18 DECEMBER – FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have now entered into the week which immediately precedes the birth of the Messiah. That long-desired Coming might be even tomorrow, and at furthest, that is, when Advent is as long as it can be, the beautiful feast is only seven days from us. So that the Church now counts the hours, she watches day and night, and since the 17th of December, her Offices have assumed an unusual solemnity. At Lauds, she varies the Antiphons each day, and at Vespers, in order to express the impatience of her desires for her Jesus, she makes use of the most vehement exclamations to the Messiah, in which she each day gives him a magnificent title, borrowed from the language of the Prophets.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians iv. 1‒5

Brethren, let men regard us as the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among the dispensers, that a man be found faithful. But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man’s day; but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of any thing, yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judges me, is the Lord. Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then will every man have praise from God.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Church here reminds the people of the dignity of the Christian priesthood. The occasion is an appropriate one, as the ordinations were held yesterday. She also brings before her sacred Ministers the obligation they have contracted of being faithful to the duties imposed upon them. But let not the flock judge their pastor, since all, both priest and people, are living in expectation of the day of our Saviour’s coming: not only of that second one, for which we are now preparing, but also of that last Coming which will be as terrible as the other two are dear to the hearts of men. After having spoken these words of stern admonition, the Church resumes the expressions of her hopes and her entreaties for the speedy coming of her Spouse.

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.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

You are near, O Lord, for the inheritance of your people has passed into the hands of the Gentiles, and the land which you promised to Abraham is now but a province of that vast empire to which your own is to succeed. The oracles of the Prophets are being rapidly fulfilled, each in its turn. The prediction of Jacob himself has been accomplished: The sceptre is taken from Judah. Everything is ready for your coming, O Jesus! Thus it is that you renew the face of the Earth. Deign, also, I beseech you, to renew my heart, and give me courage during these last few hours of my preparation for receiving you. I feel the need I have of withdrawing into solitude, of receiving the baptism of penance, of making straight all my ways: O divine Saviour, let all this be done in me, that so my joy may be full on the day of your coming.

10 DECEMBER – SATURDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias xxv. 1‒9

O Lord, you are my God, I will exalt you, and give glory to your name: for you have done wonderful things, your designs of old faithful. Amen. For you have reduced the city to a heap, the strong city to ruin, the house of strangers to be no city, and to be no more built up forever. Therefore will a strong people praise you, the city of mighty nations will fear you... Because you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat. And the Lord of hosts will make to all people, in this mountain, a feast of fat things, a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine purified from the lees. And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the bond with which all people are tied, and the web that He began over all nations. He will cast death down headlong forever: and the Lord God will wipe away tears from every face, and the reproach of his people he will take away from off the whole Earth: for the Lord has spoken it. And they will say in that day: “Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord, we have patiently waited for Him, and we will rejoice and be joyful in His salvation.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Yet a little while, and the conqueror of death will appear, and then, in the joy of our hearts, we will say: “Lo, this is our God: we have ~waited for Him, and He will save us. We have patiently waited for Him. This is He, and we will rejoice and be joyful in His salvation.” Let us, therefore, prepare the way of the Lord, that we may receive Him worthily, and in this work of our preparation, let us have recourse to Mary. Saturday is the day which is sacred to her. She will the more readily grant the prayers said to her upon it. Let us consider her in her grand privilege of being full of grace, carrying in her womb Him whom we so long to possess. If we ask her by what means she rendered herself worthy of such an immense favour, she will tell us that in her was simply fulfilled the prophecy which the Church so continually repeats during these days of Advent: “Every valley will be filled up.” The humble Mary was the valley blessed of the Lord, a valley beautiful and fertile in which God sowed the Divine Wheat, our Saviour, Jesus: for it is written in the Psalm that “the valleys will abound with corn” (Psalm lxiv. 14).

O Mary, it was your humility that drew down upon you the admiration of your Creator. If, from the high Heaven where He dwells, He had perceived a Virgin more humble in her love, He would have chosen her in preference to you: but no, it was you that won His predilection, O mystic valley, ever verdant and lovely in your flowers of grace. We that, like high hills, are so proud and such sinners, what shall we do? We must look on this God of ours who comes to us in infinite humility and then humble ourselves out of love and gratitude. O Blessed Mother! Obtain this grace for us. Pray for us that henceforth we may submit ourselves to the will of our Lord as you did when you spoke those admirable words: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord : may it be done to me according to thy word!”

3 DECEMBER – SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER (Confessor)

Francis was born of noble parents, at Xavier, in the diocese of Pampelona, Spain, in. Having gone to Paris, he there became the companion and disciple of Saint Ignatius. Under such a master, he arrived at so high a contemplation of divine things as to be sometimes raised above the ground: which occasionally happened to him while saying Mass before crowds of people. He had merited these spiritual delights by his severe mortifications of the body, for he never allowed himself either flesh meat, or wine, or even wheaten bread, and ate only the coarsest food. He not infrequently abstained, for the space of two or three days, from every sort of nourishment. He scourged himself so severely with disciplines, to which were fastened pieces of iron, as to be frequently covered with blood. His sleep, which he took on the ground, was extremely short.

Such austerity and holiness of life had fitted him for the labours of an Apostle, so that when King John III of Portugal asked of Pope Paul III that some of the newly-founded Society of Jesus might be sent to the Indies, that Pontiff, by the advice of Saint Ignatius, selected Francis for so important a work, and gave him the powers of Apostolic Nuncio. Having reached those parts, he was found to be, on a sudden, divinely gifted with the knowledge of the exceedingly difficult and varied languages of the several countries. It sometimes even happened, that while he was preaching in one language to the people of several nations, each heard him speaking in their own tongue. He travelled over innumerable provinces, always on foot, and not infrequently bare footed. He carried the faith into Japan, and six other countries. He converted to Christ many hundred thousands in the Indies, and baptised several Princes and Kings.

And yet, though he was doing such great things for God, he was so humble, that he never wrote to Saint Ignatius, the then General of the Society, but on his knees. God blessed this zeal for the diffusion of the Gospel by many and extraordinary miracles. The Saint restored sight to a blind man. By the sign of the cross he changed sea-water into fresh, sufficient, for many days, for a crew of 500 men who were dying from thirst. This water was afterwards taken into several countries, and being given to sick people, they were instantly cured. He raised several dead men to life. One of these had been buried on the previous day, so that the corpse had to be taken out of the grave. Two others were being carried to the grave when the Saint took them by the hand and, raising them from the bier, restored them to their parents. Being continually gifted with the spirit of prophecy, he foretold many future events, or such as were happening in most distant parts.

At length, full of merit, and worn out by his labours, he died on the second day of December, in Sancian, an island off the coast of China. His corpse was twice buried in unslaked lime, but was found, after several months, to be incorrupt: blood flowed from it, and it exhaled a pleasing fragrance. When it was brought to Malacca, it instantly arrested a most raging pestilence. At length, fresh and extraordinary miracles being everywhere wrought through the intercession of the man of God, he was enrolled among the Saints by Pope Gregory XV.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Apostles being the heralds of the Coming of the Messiah, it was fitting that Advent should have in its calendar the name of some one among them. Divine Providence has provided for this, for to say nothing of Saint Andrew whose feast is often past before the season of Advent has commenced, Saint Thomas’ day is unfailingly kept immediately before Christmas. We will explain later on why Saint Thomas holds that position rather than any other Apostle. At present we simply assert the fitness of there being at least one of the Apostolic College who should announce to us, in this period of the Catholic cycle, the Coming of the Redeemer. But God has not wished that the first Apostolate should be the only one to appear on the first page of the liturgical calendar. Great also, though in a lesser degree, is the glory of that second Apostolate by which the Spouse of Jesus Christ multiplies her children, even in her fruitful old age, as the Psalmist expresses it (Psalm cxi. 15). There are Gentiles who have still to be evangelised. The Coming of the Messiah is far from having been announced to all nations. Now, of all the valiant messengers of the divine Word who have, during the last few hundred years, proclaimed the good tidings among infidel nations, there is not one whose glory is greater, who has worked greater wonders, or who has shown himself a closer imitator of the first Apostles, than the modern Apostle of the Indies, Saint Francis Xavier.

Yes, the life and apostolate of this wonderful man were a great triumph for our Mother the holy Catholic Church, for Saint Francis came just at the period when heresy, encouraged by false learning, by political intrigues, by covetousness and by all the wicked passions of the human heart, seemed on the eve of victory. Emboldened by all these, this enemy of God spoke with the deepest contempt of that ancient Church which rested on the promises of Jesus Christ. It declared that she was unworthy of the confidence of men, and dared even to call her the harlot of Babylon, as though the vices of her children could taint the purity of the Mother. God’s time came at last, and He showed Himself in His power: the garden of the Church suddenly appeared rich in the most admirable fruits of sanctity. Heroes and heroines issued from that apparent barrenness, and while the pretended Reformers showed themselves to be the wickedest of men, two single countries — Italy and Spain — gave to the world the most magnificent Saints.

One of these is brought before us today, claiming our love and our praise. The Calendar of the Liturgical Year will present to us, from time to time, his contemporaries and his companions in divine grace and heroic sanctity. The sixteenth century is, therefore, worthy of comparison with any other age of the Church. The so-called Reformers of those times gave little proof of their desire to convert infidel countries, when their only zeal was to bury Christianity beneath the ruin of her churches. But at that very time, a society of Apostles was offering itself to the Roman Pontiff that he might send them to plant the true faith among people who were sitting in the thickest shades of death. But, we repeat, not one of these holy men so closely imitated the first Apostles as did Francis, the disciple of Ignatius. He had all the marks and labours of an Apostle: an immense world of people evangelised by his zeal, hundreds of thousands of infidels baptised by his indefatigable ministration, and miracles of every kind, which proved him, to the infidel, to be marked with the sign which they received who, living in the flesh, planted the Church, as the Church speaks in her Liturgy. So that in the sixteenth century the East received from the ever holy city of Rome an Apostle who, by his character and his works, resembled those earlier ones sent her by Jesus Himself. May our Lord Jesus be forever praised for having vindicated the honour of the Church, His Spouse, by raising up Francis Xavier and giving to men, in this His servant, a representation of what the first Apostles were, whom He sent to preach the Gospel when the whole world was pagan.

*****

Glorious Apostle of Jesus Christ who imparted His divine light to the nations that were sitting in the shadows of death! We, though unworthy of the name of Christians, address our prayers to you that, by the charity which led you to sacrifice everything for the conversion of souls, you would deign to prepare us for the visit of the Saviour whom our faith and our love desire. You were the father of infidel nations. Be the protector during this holy season of them that believe in Christ. Before your eyes had contemplated the Lord Jesus, you made Him known to countless people. Now that you see Him him face to face, obtain for us that when He is come, we may see Him with that simple and ardent faith of the Magi, those glorious first-fruits of the nations to which you bore the admirable light (1 Peter ii. 9).

Remember also, O great Apostle, those nations which you evangelised and where now, by a terrible judgement of God, the word of life has ceased to bring forth fruit. Pray for the vast empire of China on which you looked when dying, but which was not blessed with your preaching. Pray for Japan, your dear garden which has been laid waste by the savage wild beast, of which the Psalmist speaks. May the blood of the Martyrs which was poured out on that land like water, bring it the long expected fertility. Bless, too, all the Missions which our holy Mother the Church has undertaken in those lands where the Cross has not yet triumphed. May the heart of the infidel be opened to the grand simplicity and light of faith. May the seed bring forth fruit a hundred-fold. May the number of your successors in the new apostolate ever increase. May their zeal and charity fail not. May their toil receive its reward of abundant fruit, and may the crown of martyrdom which they receive be not only the recompense, but the perfection and the triumph of their apostolic ministry. Recommend to our Lord the innumerable members of that Association which is the means of the Faith being propagated through the world, and which has you for its Patron. Pray, with a filial affection and earnestness, for that holy Society of which you are so bright an ornament, and which reposes on you its firmest confidence. May it more and more flourish under the storm of trial which never leaves it in rest. May it be multiplied so that the children of God may be multiplied by its labours. May it ever have ready, for the service of the Christian world, zealous Apostles and Doctors. May it not be in vain that it bears the name of Jesus.

*****

Let us consider the wretched condition of the human race at the time of Christ’s coming into the world. The ancient traditions are gradually becoming extinct. The Creator is not acknowledged, even in the very work of His hands. Everything has been made God, except the God who made all things. This frightful Pantheism produces the vilest immorality, both in society at large, and in individuals. There are no rights acknowledged save that of might. Lust, avarice and theft are honoured by men in the gods of their altars. There is no such thing as Family, for divorce and infanticide are legalised. Mankind is degraded by a general system of slavery. Nations are being exterminated by endless wars. The human race is in the last extreme of misery, and unless the hand that created it reforms it, it must needs sink a prey to crime and bloodshed. There are indeed some few just men still left upon the Earth, and they struggle against the torrent of universal degradation. But they cannot save the world: the world despises them, and God will not accept their merits as a palliation of the hideous leprosy which covers the Earth. All flesh has corrupted its way and is more guilty than even in the days of the deluge. And yet a second destruction of the universe would but manifest anew the justice of God. It is time that a deluge of His divine mercy should flood the universe, and that He who made man, should come down and heal him. Come then, O eternal Son of God! Give life again to this dead body. Heal all its wounds. Purify it. Let grace superabound where sin before abounded, and having converted the world to your holy law, you will have proved to all ages that you who earnest, was in very truth the Word of the Father. For as none but a God could create the world, so none but the same omnipotent God could save it from Satan and sin, and restore it to justice and holiness.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Judea, the holy prophet Sophonias.

At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius, tribune, and Hilaria, his wife, with Jason and Maurus, their sons, and seventy soldiers. By the command of the emperor Numerian, Claudius was fastened to a large stone and precipitated into the river. The soldiers and the sons of Claudius were condemned to capital punishment. But blessed Hilaria, after having buried the bodies of her sons, and while praying at their tomb, was arrested by pagans and shortly after departed for heaven.

At Tangier in Morocco, St. Cassian, martyr. After having been a recorder for a long time, at length, through the inspiration of heaven, he deemed it an execrable thing to contribute to the massacre of Christians, and therefore abandoned his office, and making profession of Christianity, deserved to obtain the triumph of martyrdom.

Also in Africa, the holy martyrs Claudius, Crispinus, Magina, John and Stephen.

In Hungary, St. Agricola, martyr.

At Nicomedia, the Saints Ambicus, Victor and Julius.

At Milan, St. Mirocles, bishop and confessor, sometimes mentioned by St. Ambrose.

In England, St. Birinus, first bishop of Dorchester.

At Coire in Switzerland, St. Lucius, king of the Britons, who as the first of those kings who received the faith of Christ in the time of Pope Eleutherius.

At Siena, in Tuscany, St. Galganus, hermit.

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

Thanks be to God.

2 DECEMBER – FRIDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias vi. 1‒3

In the year that King Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and His train filled the temple. Upon it stood the Seraphim: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings: with two they covered His face, and with two they covered His feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another, and said: “Holy, Holy, Holy the Lord God of Hosts: all the Earth is full of His glory.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Such is the glory of the Lord in the highest heavens: who could see it and live? But now, contemplate this same Lord upon our Earth during the days which have dawned on us. The womb of a Virgin contains Him whom Heaven cannot contain. To Angels His beauty is visible, but it dazzles them not: to men, it is not even visible. Not a single voice is heard saying to Him those words of Heaven: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Hosts!” The Angels no longer say of Him: “All the Earth is full of His glory,” for the Earth is witness of His abasement, and an abasement so abject and low that the inhabitants of the Earth do not even know it. At first, there was but one who knew the divine secret — the Virgin Mother. After her, Elizabeth was admitted to know that her cousin was Mother of God, and then, after the most painful and humiliating suspicions, the great mystery was revealed by an Angel to Joseph. So that only three on Earth know that God has come down upon it! Thus humbly did He re-enter the world after the sin of pride had driven Him out of it.

O GOD of the ancient Covenant, how great you are! And who would not tremble before you? O God of the new Covenant, how little you have made yourself! Who would not love you? Heal my pride, the source of all my sins! Teach me to value what you so much valued. By your Incarnation you do a second time create the world, and in this second creation, more excellent than the first, you work by silence and your triumph is won by self-annihilation. I wish to humble myself after your example and to profit by the lessons which a God came down so low to give me. Lay low all that is high and lifted up within me, my Jesus, for this is one of the ends of your Coming. I abandon myself to you, as to my Sovereign Master! Do with me and in me what you will.

1 DECEMBER – THURSDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias v. 1‒7

I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill, in a fruitful place. And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest wines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a wine press therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it has brought forth wild grapes? And now I will show you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it will be wasted; I will break down the wall thereof, and it will be trodden down. And I will make it desolate: it will not be pruned, and it will not be dug, but briars and thorns will come up, and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do judgement, and behold iniquity; and do justice, and behold a cry.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We are awaiting the birth of a child who is to appear seven hundred years after the time of Isaias, and this child will be the world’s Saviour. Men will persecute Him, load Him with calumnies and injuries, and, but a few hours before they crucify Him they will hear this parable from His lips: “There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen: and went into a strange country. And when the time of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits thereof And the husbandmen laying hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another and stoned another. Again he sent other servants more than the former, and they did to them in like manner. And last of all, he sent to them his son, saying: They will reverence my son” (Matthew xx. 33‒37). See, Christians, this Son is coming to you. Will you reverence Him? Will you treat him as the Son of God, with that honour and love which are due to Him? Take notice of the wickedness of men. It has a progress in malice. In the days of Isaias the Jews despised the Prophets, but the Prophets, though sent by God, were only men. The Son of God came and they would not acknowledge Him: a far greater crime, assuredly, than to stone the Prophets. What, then, would be the crime of Christians who not only acknowledge Him who is now coming to them, but are His members by Baptism, if they will not open their hearts to this Messiah whom the Father is sending into the vineyard? What punishment would not the ungrateful vine deserve, planted, as it has been, with so much love, should it persist in yielding nothing but bitter fruit? Ah, dear Jesus! let not this be: make us generous: make us produce abundant flower and fruit for the day of your Coming which is so near at hand.