31 DECEMBER – SAINT SILVESTER (Pope and Confessor)

Sylvester, a Roman by birth and son of Rufinus, was brought up from childhood by the priest Cyrinus. He imitated his master by his learning and a good life, and when in his thirtieth year was ordained a priest of the holy Roman Church by Pope Marcellinus, he surpassed the rest of the clergy in the admirable manner in which he performed his sacred duties, and was chosen as the successor of Pope Melchiades under the reign of the Emperor Constantine. This Emperor, having been advised by his physicians to seek the cure of his leprosy by bathing in infants’ blood, was visited in his sleep by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. They bade him refuse the sinful remedy of the bath if he desired to be cleansed from his leprosy, and go Sylvester who was then hiding on mount Soracte, that having been regenerated in the saving waters of baptism, he should give orders that Churches, after the manner of the Christians, should be built in every part of the Roman empire and that he should destroy the idols of the false gods and worship the true God.

Constantine, therefore, obeying the heavenly admonition, caused the most diligent search to be made for Sylvester and, when found, to be brought to him. This being done, and the Pontiff having shown Constantine the portraits of the two Apostles he had seen in his sleep, the Emperor was baptised and healed, and became exceedingly zealous for the defence and propagation of the Christian religion. By the persuasion of the holy Pontiff, Constantine also built several Basilicas which he enriched with sacred images and most princely donations and gifts. He moreover granted permission to the Christians publicly to erect churches which previously they were forbidden to do. Two Councils were held during the reign of this Pontiff: that of Nicaea over which presided his Legates. Constantine was present, and 318 Bishops were assembled there. The holy and Catholic faith was explained and Arius and his followers were condemned. The Council was confirmed by Sylvester at the request of all the Fathers assembled. The second Council was that of Rome at which 284 Bishops were present and there Arius was condemned.

Sylvester passed several decrees most useful to the Church of God: the Chrism should be blessed by a Bishop only, the priest should anoint the crown of the head of the person he baptised, Deacons should wear the dalmatic in the church and a linen ornament on the left arm, and the Sacrifice of the Altar should not be celebrated except on a linen veil. He laid down the length of time during which they who received Holy Orders should exercise the functions belonging to each Order before passing to a higher grade. He made it illegal for a layman to be the public accuser of a cleric, and forbade clerics to plead before a civil tribunal. The names of Saturday and Sunday were to be still used, but all the other days of the week were to be called Ferias, as the Church had already begun to call them, thereby signifying that the clergy should put aside all other cares and spend every day in the undisturbed service of God. To this heavenly prudence with which he governed the Church, he ever joined the most admirable holiness of life, and charity towards the poor. For instance, he arranged that those among the clergy who had no means should live with wealthy members of the clergy, and that everything needed for their maintenance should be supplied to virgins consecrated to God.

Sylvester governed the Church 21 years, 10 months and one day. He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria. He seven times gave ordinations in December during which he ordained 42 Priests, 25 Deacons and 65 Bishops.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

So far the only ones we have seen standing round the crib of our Jesus have been Martyrs: Stephen, overwhelmed with the shower of stones; John, the Martyr in heart who survived his fiery torture; the Holy Innocents, massacred by the sword; Thomas, murdered in his Cathedral — these are the champions of Christ who kneel in the palace of Bethlehem. Yet, all Christians are not called to be Martyrs. Besides this countless battalion of the King’s favourite soldiers, there are other troops of sainted heroes which form the heavenly army, and among these there are the Confessors who conquered the world, without shedding their blood in the combat.

Though the place of honour in the service of the King belongs to the Martyrs, yet did the Confessors fight manfully for the glory of His name and the spreading of His Kingdom. The palm is not in their hands but they are crowned with the crown of justice, and Jesus, who gave it to them, has made it be part of His own glory that they should be near His throne. The Church would therefore grace this glorious Christmas Octave with the name of one of her children who should represent, at Bethlehem, the whole class of her unmartyred Saints. She chose a Confessor — Saint Sylvester — a Confessor who governed the Church of Rome and therefore the universal Church: a Pontiff, whose reign was long and peaceful. A servant of Jesus Christ adorned with every virtue, who was sent to edify and guide the world immediately after those fearful combats that had lasted for three hundred years and in which millions of Christians had gained victory by martyrdom under the leadership of Thirty Popes — predecessors of Saint Sylvester — and they too, all Martyrs. So that Sylvester is messenger of the Peace which Christ came to give to the world, and of which the Angels sang on Christmas Night. He is the friend of Constantine. He confirms the Council of Nicaea. He organises the discipline of the Church for the new era on which she is now entering — the era of Peace.

His predecessors, in the See of Peter, imaged Jesus in His sufferings. Sylvester represented Jesus in His triumph. His appearance during this Octave reminds us that the Divine Child who lies wrapped in swaddling clothes and is the object of Herod’s persecution, is, notwithstanding all these humiliations, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the world to come (Isaias ix. 6).

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Supreme Pastor of the Church of Christ, you lend to the beauty of the holy Octave of Christmas the lustre of your glorious merits. There you worthily represent the countless choir of Confessors, for you steered the barque of Peter after the three hundred years’ tempest, leading her with watchful love in her first hours of calm. The pontifical Diadem reflecting Heaven in its gems sits on your venerable brow. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are in your hands. You opened it for the admission of the Gentiles who embraced the faith of Christ. You shut it against the Arians in that august Council of Nicaea where you presided by your Legates, and to which you gave authority, by confirming it with your apostolic approbation. The furious storms will again soon rage against the Church, and the angry billows of heresy will beat against her. You will then be in the bosom of God but together with Saint Peter you will keep guard over the purity of the Faith of Rome. You will support Julius. You will rescue Liberius and Athanasius, aided by your prayers, will find a shelter within the walls of Rome. Under your peaceful reign Christian Rome receives the reward of her long-endured persecution. She is acknowledged as Queen of Christendom, and her empire becomes the sole empire that is universal. The son of your pastoral zeal, Constantine, leaves the city of Romulus which has now become the City of Peter. The Imperial majesty would be eclipsed by that greater one of the Vicar of Christ. He makes Byzantium his capital, leaving Rome to be that of the Pontiff-King. The temples of the false gods become ruins,and make room for the Christian Basilicas in which are enshrined the Relics of the Apostles and Martyrs. In a word, the Church has triumphed over the Prince of this world, and the victory is typified by the destruction of that Dragon which infected the air by its poisonous breath.

Honoured with all these wonderful prerogatives, saintly Vicar of Christ, forget not the Christian people which was once your flock. It asks you, on this your Feast, to make it known and love the mystery of the birth of Jesus. By the sublime Symbol which embodies the Faith of Nicaea and which you confirmed and promulgated throughout the whole Church, you have taught us to acknowledge this sweet Infant as God of God, Light of Light, begotten not made, consubstantial to the Father. You bid us to come and adore this little child as He by whom all things were made. Holy Confessor of Christ,I vouchsafe to present us to Him, as the Martyrs have done, whose Feasts have filled up the days since His Nativity. Pray to Him for us that our desires for true virtue may be fulfilled, that we may persevere in his Holy love, that we may conquer the world and our passions, and at length, that we may obtain the crown of justice which is to be the reward of our Confessing Him before men, and is the only object of our ambition.

Pontiff of Peace, from the abode of rest where you now dwell, look down on the Church of God, surrounded as she is by implacable enemies, and beseech Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to hasten her triumph. Cast your eye on that Rome, which is so dear to you and which is so faithful in her love of you. Protect and direct her Pontiff. May she triumph over the wiles of political intrigue, the violence of tyranny, the craft of heretics, the perfidy of schismatics, the apathy of worldlings, and the cowardice of her own children. May she be honoured, loved and obeyed. May the sublime dignity of the Priesthood be recognised. May the spiritual power enjoy freedom of action. May the civil authority work hand and hand with the Church. May the Kingdom of God now come and be received throughout the whole world, and may there be but one Fold and one Shepherd.

Still watch, O holy Sylvester, over the sacred treasure of the Faith, which you defended when on Earth, against every danger. May its light put out the vapours of man’s proud dreams, those false and daring doctrines which mislead countless souls. May every mortal bow down his understanding to the obedience of faith in the divine Mysteries, without which all human wisdom is but folly. May Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Mary, be King, by His Church, over the minds and hearts of all men. Pray for Byzantium that was once called the New Rome, but which so soon became the capital of heresies and the scene of everything that could degrade a Christian country. Pray that the days of her deep humiliation may be shortened; that she may again see herself united with Rome; that she may honour Christ and his Vicar; that she may obey, and by her obedience be saved. May the people, misled and debased by her influence and rule, recover their dignity as men, which can only subsist when men have faith, or be regained by a return to the faith.

And lastly, O Conqueror of Satan, keep this hellish monster in the prison to which you drove him. Confound his pride and his schemes. Let him no longer seduce the people of God’s Earth, but may all the children of the Church, according to the word of Peter, your predecessor, resist him by the strength of their faith.

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Let us, on this the Seventh Day within the Christmas Octave, consider the new-born babe wrapped in the swaddling clothes of infancy. They are the indications of weakness. The child that is swathed in them is helpless and dependent on others. Another’s hand must loosen His bands and until then He is not free to move. It was in this infantile helplessness and in the bondage of human weakness that He who gives life and motion to every creature first appeared on our Earth!

Let us contemplate our Blessed Lady wrapping the limbs of her child, her God, in these swathing-bands: but who can picture to himself the respectful love with which she does it! She adores His humiliations — humiliations which He has taken upon Himself in order that He may sanctify every period of man’s life, even that feeblest of all, infancy. So deep was the wound of our pride that it needed a remedy of such exceeding efficacy as this! Can we refuse to become little chlldren now that He, who gives us the precept, sets us so touching an example! Sweet Jesus, we adore you wrapped in your swaddling clothes, and our ambition is to imitate your divine humility.

“Let not,” says the holy Abbot Guerric, “let not the eye of your faith be offended or shocked, Brethren, at these outward humble coverings. As the Mother of Jesus wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, so does Grace and Wisdom, which is your spiritual mother, veil over with certain material things, the truth of our Incarnate God, and hide, under the representation of symbolical figures, the majesty of this same Jesus. When I, Brethren, deliver to you by my words the Truth (which is Jesus) I am swathing Jesus in bands of exceeding great poverty. Happy the soul that loves and adores not its Jesus the less because he receives Him thus poorly clad! Let us therefore most devoutly think upon our Lord clothed in the swathing-bands with which His Mother covered His infant limbs so that in the world of eternal happiness, we may see the glory and beauty with which His Father has clad Him, and this glory is that of the Only Begotten Son of the Father.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome on the Via Salaria, in the cemetery of Priscilla, the holy martyrs Donata, Paulina, Rustica, Nominanda, Serotina, Hilaria and their companions.

At Sens, the blessed Sabinian, bishop, and Potentian, who being sent there by the Roman Pontiff to preach, illustrated that metropolitan church by their confession and martyrdom.

In the same place, St. Columba, virgin and martyr, who after having triumphed over fire, was beheaded in the persecution of the emperor Aurelian.

At Retiers, St. Hermes, exorcist.

At Catania in Sicily, the martyrdom of the Saints Stephen, Pontian, Attains, Fabian, Cornelius, Sextus, Flos, Quinctian, Minervinus and Simplician.

The same day, St. Zoticus, Roman priest, who went to Constantinople, and took upon himself the care of orphans.

At Ravenna, St. Parbatian, priest and confessor.

The same day, St. Melania the Younger, who withdrew from Rome with her husband Pinian, and went to Jerusalem, where both embraced the religious life, she among the women consecrated to God, and he among the monks, and ended their career in peace.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

23 DECEMBER – FRIDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson for Matins – Isaias lxvi. 5‒16

Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at His word. Your brethren that hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake, have said: Let the Lord be glorified, and we will see in your joy: but they will be confounded. A voice of the people from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord that renders recompense to His enemies. Before she was in labour, she brought forth: before her time came to be delivered, she brought forth a man-child. Who has ever heard such a thing? And who has seen the like of this? Will the Earth bring forth in one day? or will a nation be brought forth at once, because Sion has been in labour and has brought forth her children? Will not I that make others to bring forth children, myself bring forth, says the Lord? Will I, that give generation to others, be barren, says the Lord your God? Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all you that mourn for her: that you may suck and be filled with the breasts of her consolations: that you may milk out and flow with delights, from the abundance of her glory. For thus says the Lord: Behold I will bring upon her as it were a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the Gentiles, which you will suck: you will be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they will caress you. As one whom the mother caresses, so will I comfort you, and you will be comforted in Jerusalem. You will see, and your heart will rejoice, and your bones will flourish like a herb, and the hand of the Lord will be known to His servants, and He will be angry with His enemies. For behold the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots are like a whirlwind: to render His wrath in indignation, and His rebuke with flames of fire: for the Lord will judge by fire: and by His sword of all flesh, and the slain of the Lord will be many.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Your presence, O Jesus, will give fruitfulness to her that was barren, and the despised Sion will suddenly bring forth a people which the world is too small to hold. But all the glory of this fruitfulness belongs to you, O divine Word! The Psalmist had foretold it when speaking to Jerusalem, as to a Queen, he said to her: “Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you. You will make them princes over all the Earth: they will remember your name throughout all generations. Therefore shall people praise you forever and ever, yea forever and ever” (Psalm xliv.). But for this end it was necessary that God Himself should come down in person. He alone could make a Virgin-Mother. He alone could raise up children to Abraham out of the very stones. “Yet one little while,” as He says by one of His Prophets, and I will “move Heaven and Earth, and I will move all nations” (Aggeus ii. 7, 8). And by another: “From the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation” (Malachias i. 11). There will soon be, then, but one Sacrifice, for the Lamb who is to be offered in that Sacrifice will be born in a few hours hence, and since Sacrifice is the bond of union among men when there will be but one Sacrifice, there will be but one People.

Come then quickly, O Church of God, that are to unite us all into one. Come and be born into our world. And since for us your children you are already born, may the Lamb, your Spouse, pour out upon you the river of peace announced by the Prophet. May He open out upon you the glory of the Gentiles as an overflowing torrent. May the nations cluster around you as their common Mother, and be filled with the abundance of your glory, with the breasts of your consolations, and you carry them on your heart and caress them in your tender love. O Jesus! It is you that has inspired our Mother with this wonderful love. It is you that consoles us and enlightens us by her. Come to her and visit her. Come, and, by the New Birth you are about to take among us, renew her life within her. Give her, during this year also, firmness of Faith, the Grace of the Sacraments, the efficacy of Prayer, the Gift of Miracles, the Succession of her Hierarchy, power of Government, Fortitude against the Princes of the world, love of the Cross, victory over Satan, and the crown of Martyrdom. During this new year, make her, as ever, your beautiful Spouse. Make her faithful to your love, and more than ever successful in the great work you have put on her, for each year brings us nearer to the day when you will come for the last time, not in the swathing bands of infancy, but on a cloud with great majesty to render your rebuke with flames of fire and destroy those that have despised or have not loved your Church, which you will then raise up and admit into your eternal Kingdom.

22 DECEMBER – THURSDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson for Matins – Isaias lxiv. 1‒11

O that you would rend the heavens, and would come down. The mountains would melt away at your presence. They would melt as at the burning of fire. The waters would burn with fire, that your name might be made known to your enemies: that the nations might tremble at your presence. When you will do wonderful things, we will not bear them: you did come clown, and at your presence the mountains melted away. From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye has not seen, O God, besides you, what things you have prepared for them that wait for you. You have met him that rejoices and does justice: in your ways they will remember you: behold you are angry, and we have sinned. In them we have been always, and we will be saved. And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. There is none that calls on your name, that rises up and takes hold of you: you have hid your thy face from us, and have crushed us in the hand of our iniquity. And now, O Lord, you are our Father, and we are clay: and you are our maker, and we all are the works of your hands. Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold, see, we are all your people. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate. The house of our holiness, and of our glory, where our fathers praised you, is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things are turned into ruins.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

O God of our Fathers! Delay not, but show yourself to us. The city which you love is desolate. Come and raise up Jerusalem. Avenge the glory of her temple. This was the cry of the Prophet. You have heard it and are come to deliver Sion from her captivity, giving her a new era of glory and holiness. You are come, not to destroy but to fulfil the law and by your visit Sion has been changed into the Church, your Spouse. But why, O you her Beloved Saviour! Why have you turned away your face? Why is this Church of your love left in the wilderness, weeping like Jeremias over the ruins of the Sanctuary, and as Rachel over her children that had been taken from her? Why has her inheritance been delivered to the stranger? By your power she had become the mother of countless children. She had nourished them. She had taught them, in your name, the things that pertain to the present and the future life, and these ungrateful children have turned against her. She has been driven from nation to nation, bearing away with her the heavenly treasure of Faith. Her mysteries have ceased to be celebrated where once they were the glory and happiness of the people, and from your throne above, O divine Word, Creator of the universe, you see everywhere throughout the Earth altars overturned, and temples profaned. Oh! come, then, and rekindle the smouldering fire of Faith.

Remember your Apostles and your Martyrs. Remember your Saints who have founded Churches and honoured them by their virtues and miracles. Remember your Spouse the Church and support her during her earthly pilgrimage until the number of your elect is filled up. She longs to possess you in the eternal light of the vision, but you have given her a heart with such mother’s love that she will not leave her children as long as there be one to save, nor cease to save until that day come when there will no more be a Militant Church, but the one sole Triumphant Church, inebriated with the enjoyment of the sight and embraces of her God. But that last day is not yet come, Jesus! There is yet time for you to descend from Heaven and visit your vineyard. Restore to the branches of the tree the leaves which had fallen in the storm of iniquity. Let this tree of your predilection bud forth new branches, and the old ones which had separated from it, and seemed to force your justice to cast them in the fire, let them be once more grafted to the parent trunk, so torn by their rupture from her. Come, O Jesus, for the sake of your Church. She is dearer to you than was the Jerusalem of old.

21 DECEMBER – SAINT THOMAS (Apostle and Martyr)

Thomas the Apostle who was also named Didymus was a Galilean. After he had received the Holy Ghost he travelled through many provinces preaching the Gospel of Christ. He taught the principles of Christian faith and practice to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Hircanians and Bactrians. He finally went to the Indies and instructed the inhabitants of those countries in the Christian religion. Up to the last he gained for himself the esteem of all men by the holiness of his life and teaching, and by the wonderful miracles he wrought. He stirred up, also, in their hearts, the love of Jesus Christ. The King of those parts, a worshipper of idols was, on the contrary, only the more irritated by all these things. He condemned the Saint to be pierced to death by javelins, which punishment was inflicted at Calamina and gave Thomas the highest honour of his Apostolate, the crown of martyrdom.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This is the last Feast the Church keeps before the great one of the Nativity of her Lord and Spouse. She interrupts the Greater Ferias in order to pay her tribute of honour to Thomas, the Apostle of Christ, whose glorious martyrdom has consecrated this twenty-first day of December, and has procured for the Christian people a powerful patron that will introduce them to the divine babe of Bethlehem. To none of the Apostles could this day have been so fittingly assigned as to Saint Thomas. It was Saint Thomas whom we needed, Saint Thomas whose festal patronage would aid us to believe and hope in that God whom we see not, and who comes to us in silence and humility in order to try our Faith. Saint Thomas was once guilty of doubting, when he ought to have believed, and only learnt the necessity of Faith by the sad experience of incredulity: he comes then most appropriately to defend us, by the power of his example and prayers, against the temptations which proud human reason might excite within us. Let us pray to him with confidence. In that Heaven of Light and Vision where his repentance and love have placed him, he will intercede for us and gain for us that docility of mind and heart which will enable us to see and recognise Him who is the Expected of Nations and who, though the King of the world, will give no other signs of His majesty than the swaddling-clothes and tears of a babe.

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O glorious Apostle Thomas, who led to Christ so many unbelieving nations, hear now the prayers of the faithful who beseech you to lead them to that same Jesus who, in five days, will have shown Himself to His Church. That we may merit to appear in His divine presence we need, before all other graces, the light which leads to Him. That light is Faith: then, pray that we may have Faith. Heretofore our Saviour had compassion on your weakness and deigned to remove from you the doubt of His having risen from the grave. Pray to Him for us that He will mercifully come to our assistance and make Himself felt by our heart. We ask not, O holy Apostle, to see Him with the eyes of our body, but with those of our faith, for He said to you when He showed Himself to you: “Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed!” Of this happy number, we desire to be. We beseech you, therefore, pray that we may obtain the Faith of the heart and will that so, when we behold the divine infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes and laid in a manger, we may cry out: “My Lord and my God!” Pray, holy Apostle, for the nations you evangelised, but which have fallen back again into the shades of death. May the day soon come when the Sun of Justice will once more shine on them. Bless the efforts of those apostolic men who have devoted their labours and their very lives to the work of the Missions. Pray that the days of darkness may be shortened, and that the countries which were watered by your blood may at length see that kingdom of God established among them which you preached to them, and for which we also are in waiting.

THE GREAT ANTIPHON OF SAINT THOMAS

O Thomas! Didymus! who merited to see Christ; we beseech you, by most earnest supplication, help us miserable sinners, lest we be condemned with the ungodly at the Coming of the Judge.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Tuscany, the holy martyrs John and Festus.

In Lycia, St. Themistocles, martyr, who under the emperor Decius, offered himself in the place of St. Dioscorus, who was sought after to be killed, and being racked, dragged about and beaten with rods, obtained the crown of martyrdom.

At Nicomedia, during the persecution of Diocletian, St. Glycerins, a priest, who was subjected to many torments, and finally completed his martyrdom by being cast into the flames.

At Antioch, St. Anastasius, bishop and martyr, who was cruelly murdered by the Jews during the reign of Phocas.

At Treves, St. Severin, bishop and confessor.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

21 DECEMBER – WEDNESDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson for Matins – Isaias li. 1‒6

Give ear to me, you that follow that which is just, and you that seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you are dug out. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sara that bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and multiplied him. The Lord therefore will comfort Sion, and will comfort all the ruins thereof, and He will make her desert as a place of pleasure, and her wilderness as the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of praise. Hearken to me, O my people, and give ear to me, O my tribes: for a law will go forth from me and my judgement will rest to be a light of the nations. My Just One is near at hand, my Saviour is gone forth, and my arms will judge the people: the islands will look for me and will patiently wait for my arm. Lift up your eyes to Heaven and look down to the Earth beneath: for the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the Earth will be worn away like a garment, and the inhabitants thereof will perish in like manner: but my salvation will be forever, and my justice will not fail.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

O Jesus, Flower of the Field, Lily of the Valley, your visit is to change our barren parched earth into a garden of delights! We had lost Eden and all its lovely magnificence by our sins: and lo! Eden is restored to us. You are coming that you may set it in our hearts. O heavenly plant! Tree of life transplanted from Heaven to Earth, you first take root in Mary, that faithful soil and thence you will come to us, and we must be to you a grateful land, cherishing the divine seed and making it fructify. Let it be so, O divine Husbandman, who appeared to Magdalene under the form of a gardener. You know how far are our hearts from being ready for your working in them. Move, and break, and water this land. The season is come. Our hearts long to be fertile, and to have growing within them that exquisite Flower which makes the beauty of all Heaven, and comes down to hide its splendour for a time here below. O Jesus! Let these souls of ours be fertile. Let them be crowned with the flowers of virtue. Let themselves become flowers growing around you, O divine Flower, and forming to the heavenly Father a garden which He may unite with that which He formed from all eternity. O Flower of Heaven, Jesus! You are also the Dew, refresh us. You are the Sun, warm us. You are the fragrant Perfume, impart to us your sweetness. You are the sovereign Beauty, give us of your fair and ruddy bloom, and make us cluster around you in eternity, as the crown you did wreathe to yourself.

20 DECEMBER – TUESDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias xlii. 1‒7

Behold my servant, I will uphold him; my elect, my soul delights in him; I have given my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth judgement to the Gentiles. He will not cry, nor have respect to person, neither will his voice be heard abroad. The bruised reed he will not break, and the smoking flax he will not quench: he will bring forth judgement to truth. He will not be sad, nor troublesome, till he set judgement in the Earth: and the islands will wait for his law. Thus says the Lord God that created the heavens, and stretched them out: that established the earth, and the things that spring out of it: that giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that tread thereon. I the Lord have called you in justice, and taken you by the hand, and preserved you. And I have given you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles: that you might open the eyes of the blind, and bring forth the prisoner out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

How sweet and peaceful is your entrance into this world, O Jesus! Your voice is not heard giving its commands. And your hands, the hands of a yet unborn babe, seem too weak to break the reed, so frail, that a breath would break it. What is it you are come to do in this first Coming? Your heavenly Father tells it us by the Prophet. You are coming that you may be the pledge of a covenant between Heaven and Earth. O divine Infant! Son of God, and yet Son of man, blessed be your Coming among us! Your crib will be the Ark which will save us, and when you walk on our Earth, it will be to give us light and set us free from our prison house of darkness. It is just, therefore, that we should rise and meet you on your approach, seeing that you have come all this way to us. “If the sick man cannot go out some distance to meet so great a Physician,” says Saint Bernard, “let him, at least, make an effort to raise his head and turn towards Him as He enters. It is not required of you, O man! to pass the seas, or ascend the clouds, or cross the Alps. The way that is shown to you is not a long one. Go as far as your own self and there meet your God: for the word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart (Romans x. 8). Meet Him at least at your heart’s compunction and your mouth’s confession, that you may at least go out of the filth of your guilty conscience, for into that you surely never would make the author of purity enter!”

Glory, then, be to you, O Jesus, for sparing the broken reed that so it may regain its verdure and strength on the banks of the stream, of which you are the source! Glory be to you for having checked the breath of your almighty justice, and so cherishing the last spark left in the smoking flax that it might burn up again and give light at the Bridegroom’s feast.

19 DECEMBER – MONDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias xli. 8‒16

But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend; in whom I have taken you from the ends of the Earth, and from the remote parts thereof have called you and said to you: You are my servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away. Fear not, for I am with you: turn not aside, for I am your God: I have strengthened you and have helped you, and the right hand of my Just One has upheld you. Behold all that fight against you will be confounded and ashamed: they will be as nothing, and the men will perish that strive against you. You will seek them and will not find the men that resist you: they will be as nothing and as a thing consumed the men that war against you: for I am the Lord your God who takes you by the hand and says to you: Fear not, I have helped you. Fear not, you worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I have made you as a new thrashing wain with teeth like a saw: you will thrash the mountains and break them in pieces: and will make the hills as chaff. You will fan them, and the wind will carry them away, and the whirlwind will scatter them: and you will rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel you will be joyful.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

It is thus that you raise us up from our abject lowliness, O Eternal Son of the Father! It is thus that you console us under the fear we so justly feel by reason of our sins. You say to us: “Israel, my servant I Jacob, whom I have chosen! seed of Abraham in whom I have called you from the remote parts of the Earth! Fear not, for I am with you.” But, O divine Word, how low you have had to come that you might be thus with us! We could never have come to you, for between us and you there was fixed an immense chaos. Nay, we had not so much as the desire to see you, so dull of heart had sin made us. And had we desired it, our eyes could never have borne the splendour of your majesty. Then it was that you descended to us in person, yet so that our weakness could look fixedly upon you, because veiled under the cloud of your humanity. “Who could doubt,” says Saint Bernard, “of there being some great cause pending, seeing that so great a Majesty deigned to come down, from so far off, into so unworthy a place! O yes, there is some great thing at stake, for the mercy is great and the commiseration is extreme, and the charity is abundant. And why, think you, did He come? He came from the mountain to seek the hundredth sheep that was lost. O wonderful condescension, a God seeking! O wonderful worth of man, that he should be sought by God! If man should therefore boast, he is surely not unwise, for he boasts not for anything that he sees in himself as of himself, but for His very Maker making such account of him. All the riches and all the glory of the world, and all that men covet in it, all is less than this glory, nay, is nothing, when compared to it. What is man, Lord, that you should magnify him? Or why do you set your Heart upon him?”

Delay not, then, Good Shepherd! Show yourself to your sheep. You know them. Not only have you seen them from Heaven, you also look on them with love from the womb of Mary where you still are concealed. They also wish to know you. They are impatient to behold your divine features, to hear your voice, and to follow you to the pastures you have promised them.

6 DECEMBER – SAINT NICOLAS (Bishop and Confessor)

Nicholas was born in the celebrated city of Patara, in the province of Lycia. His birth was the fruit of his parents’ prayers. Evidence of his great future holiness was given from his very cradle. For when he was an infant, he would only take his food once on Wednesdays and Fridays — and then not till evening — while on all other days he frequently took the breast: he kept up this custom of fasting during the rest of his life. Having lost his parents when he was a boy, he gave all his goods to the poor. Of his Christian kind-heartedness there is the following noble example. One of his fellow-citizens had three daughters, but being too poor to obtain them an honourable marriage, he was minded to abandon them to a life of prostitution. Nicholas having got to know the case, went to the house during the night and threw in by the window a sum of money sufficient for the dower of one of the daughters. He did the same a second and a third time, and thus the three were married to respectable men.

Having given himself wholly to the service of God, Nicholas set out for Palestine that he might visit and venerate the holy places. During this pilgrimage which he made by sea, he foretold to the mariners, on embarking, though the heavens were then serene and the sea tranquil, that they would be overtaken by a frightful storm. In a very short time the storm arose. All were in the most imminent danger when he quelled it by his prayers. His pilgrimage ended, he returned home, giving to all men example of the greatest sanctity. He went, by an inspiration from God, to Myra, the Metropolis of Lycia,which had just lost its Bishop by death, and the Bishops of the province had come together for the purpose of electing a successor. While they were holding council for the election, they were told by a revelation from Heaven that they should choose him who, on the morrow, should be the first to enter the church, his name being Nicholas. Accordingly, the requisite observations were made, when they found Nicholas to be waiting at the church door: they took him and, to the incredible delight of all, made him the Bishop of Myra.

During his episcopate he never flagged in the virtues looked for in a bishop: chastity, which indeed he had always preserved, gravity, assiduity in prayer, watchings, abstinence, generosity, and hospitality, meekness in exhortation, severity in reproving. He befriended widows and orphans by money, by advice and by every service in his power. So zealous a defender was he of all who suffered oppression that, on one occasion, three Tribunes having been condemned by the Emperor Constantine who had been deceived by calumny, and having heard of the miracles wrought by Nicholas, they recommended themselves to his prayers, though he was living at a very great distance from that place: the saint appeared to Constantine and angrily looking upon him, obtained from the terrified Emperor their deliverance.

Having, contrary to the edict of Diocletian and Maximian, preached in Myra the truth of the Christian faith, he was taken up by the servants of the two Emperors. He was taken off to a great distance and thrown into prison where he remained until Constantine, having become Emperor, ordered his rescue, and the Saint returned to Myra. Shortly afterwards, he repaired to the Council which was being held at Nicaea: there he took part with the 318 Fathers in condemning the Arian heresy. Scarcely had he returned to his See than he was taken with the sickness of which he soon died. Looking up to Heaven and seeing Angels coming to meet him, he began the Psalm, “In thee, Lord, have I hoped” and having come to those words, “Into your hands I commend my spirit,” his soul took its flight to the heavenly country. His body, having been translated to Bari in Apulia, is the object of universal veneration.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Divine Wisdom has willed that on the way which leads to the Messiah, our Great High Priest, there should be many Pontiffs to pay Him the honour due to Him. Two Popes, Saint Melchiades and Saint Damasus. two Holy Doctors, Saint Peter Chrysologus and Saint Ambrose, two Bishops, Saint Nicholas and Saint Eusebius: these are the glorious Pontiffs who have been entrusted with the charge of preparing, by their prayers, the way of the Christian people towards Him who is the Sovereign Priest according to the order of Melchisedech. As each of their feasts comes, we will show their right to have been thus admitted into the court of Jesus. Today the Church celebrates with joy the feast of the great Thaumaturgus Nicholas, who is to the Greek Church what Saint Martin is to us. The Church of Rome has honoured the name of Nicholas for nearly a thousand years. Let us admire the wonderful power which God gave him over creation, but let us offer him our most fervent congratulations in that he was permitted to be one of the 318 Bishops who proclaimed at Nicaea, that the Word is Consubstamtial to the Father. The humiliations of the Son of God did not scandalise him. Neither the lowliness of the flesh, which the Sovereign Lord of all things assumed to Himself in the womb of the Virgin, nor the poverty of the crib, hindered him from confessing to be Son of God, equal to God, Him who is the Son of Mary: and for this reason, God has glorified this his servant, and given him the power to obtain each year, for the children of the Church, the grace of receiving this same Jesus, the Word, with simple faith and fervent love.

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Holy Pontiff Nicholas, how great is your glory in God’s Church! You confessed the name of Jesus before the proconsuls of the world’s empire and suffered persecution for His Name’s sake. Afterwards you were witness to the wonderful workings of God when He restored peace to His Church. And a short time after this again, you opened your lips in the assembly of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers to confess with supreme authority the Divinity of our Saviour Jesus Christ, for whose sake so many millions of Martyrs had already shed their blood. Receive the devout felicitations of the Christian people throughout the universe who thrill with joy when they think of your glorious merits. Help us by your prayers during these days when we are preparing for the coming of Him who you proclaimed to be Consubstantial to the Father. Vouchsafe to assist our faith and to obtain fresh fervour to our love. You now behold face to face that Word by whom all things were made and redeemed. Beseech Him to permit our unworthiness to approach Him. Be our intercessor with Him. You have taught us to know Him as the sovereign and eternal God. Teach us also to love Him as the supreme benefactor of the children of Adam. It was from Him, charitable Pontiff, that you learned that tender compassion for the sufferings of your fellow-men which made all your miracles to be so many acts of kindness: cease not, now that you are in the company of the Angels, to have pity on and to succour our miseries.

Stir up and increase the faith of mankind in the Saviour whom the Lord has sent them. May this be one of the fruits of your prayer, that the Divine Word may be no longer unknown and forgotten in this world which He has redeemed with His Blood. Ask for the pastors of the Church that spirit of charity which shone so brilliantly in you, that spirit which makes them like their divine Master and wins them the hearts of their people. Remember, too, holy Pontiff, that Church of the East which still loves thee so fervently. When you were on this Earth, God gave you power to raise the dead to life. Pray now that the true life, which consists in Faith and Unity, may return once more and animate that body which schism has robbed of its soul. By thy supplications, obtain of God that the sacrifice of the Lamb who is so soon to visit us may be again and soon celebrated under the cupolas of Saint Sophia.

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Let us resume our considerations on the state of the world at the time immediately preceding the coming of the Messiah. Everything proves that the prophecies which foretold the great event have now been fulfilled. Not only has the sceptre been taken from Judah, the Weeks of Daniel also are almost expired. The other Scriptural predictions relative to the great revolutions, which were to take place in the world have been successively fulfilled. The Empires of the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks have fallen one after the other. That of the Romans is now at the zenith of its greatness . In its turn, it must yield to the eternal Empire of the Messiah. This succession of Empires, which was to result in a perfect kingdom, was foretold. And all is now ready for its final accomplishment. God has also said by one of his Prophets: “Yet one little while, and I will move Heaven and Earth... and I will move all nations, and the Desired of all nations will come” (Aggeus ii. 7, 8). Descend, therefore, O Eternal Word! All is consummated. The misery of the world is extreme. The crimes of men cry to Heaven for vengeance. The whole human race is threatened with self-destruction and without knowing what it does, it calls for you as its only resource. Then come! All the predictions which were to designate the Redeemer have been spoken and promulgated. There is no longer a Prophet in Israel, and the oracles of the Gentile world have ceased to speak. Come, Lord Jesus, and fulfil all things, for the fullness of time has come.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Africa, in the persecution of the Vandals and under the Arian king Hunneric, the saintly women Dionysia, Dativa, Leontia, a religious man named Tertius, Æmilian, a physician, and Boniface, with three others, who were subjected to numberless most painful torments for the Catholic faith, and thus merited to rank among the confessors of Christ.

In the same country, St. Majoricus, son of St. Dionysia, who, being quite young and dreading the torments, was strengthened by the looks and words of his mother, and becoming stronger than the rest, expired in torments. His mother took him in her arms, and having buried him in her own house, used to pray assiduously at his sepulchre.

The same day St. Polychronius, priest, who, in the time of the emperor Constantius was attacked by the Arians and put to death while at the altar saying Mass.

At Granada in Spain, the passion of blessed Peter Paschasius, martyr, of the Order of Mercedarians, and bishop of Jaen, whose festival is celebrated on the twenty-third of October by order of Pope Clement X.

At Rome, St. Asella, virgin, who, according to the words of St. Jerome, being blessed from her mother’s womb, lived to old age in fasting and prayer.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.