Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The Lessons from the Prophet Isaias are interrupted today also, and a Homily on the Gospel of the Mass is read in their place. As this Gospel is repeated in the Mass of the fourth Sunday of Advent, which is tomorrow, we will for the present omit it and be satisfied with mentioning the reason of the same Gospel being assigned to the two days. The primitive custom in the Roman Church was to hold Ordinations in the night between Saturday and Sunday, just as Baptism was administered to the Catechumens in the night between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. The ceremony took place towards midnight, and Sunday morning was always far advanced before the termination so that the Mass of Ordination was considered as the Mass of Sunday itself. Later on, discipline relaxed, and these severe vigils were given up. The Ordination Mass, like that of Holy Saturday, was anticipated. And, as the fourth Sunday of Advent and the second of Lent had not hitherto had a proper Gospel, since they had not had a proper Mass, it was settled about the tenth or eleventh century, that the Gospel of the Mass of Ordinations should be repeated in the special Mass of the two Sundays in question.
Gospel – Luke iii. 1‒6
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Judea, and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina; Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins; as it was written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley will be filled; and every mountain and hill will be brought low; and the crooked will be made straight; and the rough ways plain; And all flesh will see the salvation of God.”
Praise be to you, O Christ. Homily – Saint Gregory the Great:
The date at which the Fore-runner of our Redeemer entered on his public office of preaching is indicated to us by the name of the ruler of the Roman Commonwealth, and by those of the princes of Palestine. The time of his preaching is indicated by these names because he came as the Fore-runner of Him who was to be the Redeemer of some Jews and many Gentiles. Moreover in the enumeration of these worldly monarchs there is a foreshadowing of the fact that the Gentiles were about to be gathered into one, and the Jews to be scattered abroad in punishment of their unbelief. In the whole heathen Commonwealth we find the title of one Emperor, but in the small kingdom of Judaea are mentioned four masters.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The Church does not read anything from the Prophet Isaias today. She merely gives, in the Office of Matins, a sentence of that chapter of Saint Luke’s Gospel which relates the mystery of our Lady’s Visitation: and to this she subjoins a fragment of Saint Ambrose’s Homily upon that passage. The considerations and affections with which this important event of our Lady’s life ought to inspire the faithful will be given further on in the Proper of the Saints.
The Station for today is in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which many suppose to have been first built by Constantine, and in which the glorious bodies of the two holy Apostles Philip and James the Less, buried under the altar, await the second Coming of Him who chose them as his co-operators in the work of the first and who, on the last day, will give them to sit upon thrones near His own, judging the twelve Tribes of Israel (Matthew xix.).
Gospel – Luke i. 39
At that time: Mary arose, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth.
Praise be to you, O Christ. Homily – Saint Ambrose of Milan:
When anyone asks another for credence he is bound to give some reasonable ground. And so the Angel, when he announced to Mary the counsel of God, gave as a proof the conception of Elizabeth, then aged and barren, that Mary might perceive by this example that with God nothing is impossible. When the holy Virgin had heard it she arose and went to visit her cousin. She did not go to see if what she had heard was true, because she did not believe God or because she knew not who the messenger had been, or yet because she doubted the fact adduced in proof. She went joyfully as one who has received a mercy in answer to his vows goes to pay the same. She went with devotion, as a godly person goes to execute a religious duty. She went into the hill country in joyful haste. And is it not something that she went up into the hills? God was already in her womb, and her feeling bore her continually upward. The grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow working.
Lesson at Matins – Isaias xxxiii. 2‒17
O Lord, have mercy on us: for we have waited for you: be you our arm in the morning and our salvation in the time of trouble. At the voice of the Angel the people fled, and at the lifting up yourself the nations are scattered. And your spoils will be gathered together as the locusts are gathered, as when the ditches are full of them. The Lord is magnified, for He has dwelt on high: He has filled Sion with judgement and justice. And there will be faith in your times, riches of salvation, wisdom and knowledge: the fear of the Lord is his treasure. The sinners in Sion are afraid: trembling has seized upon the hypocrites. Which of you can dwell with devouring fire? Which of you will dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walks injustices, and speaks truth, that casts away avarice by oppression, and shakes his hands from all bribes, that stops his ears lest he hear blood, and shuts his eyes that he may see no evil. He will dwell on high, the fortifications of rocks will be his highness: bread is given him, his waters are sure. His eyes will see the King in his beauty; they will see the land far off.
Thanks be to God.Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Happy he whose eyes will thus contemplate the new-born King in the sweet majesty of His love and his Humility! He will be so taken with this His beauty that the Earth with all its magnificence, will appear as nothing in his eyes. The only thing he will care to look upon, will be upon Him that will be laid in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. But that we may have this happiness of closely contemplating the divine King who is coming to us, that we may merit to enter His court, we must do as the Prophet bids us: we must walk injustice and speak truth. Let us listen to the pious Rabanus Maurus who expresses this with much unction in his first Sermon on Preparation for the feast of Christmas:
“If at all times it behoves us to be adorned with the comeliness of good works, we should be so, with a special care, on the day of our Saviour’s birth. Consider within yourselves, my brethren, what you would do were a king or prince to invite you to come to celebrate his birthday. Your garments would be as new, as elegant, even as magnificent, as you could procure them, for you would think it an insult to him who invited you, were you to appear before him with anything upon you that was torn, or poor, or unclean. Show a like solicitude on the occasion of the coming Feast, and let your souls, beautified with the several ornaments of virtue, go forth to their King. He loves the pearls of simplicity and the flowers of chaste sobriety: wear them therefore. Let your consciences be composed in a holy calm now that the solemn feast of Jesus’ Nativity is so close upon us. Assist at it lovely in your chastity, gorgeous in your charity, beauteous by your alms-deeds, brilliant with justice and humility and, above all, radiant in the love of God. If the Lord Jesus will see you thus when you keep His feast, believe me, He will do more than visit your souls. He will treat you with such familiarity that He will choose them for his favourite abode, and there He will dwell forever, as it is written: Behold! I will come, and I will dwell with them; and they will be my people, and I will be their God.”
Christians, you have no time to lose: quickly prepare yourselves for this great visit. Let sinners be converted and become just: let the just become more just. Let the holy become more holy, for He that is coming is the Lord our God, and none else.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
This, the eighth day from that on which we kept the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, is the Octave properly so called, whereas the other days were simply called days within the Octave. The custom of keeping up the principal Feasts for a whole week is one of those which the Christian Church adopted from the Synagogue. God had thus spoken in the Book of Leviticus: “The first day will be called most solemn and most holy, you must do no servile work therein... The eighth day also will be most solemn and most holy, and you must offer holocausts to the Lord, for it is the day of assembly and congregation; you must do no servile work therein” (Leviticus xxiii. 35, 36). We also read in the Book of Kings that Solomon having called all Israel to Jerusalem, for the dedication of the Temple, suffered not the people to return home until the eighth day. We learn from the Books of the New Testament that this custom was observed in our Saviour’s time, and we find Him authorising, by His own example, this solemnity of the Octave. Thus, we read in Saint John that Jesus once took part in one of the Jewish Festivals, about the midst of the Feast (John vii. 14) of Zachary opened, and He prophesied, saying, and the same Evangelist relating how our Lord cried out to the people: “If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink”: observes, that it was on the last and great day of the festivity (John vii. 37).
In the Christian Church, there are two kinds of Octaves: Privileged Octaves and Non-privileged Octaves. The first are so solemn that no feast of a Saint, occurring during them can be kept, but must be transferred to some other time out of the Octave. Neither, during these Octaves, can a Mass De Requiem be said unless the corpse be present for burial. Non-privileged Octaves admit the Feasts of Saints which occur during them, provided they are semi-doubles or of higher class. But a commemoration of the Octave must be made both in the Office and the Mass of the Feast, which thus takes precedence of the Octave, unless this Feast be itself one of a first or second Class. The Octave of the Immaculate Conception, the first that occurs in the Liturgical Year, is not privileged. It gives place, not only to the Sunday, but also to the feasts of Saint Damasus and Saint Lucy, and to the various local feasts which are of a double or semi-double rite.
Let us once more devoutly reverence the Mystery of Mary’s Immaculate Conception: our Emmanuel loves to see His Mother honoured. After all, is it not for Him and for His sake that this Bright Star was prepared from all eternity, and created when the happy time fixed by the divine decree came? When we honour the Immaculate Conception of Mary, it is really to the divine Mystery of the Incarnation that we are paying our just homage. Jesus and Mary cannot be separated, for Isaias tells us that She is the Branch, and He the Flower (Isaias xi. 1).
*****
We give you thanks, O Jesus our Emmanuel, because you have granted us to live during the time that the privilege of your Blessed Mother was proclaimed on this Earth: the glorious privilege with which you enriched the first instant of the life of the happy creature from whom you took upon yourself our human nature! This Definition of your Church has given us a clearer knowledge of your infinite holiness. It has taught us to see more distinctly the harmony there is in all your divine mysteries. But it also has impressed upon us the great truth that we ourselves, being destined to the most intimate union with you here, and to the face-to-face vision of your infinite Majesty hereafter, must labour without ceasing to purify ourselves from the smallest stains of sin. You have said: “Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God” (Matthew v. 8) and you show us by the dogma of your Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Conception, what is the purity which your sovereign sanctity demands of us. By the love which led you to preserve her from every stain of sin, have mercy on us who are her devoted children. You are so soon to be among us! Before many days are past, we will have yielded to yourinvitations and have presumed to approach your sacred crib. We are not yet ready, dear Jesus! The effects of original sin are still so plainly upon us, and, what is worse, there are so many of our own sins which we have added to this of our first parent: Oh prepare our hearts and our senses, for we will not approach to Bethlehem unworthily. The sinless purity of your Mother is not for us. We ask not for that , but we ask for forgiveness of our countless sins, for conversion, for hatred of the world and the world’s maxims, and for perseverance in your holy love.
O Mary! Created Mirror of divine Justice and purer than the Cherubim and Seraphim, in return for the homage paid you by this our generation, on that blissful day when the glory of your Immaculate Conception was proclaimed throughout the world, give us that abundant richness of your protecting love which you reserved till now. The world is shaken to its very foundations: your hand can help it to rest again. Hell has let loose upon mankind the most terrible of its spirits of wickedness who breathe but blasphemy and destruction, but at the same time the Church of your Jesus feels that her youth has been renewed within her, and that the seed of the divine word is broadcast and healthy in a thousand fresh portions of the Earth. Never was the battle more fierce on both sides: so that we need all our hope to make us feel that Hell will not prevail. Is this the great struggle which is to be followed by the day of judgement ?
O Blessed Mother of Jesus! O Queen of the universe! Can it be that the Star of your Immaculate Conception has shone in the heavens only to light up the ruin and wreck of this Earth? The sign foretold by the Beloved Disciple Saint John of the Woman that appeared in the heavens clad with the Sun, bearing on her head a crown of twelve stars, and crushing the Crescent beneath her feet (Apocalypse xii. 1) — has it not more brightness and power than that other which appeared in the heavens telling men that God’s anger was appeased, and that the deluge was over?
The light which shines upon us is from a Mother. It is our Mother that comes to console and heal us. It is Heaven that smiles upon poor guilty Earth. We have deserved the chastisement we have received, and more than we have received but the anger of God will give way, and He will spare us. The graces which God poured out upon the world on that great Day of the Church's Definition of Mary’s Immaculate Conception were not to be without their effect: a new period then commenced. Mary, on whom heresy had heaped its blasphemies for [four] hundred years, will again reign in the love of those whom her Son redeemed. Countries will abandon those errors which have made them slaves and dupes of men’s doctrines. The old serpent will again writhe under that crushing pressure which God set up from the beginning, and the divine Sun of Justice will pour out on the regenerated world the floods of a light more than ever dazzling and resplendent. We may not live to see that time but we have signs of its near approach.
It was in the last century that your devout servant whom the Church has placed upon her altars, Leonard of Porto-Maurizio, predicted that when this dogma of your Immaculate Conception should be defined, the world would enjoy a long period of peace. The troubles of the present time in which we are living are, we doubt not, a prelude to that happy peace during which the divine word will traverse the whole world unimpeded, and the Church Militant will reap her harvest for the Church in Heaven. Sweet Mother of our Jesus! The world was also in agitation in those times which preceded the birth of your divine Son, but peace reigned throughout the whole Earth when you gave it its Saviour in Bethlehem. Until that grand time comes when you will show to the world the magnificence of the power which God has given to you, assist us, each year, to prepare for the glorious solemnity of Christmas: pray for us that we may be cleansed from all our sins when that splendid Night comes, during which will be born of you Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Light eternal.
On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:The consecration of St. Eusebius (315‒371 AD), bishop of Vercelli, whose birthday is commemorated on the first of August. His feast is kept on the sixteenth of this month by order of Pope Benedict XIII.At Rome, the holy martyrs Irenaeus, Anthony, Theodore, Saturninus, Victor and seventeen others, who suffered for Christ in the persecution of Valerian.In Africa, the martyrdom of the Saints Faustinus, Lucius, Candidus, Caelian, Mark, Januarius and Fortunatus.In the same country, the holy bishop Valerian, who, being upwards of eighty years old, in the persecution of the Vandals under the Arian king Genseric, was asked to deliver the vessels of the church, and as he constantly refused, an order was issued to drive him all alone out of the city, and all were forbidden to allow him to stay either in their houses or on their land. For a long time he remained lying on the public road, in the open air, and thus, in the confession and defence of the Catholic verity, closed his blessed life.In the diocese of Orleans, St. Maximinus, confessor.In Georgia, beyond the Euxine sea, St. Christiana, who, though a slave, was so gifted with the power of working miracles that she converted the inhabitants of that country to the faith of Christ in the time of Constantine.And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The Church of Rome does not keep this day as a feast of any Saint. She simply recites the Office of the Feria unless it happen that the first Sunday of Advent fall on this first day of the month, in which case, the Office of that Sunday is celebrated. But should this first day of December be a simple Feria of Advent, we will do well to begin at once our considerations upon the preparations which were made for the merciful Coming of the Saviour of the world. Four thousand years of expectation preceded that Coming, and they are expressed by the four weeks of Advent, which we must spend before we come to the glorious festivity of our Lord’s Nativity. Let us reflect upon the holy impatience of the Saints of the Old Testament, and how they handed down, from age to age, the grand hope which was to be but hope to them since they were not to see it realised.
Let us follow, in thought, the long succession of the witnesses of the promise: Adam, and the first Patriarchs, who lived before the deluge. Then, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs of the Hebrew people. Then Moses, Samuel, David and Solomon. Then, the Prophets and the Maccabees and, at last, John the Baptist and his disciples. These are the holy ancestors of whom the book of Ecclesiasticus speaks,where it says: “Let us praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation” (Ecclesiasticus xliv. 1), and of whom the Apostle thus speaks to the Hebrews: “All these being approved by the testimony of faith, received not the promise. God providing some better thing for us, that they should not be perfected without us:” their faith was tried and approved, and yet they received not the object of the promises made to them. It was for us that God had reserved the stupendous gift, and therefore did not permit them to attain the object of their desires (Hebrews xi. 39, 40).
Let us honour them for their faith. Let us honour them as our veritable fathers, since it was in reward of their faith that our Lord remembered and fulfilled His merciful promise. Let us honour them, too, as the ancestors of the Messiah in the flesh. We may imagine each of them saying, as he lay on his dying bed, this solemn prayer to Him who alone could conquer death: “I will look for your salvation, O Lord!” It was the exclamation of Jacob, at his last hour, when he was pronouncing his prophetic blessings on his children: “and then,” says the Scripture, “he drew up his feet upon his bed, and died, and he was gathered to his people” (Genesis xlix. 32).
Thus did all these holy men, in quitting this life, go to await, far from the abode of eternal light, Him who was to come in due time and re-open the gate of Heaven. Let us contemplate them in this place of expectation, and give our grateful thanks to God who has brought us to His admirable Light without requiring us to pass through a Limbo of darkness. It is our duty to pray ardently for the Coming of the Deliverer who will break down by His Cross the gates of the prison, and will fill it with the brightness of His glory. During this holy season the Church is continually borrowing the fervent expressions of these Fathers of the Christian people, making them her own prayer for the Messiah to come. Let us turn to those great Saints and beg of them to pray that our work of preparation for Jesus’ coming to our hearts may be blessed by God.
On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY: The prophet Nahum, who was buried in Begabar. At Rome, the holy martyrs Diodorus, priest, and Marian, deacon, with many others, who by the command of the emperor Numerian, were made partakers of the glory of martyrdom. In the same city, the martyrdom of the saints Lucius, Rogatus, Cassian and Candida. The same day, St. Ansanus, martyr, who confessed Christ at Rome and was cast into prison in the time of the emperor Diocletian. Being afterwards conducted to Siena in Tuscany, he there ended the course of his martyrdom by decapitation. At Amelia in Umbria, St. Olympias, ex-consul, who was converted to the faith by blessed Firmina, and being tortured on the rack, consummated his martyrdom under Diocletian. At Arbele in Persia, St. Ananias, martyr. At Narni, St. Proculus, bishop and martyr, who after performing many good works, was beheaded by order of Totila, king of the Goths. At Casale, St. Evasius, bishop and martyr. At Milan, St. Castritian, bishop, who was eminent for virtues and the practice of pious and religious deeds in very troubled times for the Church. At Brescia, St. Ursicinus, bishop. At Noyon, St. Eligius, bishop, whose life is rendered illustrious by a considerable number of miracles. At Verdun, St. Agericus, bishop. The same day, St. Natalia, wife of the blessed martyr Adrian, under the emperor Diocletian. For a long time she served the holy martyrs detained in prison at Nicomedia, and when their combats were at an end, she repaired to Constantinople where she went peacefully to her repose in the Lord. And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins. Thanks be to God.