Category: Advent

“God Triumphed in the Person of Christ”
Reflections on the Liturgical Year
Part I: The Advent Mystery
Kurt Belsole, O.S.B.
Revised: November 25, 2016

“God triumphed in the person of Christ” (Col. 2:15). The sacred liturgy cannot be understood except as “the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) and as the “mystery now revealed to his holy ones” (Col. 1:26). This mystery is at one and the same time both cosmic and intensely personal. It involves not only the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, but also divine and human destiny. The sacred liturgy celebrates this divine and human interchange both in the person of Christ and in us as we “become partakers in the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). Liturgy is not about itself, but about living the life of Christ in His Mysteries–to borrow a title from Blessed Columba Marmion.

The Season of Advent

Background to the Celebration

Advent is fundamentally the season of desire, first of all of God’s desire for us and then of our desire for God. “We have come to know and believe in the love God has for us” (1 Jn. 4:16), and without this fundamental conviction we can neither understand nor celebrate the Advent mysteries in all their fullness.

Divine desire itself animates the whole of the Advent mystery. God desires us so much that he humbles himself to become one of us. Through the mystery of the incarnation, the Son of God comes into our world not only to save us but also to bring us into union with him. Life is not only communicated, but life is shared, so much so that he who is the Savior actually becomes the Spouse of his Bride the Church.

The mystery of Advent is tied as well to the virtue of Christian hope—when we recognize the plan of God and think of “what could be” and long for it with all our heart. That hope, however, relies on the grace of God and the willingness of the human heart to change, to be converted, to be transformed and indeed to be transfigured. The Advent season is characterized by hope, but a hope that abandons itself to divine sovereignty in watching, waiting, and conversion. It draws us into a hopeful expectation that is spurred on by readings from Isaiah and Ezekiel, the preaching of John the Baptist, and the response of the Virgin Mary.

Some Characteristics of the Advent Liturgy

Advent has a twofold character both as a time to prepare for Christmas when the first coming of Christ is remembered and celebrated as well as a time when our minds and hearts are directed to await and to prepare for the second coming of Christ (see General Norms for the Liturgical Year, 39).

The first part of Advent focuses more on the second coming of Christ while, as the season progresses, the focus turns more and more to preparation for Christmas. The days from December 17th to December 24 serve as a more intense time of preparation for the celebration of the Lord’s Nativity. Mass on those days has special readings, prayers, and antiphons as well as a proper preface.

In the Liturgy of the Hours, the hymn assigned after the Second Vatican Council to Evening Prayer every day during the season of Advent until December 17th is the great traditional 7th century vespers hymn Conditor alme siderum which is also known in its English translation by John Mason Neale as Creator of the Stars of Night.

The marvelous “O Antiphons” of the Magnificat begin with Evening Prayer on December 17th and continue until Evening Prayer on December 23rd inclusive. Each of these antiphons begins with an invocation of the expected Messiah and, in the Office, is sung in a similar characteristic melody. One of the reforms of Vatican Council II was to place the “O Antiphons” of the Magnificat within Mass as the Alleluia verse before the gospel.

Some Historical Developments in the Liturgy of Advent

Certain particulars of the Advent liturgy have their origin in Gaul at the turn of the seventh century, e.g., the eschatological dimension of Advent was sharply accented, perhaps because of the influence of Irish missionaries who laid stress on the coming of the Lord as Judge at the end of time and on the need to do penance before the Lord’s return. Their preaching turned Advent into a penitential season. In liturgies of Gaul, the Gloria and Alleluia were dropped from the Mass; the Te Deum was dropped from the Office and violet vestments were used.

By the twelfth century, something of this penitential character was transmitted from Gaul to the Roman liturgy: the Gloria was omitted and violet vestments were used, but the Alleluia was retained. Today in the Liturgy of the Hours, the Te Deum is retained as well.

Recommended Bibliography on the Liturgical Year

Adam, Adolph. The Liturgical Year. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. New York: Pueblo, 1981. This is a fine one-volume work which gives a scholarly summary presentation of the Church’s liturgical year.

Nocent, Adrian. The Liturgical Year. Four volumes. Translated by Matthew J. O’Connell. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1977. These four volumes are essential components of the library of anyone seriously interested in understanding the liturgical year as revised after the Second Vatican Council. Fr. Nocent, a Belgian Benedictine, was a professor at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute at Sant’Anselmo for decades, and these four volumes which are still in print will serve well anyone who wishes to foster full, active, and conscious participation in the liturgy of the Church. In these volumes, Fr. Nocent relies heavily on patristic homilies as he provides biblico-liturgical reflections on the seasons of the liturgical year and then presents the reader with scholarly insight on the structures and themes of the readings for Mass. The present edition by Liturgical Press is in three volumes.

Parsch, Pius. The Church’s Year of Grace. Five volumes. Translated by William Heidt. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1953-1959. Fr. Parsch, an Augustinian canon of Stift Klosterneuburg outside of Vienna and an ardent apostle of the liturgical movement before Vatican II, first published this multivolume work in German in the 1930’s. Its success is attested to by the fact that it was subsequently translated into French, Italian, English, and Spanish. Fr. Parsch’s work provides a comprehensive consideration of the liturgical year as it was arranged at that time as well as helpful information on Catholic customs related to the Church’s annual celebrations. These volumes are useful not only for those interested in the Extraordinary Form but also for anyone concerned with the theological and cultural context of Catholic feasts.

Source: Rev. Kurt Belsole, OSB, Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA
www.liftupyourhearts.church

The Season of Advent: What Differences Might We Notice in Church

When the season of Advent arrives, there are some changes that people often notice in Church. Probably the most obvious of these is that the color of the vestments changes to violet. On the Third Sunday of Advent, which is also called Gaudete Sunday, as the Advent season is already half over, the joy of the Nativity begins to break in and on that day rose colored vestments may be used.

Also, the hymn Glory to God in the highest is omitted at Mass, and  one will find that there is a certain moderation in the decoration of the altar. While flowers may still be used, the decoration of the altar should not express the full joy of the Nativity of the Lord. The same can be said of the use of the organ and other musical instruments. They are used with a certain moderation that does not anticipate the great celebration of Christmas.

In churches where the daily homily is not already an established practice, a homily is strongly recommended on the weekdays of Advent for the sake of the faithful who regularly take part in the celebration of Mass.

Biblical figures who are especially prominent during the Advent season are the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Prophet Isaiah, and St. John the Baptist. The season of Advent cannot be understood without taking into account their role in the fulfillment of God’s plan in Christ for our salvation.

Source: Rev. Kurt Belsole, OSB, Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA
www.liftupyourhearts.church

The Season of Advent

The season of Advent begins on the First Sunday of Advent and continues until Christmas. This season has a two-fold character. First of all, it is a time when we focus on waiting in joyful expectation for the second coming of the Lord at the end of time. For that reason, on the First Sunday of Advent, we hear in the gospels of the three-year cycle about staying awake for the coming of the Son of Man, about being watchful and alert since we do not know when he will come, and about the Son of Man coming with power and great glory.

As Advent progresses, however, the first coming of Christ becomes more prominent. He is the Son of God and the Son of Mary as well as the baby born in Bethlehem who will suffer, die, and rise again for our salvation. The Second Sunday of Advent, therefore, has John the Baptist crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord. The Third Sunday of Advent again features John the Baptist hearing about the miracles of Christ, instructing the people that there is one among them whose sandal strap he is not worthy to untie, and then teaching that there is someone mightier than he who is coming and who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Then, at last, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we hear in the gospel of how the birth of Jesus Christ came about, of Mary saying to the Archangel Gabriel: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, and the exclamation of Elizabeth at the visitation: How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Source: Rev. Kurt Belsole, OSB, Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, PA
www.liftupyourhearts.church

The Conditor Alme Siderum

The Hymn for Evening Prayer in Advent until December 16^th (inclusive)

Revised: November 25, 2016

The hymn Conditor Alme Siderum (Creator of the Stars of Night), by an unknown author, is of the Ambrosian (Milanese) school and from at least the 9^th century.  The Liturgy of the Hours as revised by Pope Paul VI, consistent with the tradition, has assigned it to the season of Advent.  In the manuscripts, it is found in the Vatican, Benedictine, Carmelite, Cistercian, and Premonstratensian Offices.

The Conditor Alme Siderum, in iambic dimeter, is one of the hymns that was revised in 1632 by a commission under the direction of Pope Urban VIII, a Humanist pope, in order for the hymns to reflect the forms and meters of classical Latin rather than Christian Latin.  That is why some know this hymn as Creator Alme Siderum.  Only the canons of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the canons of Saint John Lateran, and the ancient religious orders retained the original version of the hymns.  The original version of this and the other hymns of the Office were restored to the Liturgy of the Hours under the direction of Pope Paul VI.

Remarkable in its poetry and direct in its expression, this is one of the hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours that the Church uses to introduce us to the mysteries of Christ as celebrated throughout the liturgical year.  As the days become shorter and the light of the sun diminishes, Christ is invoked as the Creator of the stars (Jn. 1:3 Omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est/all things were made through him and without him nothing was made) and the eternal light of those who believe—a theme which is also found in the hymn for Morning Prayer for Advent, the Vox Clara Ecce Intonat (Jn. 1: 9 Erat lux vera quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in mundum/He was the true light who enlightens everyone who comes into the world).  Already this hymn anticipates the victory of light over darkness, which we will celebrate on Christmas Day as the Light of the World is born among us.  Nonetheless, the theme of Christ as Judge, which we find dominating the first part of Advent, is present as well.

The Conditor Alme Siderum binds together in a marvelous way the first and the final comings of Christ.  In its initial two verses, this hymn invokes the Lord as the redeemer of all, one who is saddened at the destruction of the world through sin, and the medicine for those who have fallen.  Its third verse focuses on the Incarnation of the Word when the fullness of time had come and when the world had come to eventide.  It is then that the Lord as a bridegroom from his bridal chamber is born of the most pure womb of the Virgin Mother.  To understand the expression of the world coming to its close, one should keep in mind that for the ancient Christian, it was customary to divide the age of the world into six periods: the first from Adam to Noah, the second from Noah to Abraham, the third from Abraham to David, the fourth from David to the Babylonian captivity, the fifth from the Babylonian captivity to Christ, and the sixth from Christ to the final judgment.

The cosmic sense of the sacred liturgy is found in verse four where it echoes Saint Paul’s hymn in his Letter to the Philippians 2:10 speaking of how all things in heaven and on earth bend the knee to Christ and profess that they are subject to him as Lord.  Verse five then addresses Christ as the one who will come to judge the world, and the Church prays that, during this present time, the Lord preserve us from our treacherous foe.  Nevertheless, the theme of Christ as Judge reminds us of Saint Augustine writing the following: “How good it will be to have as judge, someone who a short time ago was our advocate before the Father” (see 1 Jn. 2:1).  Finally, the hymn concludes in the customary way with the doxology to the Most Blessed Trinity.

Bibliography

Ernetti, Pellegrino. Gli Inni della Liturgia delle Ore: Testo Latino e Versione Ritmica Italiana.  Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore, 1981.

General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours. Translation and Commentary by Reverend Willian A. Jurgens. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1975.

Lentini, Anselmo. Te Decet Hymnus: L’Innario della “Liturgia Horarum.” Vatican City State: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1984.

 December 16, 2007

Revised: December 14, 2016

On December 17^th, the Church’s Advent liturgy begins to focus in a particular way on the Nativity of the Lord.  The prayers, readings, and preface at Mass as well as the readings, antiphons for the Gospel canticles, intercessions, and prayers at the Liturgy of the Hours concentrate more resolutely on the coming feast of the Nativity of the Lord than they did during the preceding days of Advent.

The great “O Antiphons” have a particular role in these days as they have been used for centuries as the antiphons for the Magnificat.  Each antiphon, always sung in a very similar melody, begins with a title of Christ, usually taken from the Old Testament, and is followed by the petition that he come to us (veni) and act on our behalf:

December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)

December 18: O Adonai (O Lord)

December 19: O Radix Iesse (O Root of Jesse)

December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)

December 21: O Oriens (O Daystar) [after this date, the days begin to get longer]

December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)

December 23: O Emmanuel (O God-with-Us)

When taken together from the last title to the first, the first letters of each title form the wonderful Latin acrostic:

Emmanuel

Rex

Oriens

Clavis

Radix

Adonai

Sapientia

As such, they form the Lord’s response to the Church’s ardent petition that he come (veni):

Ero cras (I will be there tomorrow)!

Below are some reflections on the various “O Antiphons”.

O Sapientia

 The O Antiphons, which celebrate the incarnation of the Word of God who comes to make all things new, begin with the invocation of that Word as the very Wisdom of the Father. O Sapientia, O Wisdom, is personified in the Old Testament. We read in Sirach 24:3 exactly what we sing about at the beginning of this antiphon. Wisdom came forth from the mouth of the Most High and mist like covered the earth. We celebrate that same Wisdom who fixed his abode in Zion and who in the chosen city was given his rest. In the second part of the antiphon, Wisdom 8:1 is referenced which sings of that Wisdom which reaches from end to end mightily and governs all things well. In the Advent mystery, we celebrate and long for the Son of God who has gone forth from the Most High and who enters into our world for our salvation. Creative wisdom comes to create anew. It is this Wisdom of God who orders all things strongly and sweetly. We pray that he come (veni) and teach us the way of prudence, the virtue, as we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it. Prudence is, therefore, known as the auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues) as it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure.

O Adonai

 This antiphon considers Christ more specifically as Adonai, the God of the Covenant, and the Ruler of the house of Israel. O Adonai focuses on Christ’s divine nature and speaks of how Christ himself appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave him the Law on Mount Sinai. In Exodus 3:7-10, we read that God called out to Moses from the burning bush and told him that he witnessed the affliction of his people in Egypt, that he heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, and that he knew well what they were suffering. He, therefore, tells Moses that, for that very reason, he has come down to rescue them and lead them out of Egypt into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. In the Advent mystery, we encounter Christ who as God comes to rescue his people from slavery and lead them into freedom. He takes them from the drudgery of slavery to the freedom of divine worship, in the words of the Benedictus: he set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life. We pray that he come (veni) and redeem us with outstretched arm. The Church, then, rejoices in the power of God, evident in the Incarnation, to save his people, bringing them from slavery to the freedom of the very children of God.

O Radix Iesse

 The symbol of the root of Jesse forms the context for the antiphon O Radix. In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 11:1 we read that a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and that from his roots a bud shall blossom. Further on, Isaiah 11:10 states that on that day the root of Jesse set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious.  Finally, Isaiah 52:15 reveals that because of him kings shall stand speechless. Both the lowliness and the glory of the kingdom are present here. The Davidic kingdom was dethroned with the Babylonian exile, but the stump of Jesse, the father of David, will again spring forth and serve as a banner for the nations. The Incarnation begins in this world in lowliness and poverty, but for those with the eyes of faith, the dwelling of the Lord in the womb of the Virgin Mary is nothing if not glorious. In the Advent mystery, the growth of the Kingdom becomes apparent. From humble and unimpressive beginnings, the Kingdom becomes a unifying banner around which people of every race and tongue gather, as the hymn for Evening Prayer for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross states: Vexilla regis prodeunt/The royal banners forward go. We pray that our Lord come (veni) and not delay and free us from all those things that keep the Kingdom from truly blossoming in our lives—or as we pray more directly in the Our Father: thy Kingdom come.

O Clavis David

 The power of Christ, and therefore, the definitive deliverance of the People of God from the power of the Evil One becomes more evident in the antiphon O Clavis. Christ, who identifies himself as the First and the Last, the One who lives, and the one who holds the keys of death and the nether world, speaks in Revelation 3:7 of himself as the Key of David the holy and the true One, who wields David’s key, who opens and no one can shut, who shuts and no one can open. In the Advent mystery, Christ comes as the undisputed ruler of heaven and earth and the one who has given the power of the keys to Peter. As we read in Matthew 16:18-19: You are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of the nether world shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. We pray that the Lord come (veni) and lead out of captivity those who are bound in prison and those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

O Oriens

 As the birth of the Savior approaches and as the days are about to get longer, O Oriens, becomes a panegyric on Christ the light of the world (John 8:12), whom we proclaim in the Nicene Creed as, light from light and true God from true God. The incarnate divine light is born in the darkness of our world, and as December 21^st is the shortest day of the year, Christ appears as the true Sol Invictus, the true Unconquered Sun. He is the Oriens ex alto/the dawn from on high whom the Church celebrates every morning in the Benedictus. The Advent mystery makes real what one reads in Wisdom 7:26, that Wisdom (recall O Sapientia on December 17) is a reflection of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness. As we prayed yesterday in O Clavis, we pray again today that the Lord come (veni) and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, but we cannot do this without recalling again the Benedictus which concludes with the words illuminare his, qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent, ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam pacis/enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death and guide our feet into the way of peace.

 O Rex Gentium

 The will of God that all may be saved shines forth in O Rex Gentium, and one cannot help but recall with joy and gratitude that the Roman Martyrology two days later, on December 24^th, is going to celebrate the feast of Adam and Eve, the progenitors of the human race.  The text of the Martyrology on December 24^th is itself remarkable: The commemoration of all the holy ancestors of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of Adam, that is to say the ancestors who pleased God and were found just and who died in faith—those who did not receive the promises but who beheld them and greeted them from afar, of whom Christ was born according to the flesh and who is God over all things and blessed for ever. Already, Jeremiah 10:7 asked who would not fear you, O King of the Nations. Again, Ephesians 2:11-22 relates how both Jew and Gentile have been brought near through the blood of Christ, and how Christ broke down the barrier of hostility that kept them apart, and that they form a building with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. The Advent mystery celebrates the power of that blood poured out for our salvation, the blood already coursing through the infant Christ about to be born, the blood that he inherited from all of his ancestors, and which he gives to us in the Eucharist. With good reason, we pray that he come (veni) and save all people, both Jew and Gentile, whom he formed from the dust of the earth.

O Emmanuel

Already, Isaiah 7:14 had prophesied that the virgin would be with child and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel.  Then again, in Matthew 1:23 we read how the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and told him that what had been said through the prophet would be fulfilled in the Virgin Mary. So it is that Emmanuel, God with us, is the object of our longing; but through the incarnation he has come to dwell among us in a way beyond all our imagining. Isaiah 33:22 had already referred to him as king and lawgiver, but the birth of the Virgin Mary’s Son meant yet more. In his Dogmatic Tome to Flavian, Pope Saint Leo the Great wrote that in the new order there was a new nativity. He who was invisible in his own nature became visible in ours; he who is true God is also true man. In him, the humility of humanity and the loftiness of the godhead both meet. The Advent-Christmas mystery is the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God so that he may be one with us, sharing in our suffering and death so that we may share in the very life of God who cannot die. So, we pray with utmost confidence and gratitude (veni), come to save us, O Lord our God—and it happens in a way beyond all imagining.