18 DECEMBER – THE EXPECTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This Feast which is now kept, not only throughout the whole of Spain, but in almost all the Churches of the Catholic world, owes its origin to the Bishops of the tenth Council of Toledo in 656. These Prelates having thought that there was an incongruity in the ancient practice of celebrating the feast of the Annunciation on the twenty-fifth of March inasmuch as this joyful solemnity frequently occurs at the time when the Church is intent upon the Passion of our Lord and is sometimes obliged to be transferred into Easter Time with which it is out of harmony for another reason — they decreed that, henceforth, in the Church of Spain there should be kept, eight days before Christmas, a solemn Feast with an Octave, in honour of the Annunciation, and as a preparation for the great solemnity of our Lord’s Nativity. In course of time, however, the Church of Spain saw the necessity of returning to the practice of the Church of Rome, and of those of the whole world, which solemnise the twenty-fifth of March as the day of our Lady’s Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God. But such had been, for ages, the devotion of the people for the Feast of the eighteenth of December, that it was considered requisite to maintain some vestige of it. They discontinued, therefore, to celebrate the Annunciation on this day but the faithful were requested to consider, with devotion, what must have been the sentiments of the Holy Mother of God during the days immediately preceding her giving him birth. A new Feast was instituted, under the name of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin’s Delivery. This Feast, which sometimes goes under the name of Our Lady of O, or the Feast of O, on account of the Great Antiphons which are sung during these days and, in a special manner, of that which begins O Virgo Virginum (which is still used in the Vespers of the Expectation together with the O Adonai, the Antiphon of the Advent Office) — is kept with great devotion in Spain. A High Mass is sung, at a very early hour, each morning during the Octave, at which all who are with child, whether rich or poor, consider it a duty to assist that they may thus honour our Lady’s Maternity and beg her blessing upon themselves.

It is not to be wondered at that the Holy See has approved of this pious practice being introduced into almost every other country. We find that the Church of Milan, long before Rome conceded this feast to the various dioceses of Christendom, celebrated the Office of our Lady’s Annunciation on the sixth and last Sunday of Advent, and called the whole week following the Hebdomada de Exceptato (for thus the popular expression had corrupted the word Expectato). But these details belong strictly to the archaeology of Liturgy, and enter not into the plan of our present work. Let us, then, return to the Feast of our Lady’s Expectation which the Church has established and sanctioned as a new means of exciting the attention of the faithful during these last days of Advent. Most just indeed it is, Holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire you had to see Him who had been concealed for nine months in your chaste womb; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also yours; to come to that blissful hour of his Birth, which will give Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy your desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery. Complete our preparation by your powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour is come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entering into our hearts.

THE GREAT ANTIPHON TO OUR LADY

O Virgin of virgins ! How shall this be! for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look ye wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Philippi in Macedonia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Rufus and Zosimus (107 AD), who were of the number of the disciples by whom the primitive church was founded among the Jews and Greeks. Their happy martyrdom is mentioned by St. Polycarp in his Epistle to the Philippians.

At Laodicea in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Theotimus and Basilian.

In Africa, the holy martyrs Quinctus, Simplicius and others, who suffered in the persecution of Decius and Valerian.

In the same country, St. Moysetes, martyr.

Also in Africa, the holy martyrs Victurus, Victor, Victorinus, Adjutor, Quartus and thirty others.

At Mopsuestia in Cilicia, St. Auxentius, bishop, who, while he was a soldier under Licinius, preferred to surrender his military insignia rather than to offer grapes to Bacchus. Having been made bishop, he was renowned for merit and rested in peace.

At Tours, St. Gratian, consecrated first bishop of that city by Pope St. Fabrian. Celebrated for many miracles, he calmly went to his repose in the Lord.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 DECEMBER – SECOND GREATER ANTIPHON

THE SECOND GREATER ANTIPHON

O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the flaming bush, and gaves him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

O Sovereign Lord! O Adonai! come and redeem us, not by your power, but by your humility. Heretofore, you showed yourself to Moses your servant in the midst of a mysterious flame. You gave your law to your people amid thunder and lightning. Now, on the contrary, you come not to terrify, but to save us. Your chaste Mother having heard the Emperor’s edict which obliges her and Joseph her Spouse to repair to Bethlehem, she prepares everything needed for your divine birth. She prepares for you, O Sun of Justice! the humble swathing-bands with which to cover your nakedness, and protect you, the Creator of the world, from the cold of that midnight hour of your Nativity! Thus it is that you will to deliver us from the slavery of our pride and show man that your divine arm is never stronger than when he thinks it powerless and still. Everything is prepared, then, dear Jesus! Your swathing-bands are ready for your infant limbs! Come to Bethlehem and redeem us from the hands of our enemies.

DECEMBER – EMBER DAYS IN ADVENT

Pope Saint Callistus instituted the Ember Days of abstinence, fasting and prayer (jejunia quatuor temporum). These days derive their name from the practice of fasting during the day and eating nothing until night when only ember-bread, a cake baked under the embers of the evening fire, was consumed. Ember Days were substituted for the pagan holidays (feriae) set aside by the Roman state for the purpose of invoking the blessing of the gods on the fruits of the fields. These were the Feriae Messis (in June or soon after) for the harvest, the Feriae Vindemiales (between 19 August—the festival of the Vinalia—and the September Equinox) for the vintage, and the Feriae Sementinae (in the week before the winter solstice in December) for the freshly-sown seed.

In the third century the fasts held for the Christian sanctification of the seasons took place in June, September and December (the fourth, seventh and tenth months of the Roman year which began in March). The days were not fixed until the fifth century when they became prescribed for Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in the third week of Advent, the first full week of Lent (jejunium vernum in Quadragesima), the week after Pentecost (jejunium aestivum in Pentecoste), and the third week in September (jejunium autumnale in mense septimo). Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were chosen because from the earliest days of the Church these were the days of the weekly fasts. Wednesday was selected because this was the day on which the Jews decided that Jesus should die, and Friday was chosen because that was the day on which He was crucified.

Just as we are grateful to the Lord for the hope of happiness to which we look forward, and for the better things for which He is preparing us, so we should also praise and give Him thanks for the earthly gifts which, each year, He bestows upon us. From the beginning He regulated the fertility of the earth, and fixed unalterably the laws of growth for each seed, that the kindly providence of the Creator might ever be visible. Everything which cornfields, vineyards, and olive gardens bring forth for mankind comes from the bountiful goodness of a merciful God.¹

On the first Ember days of the year, Wednesday and Friday in the first week of Lent, the scrutinies for ordination were made during the stational Mass. This consisted of the examination of candidates for the priesthood and deaconship who were to be ordained on the Saturday before Passion Sunday and on Holy Saturday. In the early Church it was the practice to ordain during a period of fasting. The process of scrutiny consisted of a notary (scriniarius) standing in an ambone and demanding three times whether anyone present had a charge to bring against any of the candidates.

We cannot be too deeply impressed with the blessing granted a people, whose priests are according to God’s own heart. To obtain such, no humiliation should be deemed too great, no supplication should be neglected. Whilst therefore, we thank God for the fruits of the earth, and humble ourselves for the sins we have committed, we should beg God to supply his Church with worthy pastors.²

Ember Days spread from Rome to all the of all by the suffragan dioceses of the Roman Church, and then in the rest of Italy and elsewhere. Later the Carlovingian emperors naturalised it everywhere except in Spain, and at Milan where they were introduced by Saint Charles Borromeo in the sixteenth century. In Wales they were called “procession weeks” and in Germany “holy fasts.”

1Pope Leo the Great (440-461).

2The Golden Manual, 44.

15 DECEMBER – THIRD (GAUDETE) SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Saint John the Baptist and the Pharisees (James Tissot 1886)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Today again the Church is full of joy, and the joy is greater than it was. It is true that her Lord is not come, but she feels that He is nearer than before, and therefore she thinks it just to lessen somewhat the austerity of this penitential season by the innocent cheerfulness of her sacred rites. And first, this Sunday has had the name of Gaudete given to it, from the first word of the Introit. It also is honoured with those impressive exceptions which belong to the fourth Sunday of Lent, called Laetare. The Organ is played at the Mass, the Vestments are Rose-colour, the Deacon resumes the dalmatic and the Sub-Deacon the tunic, and in Cathedral Churches the Bishop assists with the precious mitre. How touching are all these usages, and how admirable this condescension of the Church, with which she so beautifully blends together the unalterable strictness of the dogmas of faith and the graceful poetry of the formulae of her liturgy! Let us enter into her spirit and be glad on this third Sunday of her Advent because our Lord is now so near to us. Tomorrow we will resume our attitude of servants mourning for the absence of their Lord and waiting for Him: for every delay, however short, is painful and makes love sad.

The Station is kept in the Basilica of Saint Peter at the Vatican. This august temple, which contains the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, is the home and refuge of all the faithful of the world. It is but natural that it should be chosen to be witness both of the joy and the sadness of the Church. O Holy Roman Church, City of our Strength! Behold us your children assembled within your walls around the tomb of the Fisherman, the Prince of the Apostles, whose sacred relics protect you from their earthly shrine, and whose unchanging teaching enlightens you from Heaven. Yet, City of strength, it is by the Saviour who is coming that you are strong. He is your wall, for it is He that encircles with His tender mercy all your children. He is your bulwark, for it is by Him that you are invincible, and that all the powers of Hell are powerless to prevail against you. Open wide your gates that all nations may enter you, for you are mistress of holiness and the guardian of truth. May the old error, which sets itself against the faith, soon disappear and peace reign over the whole fold! O Holy Roman Church! You have forever put your trust in the Lord and He, faithful to His promise, has humbled before you the haughty ones that defied you, and the proud cities that were against you. Where now are the Caesars who boasted that they had drowned you in your own blood? Where the Emperors who would ravish the inviolate virginity of your faith? Where the Heretics who during the past centuries of your existence, have assailed every article of your teaching, and denied what they listed? Where the ungrateful Princes, who would fain make a slave of you, who had made them what they were? Where that Empire of Mahomet, which has so many times raged against you, for that you, the defenceless State, did arrest the pride of its conquests? Where the Reformers, who were bent on giving the world a Christianity in which you were to have no part? Where the more modern Sophists, in whose philosophy you were set down as a system that had been tried, and was a failure, and is now a ruin? And those Kings who are acting the tyrant over you, and those people that will have liberty independently and at the risk of truth, where will they be in another hundred years? Gone and forgotten as the noisy anger of a torrent, whilst you, holy Church of Rome, built on the immovable rock, will be as calm, as young, as unwrinkled as ever. Your path through all the ages of this world’s duration will be right as that of the just man. You will ever be the self-same unchanging Church, as you have been during the [two thousand] years past, while everything else under the sun has been but change. Whence this your stability, but from Him who is very Truth and Justice? Glory be to Him in you! Each year He visits you. Each year He he brings you new gifts with which you may go happily through your pilgrimage, and to the end of time He will visit you and renew you, not only with the power of that look with which Peter was renewed, but by filling you with Himself, as He did the ever glorious Virgin who is the object of your most tender love, after that which you bear to Jesus Himself. We pray with you, O Church, our Mother, and here is our prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus! Your name and your remembrance are the desire of our souls: they have desired you in the night, yea, and early in the morning have they watched for you!”

Epistle – Philippians iv. 4‒7

Brethren, rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men, for the Lord is near. Be nothing solicitous; but in everything by prayer let your petitions be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Nothing is more just than that we rejoice in the Lord. Both the Prophet and the Apostle excite us to desire the Saviour: both of them promise us Peace. Therefore, let us not be solicitous: The Lord is near. Near to His Church, and near to each of our souls. Who can be near so burning a fire and yet be cold? Do we not feel that He is coming to us in spite of all obstacles? He will let nothing be a barrier between Himself and us, neither His own infinite high majesty, nor our exceeding lowliness, nor our many sins. Yet a little while, and He will be with us. Let us go out to meet Him by these prayers, and supplications, and thanksgiving which the Apostle recommends to us. Let our zeal to unite ourselves with our holy mother the Church become more than ever fervent: now every day her prayers will increase in intense earnestness, and her longings after Him, who is her light and her love, will grow more ardent.

Gospel – John i. 19‒28

At that time the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to John, to ask him, “Who are you?” And he confessed, and did not deny; and he confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” and he said,” I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” and he answered, “No.” They said therefore to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What say you of yourself ?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah.” And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him, “Why then do you baptise, if you are not Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, saying, “I baptise with water; but there has stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not; the same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.” These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptising.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“There has stood One in the midst of you, whom you know not,” says Saint John the Baptist to them that were sent by the Jews. So that our Lord may be near, He may even have come, and yet by some be not known! This Lamb of God is the holy Precursor’s consolation: he considers it a singular privilege to be but the Voice which cries out to men to prepare the way of the Redeemer. In this Saint John is the type of the Church, and of all such as seek Jesus. Saint John is full of joy because the Saviour is come: but the men around him are as indifferent as though they neither expected nor wanted a Saviour. This is the third week of Advent, and are all hearts excited by the great tidings told them by the Church that the Messiah is near at hand. They who love Him not as their Saviour, do they fear Him as their Judge? Are the crooked ways being made straight? Are the hills being brought low? Are Christians seriously engaged in removing from their hearts the love of riches and the love of sensual pleasures? There is no time to lose: the Lord is near! If these lines should come under the eye of any of those Christians who are in this state of sinful indifference, we would conjure them to shake off their lethargy and render themselves worthy of the visit of the divine Infant: such a visit will bring them the greatest consolation here, and give them confidence hereafter, when our Lord will come to judge all mankind. Send your grace, O Jesus, still more plentifully into their hearts. compel them to go in, and permit not that it be said of the children of the Church, as Saint John said of the Synagogue: “There stands in the midst of you One, whom you know not.”

14 DECEMBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Heron, Arsenius, Isidore and Dioscorus, a boy. In the persecution of Decius, the first three were subjected to all the refinements of cruelty by the judge, who, seeing them displaying the same constancy, ordered that they should be cast into the fire. But Dioscorus, after repeated scourgings, was set free through the intervention of Providence for the consolation of the faithful.

At Antioch, the birthday of the holy martyrs Drusus, Zosimus and Theodore.

The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Justus and Abundius, who were cast into the flames in the time of the emperor Numerian and the governor Olybrius; but having escaped uninjured, they were struck with the sword.

At Rheims, the holy bishop Nicasius, his sister, the virgin Eutropia, and their companions, martyrs, who were put to death by barbarians hostile to the Church.

In the island of Cyprus, the birthday of blessed Spiridion, bishop. He was one of those confessors who were condemned to labour in the mines, after the plucking out of their right eye and the severing of the sinews of the left knee. This prelate was renowned for the gift of prophecy and glorious miracles, and in the council of Nicaea he confounded a heathen philosopher who insulted the Christian religion and brought him to the faith.

At Bergamo, St. Viator, bishop and confessor.

At Pavia, St. Pompey, bishop.

At Naples, in Campania, St. Agnellus, abbot. Illustrious by the gift of miracles, he was often seen with the standard of the cross delivering the city besieged by enemies.

At Ubeda, in Spain, St. John of the Cross, confessor, companion of St. Theresa in reforming the Carmelites. His feast is kept on the 24th of November.

At Milan, St. Matronian, hermit.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 DECEMBER - ACT OF REPARATION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

O sweet Jesus, Whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us prostrate before Your altar eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries, to which Your loving Heart is everywhere subject.

Mindful alas! that we ourselves have had a share in such great indignities, which we now deplore from the depths of our hearts, we humbly ask Your pardon and declare our readiness to atone by voluntary expiation not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those, who, straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity to follow You, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the vows of their baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Your Law.

We are now resolved to expiate each and every deplorable outrage committed against You; we are determined to make amends for the manifold offenses against Christian modesty in unbecoming dress and behavior, for all the foul seductions laid to ensnare the feet of the innocent, for the frequent violations of Sundays and holidays, and the shocking blasphemies uttered against You and Your Saints.

We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Your Vicar on earth and Your priests are subjected, for the profanation, by conscious neglect or terrible acts of sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of Your Divine Love; and lastly for the public crimes of nations who resist the rights and teaching authority of the Church which You have founded.

Would, O divine Jesus, we were able to wash away such abominations with our blood. We now offer, in reparation for these violations of Your divine honor, the satisfaction You once made to Your eternal Father on the cross and which You continue to renew daily on our altars; we offer it in union with the acts of atonement of Your Virgin Mother and all the Saints and of the pious faithful on earth; and we sincerely promise to make recompense, as far as we can with the help of Your grace, for all neglect of Your great love and for the sins we and others have committed in the past.

Henceforth we will live a life of unwavering faith, of purity of conduct, of perfect observance of the precepts of the gospel and especially that of charity. We promise to the best of our power to prevent other from offending You and to bring as many as possible to follow You.

O loving Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our model in reparation, deign to receive the voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation; and by the crowning gift of perseverance keep us faithful unto death in our duty and the allegiance we owe to You, so that we may one day come to that happy home, where You with the Father and the Holy Ghost live and reign, One God, world without end. Amen.

2 DECEMBER – MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias i. 16‒18

“Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely, learn to do well: seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. And then come, and accuse me,” says the Lord. “If your sins be as scarlet, they will be made as white as snow, and if they be red as crimson, they will be white as wool.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Saviour who is so soon to be with us and to save us, warns us not only to prepare ourselves to appear before Him, but also to purify our souls. “It is most just,” says Saint Bernard, “that the soul which was the first to fall should be the first to rise. Let us therefore defer caring for the body until the day when Jesus Christ will come and reform it by the Resurrection, for, in the first Coming, the Precursor says to us: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ Observe, he says not the maladies of the body, nor the miseries of the flesh. He says sins, which are the malady of the soul and the corruption of the spirit. Take heed then, you my body, and wait for your turn and time. You can hinder the salvation of the soul, and your own safety is not within your reach. Let the soul labour for herself, and strive you too to help her, for if you share in her sufferings, you will share in her glory. Retard her perfection, and you retard your own. You will not be regenerated until God sees His own image restored in the soul.”

Let us, then, purify our souls. Let us do the works of the spirit, not the deeds of the flesh. Our Saviour’s promise is most clear. He will turn the deep dye of our iniquities into the purest whiteness. He asks but one thing of us: that we sin no more. He says to us: “Cease to do perversely, and then come and accuse me, come and complain against me if I do not cleanse you.” O Jesus, we will not defer a single day of this holy season. We accept, from this moment, the conditions you offer us. We sincerely desire to make our peace with you, to bring the flesh into subjection to our spirit, to make good all the injustice we have committed against our neighbour, and to hush, by the sighs of our heart-felt compunction, that voice of our sins which has so long cried to you for vengeance.