy. Nor may we overlook the similarity between holy Mass and the incarnation itself. At Mass Christ becomes truly incarnate under the appearances of bread and wine. Therefore we do not merely commemorate the event; it actually is repeated in a sacramental manner. At the consecration we can say in all truth: “The Word is made flesh!”’

from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1959, by Pius Parsch 1884-1954

​‘We have a wonderful picture here: St Paul’s favourite picture of light and darkness. St Paul frequently calls the time before the advent of grace the night of the spirit. The time of grace is the light of day. “Once you were all darkness; now, in the Lord, you are all daylight. Walk, then, as children of the light.” Here St Paul distinguishes clearly between what we are and what we do. You Gentile Christians, he says, lived formerly in the night of the deprivation of grace, cut off from God. But now you are standing in the sunlight of grace. Grace, then, is first and foremost a state of our being. Then follows action – walking as children of the light. St Paul says much the same thing in today’s Epistle [Romans 13.11-14] – only he expresses it far more beautifully. The life that is past was the night of no-grace. We were then asleep. We could do nothing that would earn us any merit. We were wearing the night-attire of sin. But now the night is past. The day has dawned and grace has come to us. We must put on our day-attire – not civilian clothes, however, but a military uniform, a battledress, our armour; and yet no dull, iron-grey armour, but an armour of light. The Christian is a knight clad in shining armour. I am reminded of a scene in the Apocalypse: Christ riding on a white horse, clad in a blood-stained cloak, and behind Him a retinue of horsemen on white chargers clad in pure white linen’.
 
from Seasons of Grace, 1963, by Pius Parsch, 1884–1954

‘Advent... draws us into a deeper and richer understanding of the fact that the Church is present everywhere, in every single action that she performs... Nowhere is this more forcefully expressed than in the famous Devotion XVII which John Donne, a seventeenth-century Dean of St Paul’s, wrote in a set of meditations during a period of serious illness in 1623, and which were published the year after. Illness - especially when it is potentially life-threatening - has a habit of underscoring what is important and identifying what is secondary. Life is never the same afterwards.

“Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The Church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptises a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another”.

To watch and wait for the “Root of Jesse” is another exercise in patience - not least a patience that enlarges our sympathies and our awareness of just how deeply we are united together by our actions and our prayers, our circumstances and our struggles’.

from Watching and Waiting: A Guide to the Celebration of Advent, 2007
by Kenneth Stevenson (1949-2011), Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, 1995-2009

‘“O Wisdom”, prays the Church late every Advent. In words inspired by the opening words of the great Hymn to Wisdom well into the Book of Ecclesiasticus, which forms the centrepiece of that late Jewish work, we find ourselves looking at the origin and nature of Wisdom... [W]e invoke Wisdom in terms of her ubiquity – she is everywhere, as the Wisdom of Solomon teaches… Whereas Ecclesiasticus on its on its own terms sees wisdom as a gift from God, the Book of Wisdom goes one stage further in viewing her as a kind of person separate from but derived from God. No wonder Wisdom came to be applied by early Christian writers to the third person of the Holy Spirit… But here she is applied to God himself: not specifically at the Christmas festival, but in the mystery of Advent. The Book of Wisdom teaches that a wise king prays for this divine attribute, not because she is everywhere, but because she comes from God and is of God; her origins explain her ubiquity, not the other way round’.
 
from Watching and Waiting: A Guide to the Celebration of Advent, 2007
by Kenneth Stevenson (1949-2011), Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, 1995-2009

‘On this Third Sunday of Advent, known as “Gaudete” Sunday, the Liturgy invites us to rejoice. Advent is a season of commitment and conversion in preparation for the Lord’s coming, but today the Church gives us a foretaste of the joy of Christmas that is now at hand. In fact Advent is also a time of joy, because in this season expectation of the Lord’s coming is awakened in the hearts of believers; looking forward to a person’s arrival is always a cause of joy. 
 
…The joy the Lord communicates to us must encounter grateful love in us. Indeed, our joy is complete when we recognise his mercy, when we become attentive to the signs of his goodness, if we truly perceive that this goodness of God is with us and thank him for all that we receive from him every day. Those who selfishly welcome God’s gifts fail to find true joy; but the hearts of those who make God’s gifts an opportunity to love him with sincere gratitude and to communicate his love to others, are truly filled with joy. Let us remember that!’

Pope Benedict XVI, 16 December 2012

​O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for Gaudete Sunday, Divine Worship: The Missal.

Our second Rorate Mass of the Advent season was offered at 7 am this morning, the above photo shows the church, just after 6.35 am, ready to receive the faithful and to honour Our Blessed Lady. The Alma Redemptoris Mater was sung following the Mass.

‘The Church has willed – and what is more just? – that the liturgy of Advent should be full of the thought of the Blessed Virgin; she continually makes us sing the divine fruitfulness of the Virgin, a wonderful fruitfulness that throws nature into astonishment…
 
There is something truly ineffable about the Virgin during those days. She lived in an intimate union with the Infant God whom she bore within her. The soul of Jesus was, by the Beatific Vision, plunged in the divine light; this light radiated upon his Mother. In the sight of the angels, Mary truly appeared as “a woman clothed with the sun”, all irradiated with heavenly brightness, all shining with the light of her Son…
 
Let us humbly ask her to make us enter into her dispositions. She will hear our prayer; we shall have the immense joy of seeing Christ born anew within our hearts by the communication of a more abundant grace, and we shall be enabled, like the Virgin, although in a lesser measure, to understand the truth of these words of St John: “The Word was God… and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory… full of grace and truth… And of his fulness we have all received, grace upon grace”’.

​Blessed Columba Marmion OSB, 1858-1923

‘I believe that it is very important that we return as soon as possible to a common orientation, of priests and the faithful turned together in the same direction — Eastwards or at least towards the apse — to the Lord who comes, in those parts of the liturgical rites when we are addressing God. This practice is permitted by current liturgical legislation. It is perfectly legitimate in the modern rite. Indeed, I think it is a very important step in ensuring that in our celebrations the Lord is truly at the centre.
 
And so, dear Fathers, I ask you to implement this practice wherever possible, with prudence and with the necessary catechesis, certainly, but also with a pastor’s confidence that this is something good for the Church, something good for our people. Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year, when we attend ‘the Lord who will come’ and ‘who will not delay’ (see: Introit, Mass of Wednesday of the first week of Advent) may be a very good time to do this. Dear Fathers, we should listen again to the lament of God proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah: “they have turned their back to me” (2.27). Let us turn again towards the Lord!
 
I would like to appeal also to my brother bishops: please lead your priests and people towards the Lord in this way, particularly at large celebrations in your dioceses and in your cathedral. Please form your seminarians in the reality that we are not called to the priesthood to be at the centre of liturgical worship ourselves, but to lead Christ’s faithful to him as fellow worshippers. Please facilitate this simple but profound reform in your dioceses, your cathedrals, your parishes and your seminaries’.

Robert, Cardinal Sarah
​Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

‘The scripture saith not in vain, “Them that honour me, I will honour”. Neither was it a vain word that Eusebius delivered long ago, that piety towards God was the weapon and the only weapon that both preserved the Emperor Constantine’s person, and avenged him of his enemies. But now what piety without truth? What truth (what saving truth) without the word of God? What word of God (whereof we may be sure) without the scriptures? The scriptures we are commanded to search. They are commended that search and study them. They are reproved that were unskilful in them, or slow to believe them. They can make us wise unto salvation. If we be ignorant, they will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us. Take up and read, take up and read the scriptures (for unto them was the direction), it was said unto Saint Augustine by a supernatural voice, “Whatsoever is in the scriptures, believe me”, said the same Saint Augustine, “is high and divine; there is verily truth, and a doctrine most fit for the refreshing and renewing of men’s minds, and truly so tempered, that everyone may draw from thence, that which is sufficient for him, if he come to draw with a devout and pious mind as true religion requireth”. Thus Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, “Love the scriptures, and wisdom will love thee”’.

from the preface in the first edition of the King James Bible​, 1611

The above photo was taken at 6.50 am this morning, just before the first of our Advent Rorate Masses was offered at St John Henry’s. One lady commented afterwards that the Mass - her first experience - was both beautiful and peaceful; a fitting honour for Our Lady in this season of expectation.

‘Desire and reformation of life are human factors; God’s advent through grace is intrinsically divine. Here Mary is the sublime model. She desired the kingdom of God and based her life on the words “I am the handmaid of the Lord”. Then came the great moment when God made her His dwelling place. She hears the greeting, “Hail, full of grace...” With open heart she receives God; her soul becomes His kingdom in all its fulness. Again she knows of nothing to say but “I am the handmaid of the Lord”. This brought Christmas to her heart.

Her example must be our perpetual goal on earth. We must ever be ready and willing to receive the kingdom of God within ourselves as opportunities present themselves. Baptism was our first Christmas, and every Eucharistic Sacrifice is Christmas repeated. The feasts of the Church’s liturgical year are days of grace, days of the kingdom of God. Maintain a calm, reverent, and recollected attitude so as not to disturb God’s holy stirrings within you’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

O God, who didst will that thy Word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the message of an Angel: grant that we thy suppliants, who believe her to be in very deed the Mother of God, may be aided by her intercession with thee; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for the Mass of Saint Mary: Advent to Christmas, Divine Worship: The Missal.

​‘This season, when the Church anticipates and prepares for the tolling out of the old and the ringing in of the new secular year, is surely a time for facing ultimate realities. The four words, death, judgement, hell, and heaven, stand for four great mysteries, about which we ought to arrive at a conclusion as well as we can. Death is a fact, and it is just as well to face facts.
 
What is death? When life is withdrawn from the material body, the material envelope in which it mysteriously swells, we say that that is death. But science teaches us very clearly that matter cannot be destroyed: it can only be redistributed. Even when anything is burnt, it is not destroyed but merely reduced to its ultimate elements. If matter cannot be destroyed, it would be unreasonable to think that spirit can be destroyed.
 
In our incarnate state in this life we have a material body which subserves the purpose of our self-expression here. We can trust God, Who has given to us a material body for this stage of our eternal life, to provide us with a spiritual body to subserve the purposes of our self-expression in that higher stage to which we believe that at death we pass.
 
Our holy religion, though it is pre-eminently a way of life, does face the fact of death. Its great central service is the remembrance and the showing forth of a death, and its chief symbol is the crucifix, which holds up to us death – death revealing love, and love revealing death as sacrifice and prayer. Our religion interprets for us the fact of life, and gives us the truest philosophy about the fact of death’.

Father Andrew SDC, 1869-1946

‘Today the Church begins the fast of the Quattuor Tempora, or as we call it, of the Ember Days. As we have seen, this observance is not peculiar to the Advent Liturgy; it is one which has been fixed for each of the four seasons of the ecclesiastical year. The intentions which the Church has in the fast of the Ember Days are the same as those of the Synagogue - namely, to consecrate to God by penance the four seasons of the year. The Ember Days in Advent are known in ecclesiastical antiquity as the fast of the tenth month (the ancient meaning of ‘December’); and St Leo, in one of his sermons on this fast, of which the Church has inserted a passage into the Office of the Third Sunday of Advent, tells us that a special fast was fixed for this time of the year, because the fruits of the earth had then all been gathered in, and that it behooved Christians to testify their gratitude to God by a sacrifice of abstinence - thus rendering themselves more worthy to approach God, the more they were detached from the love of created things. “For fasting,” adds the Holy Doctor, “has ever been the nourishment of virtue. Abstinence is the source of chaste thoughts, of wise resolutions, and of salutary counsel. By voluntary mortifications, the flesh dies to its concupiscence, and the spirit is renewed in virtue. But since fasting alone is not sufficient whereby to secure the soul's salvation, let us add to it works of mercy towards the poor. Let us make that which we retrench from indulgence, serve unto the exercise of virtue. Let the abstinence of him that fasts, become the meal of the poor man”.

Let us, the children of the Church, practice what is in our power of these admonitions; and since the actual discipline of Advent is so very mild, let us be so much the more fervent in fulfilling the precept of the fast of the Ember days. By these few exercises which are now required of us, let us keep up within ourselves the zeal of our forefathers for this holy Season of Advent. We must never forget that although the interior preparation is what is absolutely essential for our profiting by the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, yet this preparation could scarcely be real unless it manifested itself by the exterior practices of religion and penance’.

from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger OSB, 1805-1875