Vultus Christi

December 1st is the dies natalis of four holy priests who figure in my personal gallery of heavenly heroes.

Saint Ralph Sherwin, Priest and Martyr, (1550-1 December, 1581)
Saint Edmund Campion, Priest and Martyr (1540-1 December 1581)

Saint Ralph Sherwin and Saint Edmund Campion were both martyred for the Catholic faith at Tyburn under Elizabeth I on 1 December, 1581.

The last words of Saint Ralph Sherwin were: Iesu, Iesu, Iesu, esto mihi Iesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus. For many souls this invocation has been a means to the ceaseless prayer of the heart.

The invocation is inscribed above the altar in the crypt chapel of Tyburn Convent of the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart in London.

Blessed Charles de Jésus (de Foucauld), Priest and Martyr (1858-1 December 1916)

Blessed Charles de Jésus, the hermit of the Sahara, was martyred on 1 December 1916. The Prayer of Abandonment of Blessed Charles of Jesus has helped souls the world over to walk in the path of confidence and spiritual childhood.

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

The Servant of God Jean-Edouard Lamy, Priest (1853-1 December 1931)

Père Lamy, a priest greatly devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the founder of the Cistercian-inspired Congregation of the Servants of Jesus and Mary, died on 1 December 1931. Père Lamy touched countless souls, among them the French Catholic author Julian Green, and Jacques and Raïssa Maritain. Père Lamy used to say:

The Blessed Virgin can bring down the mercy of God on almost anything. What matters is to go on praying. The Blessed Virgin offers our prayers to God. She touches them up. She makes them into something pleasing. She gilds them when they are only wretched tin-pottery. She is a rag-picker, divinely clever. . . . Prayer even made without great attention is none the less prayer and our holy Mother finishes off what is lacking. . . . She is busy perpetually lessening our weakness before the face of God. What works in her is her kindness, her charity.

Advent and the Annunciation

Our Lady, the glorious Virgin of Isaiah's prophecy (Is 7:14), is everywhere present in the liturgy of Advent, and this from the very first day. This morning at Matins, I delighted in the beautiful responsories woven around Isaiah's prophecy of the Virgin with Child, and the mystery of the Annunciation.

Praying With a Short Attention Span

The reading from the Prophet Isaiah -- and all the long readings at Matins, for that matter -- are, in the ancient tradition subdivided into small lessons; each lesson is followed by a responsory. This practice is eminently pastoral. It takes into account the weariness that one sometimes brings to the long Night Office and the perennial problem of all who try to remain recollected in prayer: the short attention span! Each lesson is no more than five or six verses long, and is followed immediately by a responsory that engages the listeners in an inter-active meditatio.

This morning, for example:

Lesson I: Isaiah 7:1-6, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear.
Then, the Responsory:

R. The Angel Gabriel was sent to Mary, a Virgin espoused to Joseph, to bring unto her the Word ; and when the Virgin saw the light she was troubled till the Angel said : Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. * Behold thou shalt conceive and bring forth a Son, and he shall be called the Son of the Highest.
V. Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
R. Behold thou shalt conceive and bring forth a Son, and he shall be called the Son of the Highest.

Lesson II: Isaiah 7: 7-9, If you do not believe, surely you shall not established.
Then, the Responsory:

R. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee : * The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
V. How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? and the Angel made answer.
R. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Lesson III: Isaiah 7: 10-17, Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.
Then, the Responsory, this time with a Gloria Patri:

R. We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ : * Who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto the body of his glory.
V. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
R. Who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto the body of his glory.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R. Who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto the body of his glory.

Wisdom

The wisdom and benefits of this carefully crafted approach to the readings at Matins/Nocturns is, I should think, evident to anyone who has attempted to pray his way through the more turgid reformed Office of Readings which gives them en bloc, as it were.

Advantages of the Traditional Structure

If I were to sum up the advantages of the traditional structure of lessons and responsories at Matins/Nocturns, I would say:

1. The lessons are brief, allowing the listener to extract one significant phrase to be stored up in his heart. See the phrases from each of the lessons that I give above as an example of this. Doing this, one is already practicing lectio and meditatio.

2. The responsories, built around the repetition of a single sentence, deepen one's meditatio and effectively dispose the soul to oratio (prayer) and contemplatio (simple abiding in adoring love).

3. The Gloria Patri added to the last responsory (for which, according to the injunction of Saint Benedict, all rise out of reverence for the Most Holy Trinity) gives to the whole structure a doxological impetus. In Christian prayer, praise has the last word.

A Critique of the Structure in the Liturgia Horarum

Now, if I may be so bold as to critique the structure found in the current reformed Office of Readings of the Liturgia Horarum:

1. The readings are relatively long, giving one the impression of a didactic exercise. One has the impression that the framers of this innovation (and I knew one of them very well) wanted to supply for the average priest's need to have some element of study or spiritual reading in his day. The very designation, Office of Readings, is suspect, reflecting more the goals of its framers in the 1960s than the tradition of the Church. This pragmatic use of the Divine Office -- killing two birds with one stone, as it were -- is foreign to the tradition. Saint Benedict, in fact, reserves the time after the Night Office precisely for study.

2. The suppression of two out of three responsories for each reading is a regrettable impoverishment of the Divine Office. The responsories of Matins constitute, in fact, one of the richest elements in the liturgical corpus of the West.

3. Again, the suppression of two out of three responsories for each reading minimizes the fruitful interplay of listening to the Word and tunefully (chantfully?) repeating it until, at length, it descends into the heart as a seed of contemplation.

4. The doxology in the responsories was completely suppressed by the artisans of the reformed liturgy. A most curious innovation, given the great antiquity of the Gloria Patri in this particular context. A mere detail, one may say -- Not at all, say I. It reveals the shift in the liturgical paradigm from God to man. The liturgy becomes something one can use for one's personal growth as opposed to something one offers gratuitously to God.

Liturgical Haste Makes Liturgical Waste

The current reformed Liturgia Horarum was put together in haste. It reflects the prejudices and limitations of the redactors who were, in fact, more concerned with producing a practical breviary for the modern clergy -- something to be read-- than they were with working in organic continuity with the Church's age-old and perennially fruitful practice of the Divine Office.

The time has come, I would argue, for a complete mise en question of the 1970 reform of the Divine Office. Any future reform of the Divine Office will, I pray, incorporate the recovery of elements such as those discussed above.

Today's Collect

Da, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
hanc tuis fidelibus voluntatem,
ut, Christo tuo venienti
iustis operibus occurentes,
eius dexterae sociati,
regnum mereantur possidere caeleste.

Almighty God,
grant to your faithful, we beseech you,
the will to go forth with works of justice
to greet your Christ at His coming,
that they, having a place at His right hand,
may be found worthy of the kingdom of heaven.

Collected Into Unity

Today's Collect for the First Sunday of Advent in the Ordinary Form -- our collective prayer, and the prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit by which all our secret prayers are gathered together and presented to the Father, through the Son -- deserves to be repeated until it descends into the heart. Its ultimate function, and that of all liturgical prayer, is to bring us into the unity for which Our Lord prayed on the night before He suffered: unity among ourselves so as to form one single bridal body united to Christ the Bridegroom-Head and, through Him, unity with the Father, in the embrace of the Holy Spirit.

Omnipotens Deus

Almighty God: first of all we address the Father. Our prayer goes straightaway to "the Father of lights from Whom descends every good endowment and every perfect gift" (James 1:17). We call Him Omnipotens Deus, all-powerful or almighty God, thus echoing what the Archangel Gabriel said to the Virgin of Nazareth: "For with God nothing will be impossible" (Luke 1:37). Again, by addressing God as omnipotent, we appropriate the very expression used by the Virgin Mary, already with child, in her Magnificat: "He who is mighty has done great things for me" (Luke 1:49).

Primary School of Catholic Prayer

The liturgy of the Church -- and, in particular the Divine Office -- is the primary school of Catholic prayer: a school that is in session 365 days a year, a school that, according to the ancient tradition of the Hours, meets seven times a day and once during the night. It is a school of total immersion in a new language: the language of prayer given by the Holy Spirit to the Church. Every year on the First Sunday of Advent we are invited to enroll again in this primary school of Catholic prayer, the liturgy of Mother Church.

Ex Corde Ecclesiae

It is through the liturgy -- and again, especially through the Divine Office -- that "the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Romans 8:27). Saint Paul says that the Holy Spirit "asketh for us with unspeakable groanings"; the liturgy articulates these groanings of the Spirit. Rising from the heart of the Church, the groanings of the Holy Spirit take form on her lips in antiphons and in psalms, in responsories and in Collects. One who prays in harmony with the Church, making all of her expressions his own, prays in the Holy Spirit (cf. Ephesians 6:18).

Da, quaesumus

Back to the text of our Collect: the second line makes us say, "grant to your faithful, we beseech you, the will to go forth with works of justice to greet your Christ at his coming."
The Church does not tell God what she wants like someone ordering from his menu in a restaurant, first of all, because she is not paying the bill! The Church uses the humble language of supplication: she entreats, she beseeches, she implores, she begs. The liturgy never allows us to lose sight of our own creatureliness, of our absolute and utter dependence on God, and of the grandeur of His Divine Majesty. And so she says, and she teaches us to say, "grant to your faithful, we beseech you."

Grace Before All

And what does she pray for on the First Sunday of Advent? "The will to go forth with works of justice to greet your Christ at His coming." The human will cannot, of itself, move toward God without the grace of God. The prayer does not say, "help us to go forth with works of justice"; it says quite pointedly, "grant to your faithful, we beseech you, the will to go forth with works of justice." "Apart from me," says the Lord Jesus, "you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and again, "No one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). We do not ask God for a mere helping hand; we ask him to grant us even the will to get moving.

This is one of the first lessons in the Church's school of prayer: our utter dependence on God's merciful favour, on His free gift of grace. God is present before we call upon Him, making it possible for us to call upon Him: "I was ready," He says in Isaiah 65:1, "to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me."

Works of Justice

Specifically, we pray for the will to go forth with works of justice. What are these works of justice? They are the thoughts, words, and deeds by which God adjusts us to His will: our sanctification. "For this is the will of God," says Saint Paul, "Your sanctification." Concretely the works of justice are the seven spiritual and seven corporal works of mercy enumerated in the Catechism. The works of justice correspond also to what Saint Paul, in writing to the Galatians, calls, "the fruit of the Holy Spirit" (Galatians 5:22-23). Again, you would know them from the Catechism: charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity.

His Threefold Advent

It is with these works -- evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives -- that we are to go forth to greet Christ at His coming. His coming -- His advent -- is threefold.

Historical and Liturgicall

First, there is His historical advent, His descent into the womb of the Virgin, His birth at Bethlehem: this historical event is re-presented, actualized for us in the course of the liturgical year. The liturgy is not a pageant depicting an event locked in an irretrievable past: it is the mysterious inbreaking of that historical event into our here and now by means of sacred signs charged with grace by the Holy Spirit.

Visited by Grace

Then, there are His secret intermediate advents: so often as Our Lord visits a soul by His grace, principally through the Most Holy Eucharist and the other sacraments, but also through the Divine Office, and in lectio divina, we can say, "Behold, the Bridegroom is here!" (Mt 25:6).

At the End of Time

And finally, there will be His advent at the end of time. It is of this advent that today's Gospel speaks: "But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36).

The final line of today's Collect is a preview of all that we hope and pray for: "that, having a place at His right hand, they may be found worthy of the kingdom of heaven." The Father finds this petition irresistible because it corresponds to the prayer of His Son, our Eternal High Priest surrounded by His Apostles in the Upper Room: "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, may be with Me where I am" (John 17:24). And if this were not enough we have this other word of His, a promise to which we have only to lay claim: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that shall overcome, I will give to sit with me in my throne: as I also have overcome, and am set down with my Father in his throne" (Apocalypse 3:20-1).

What the Spirit Saith to the Churches

There is all of this and more in the Collect by which the Church opens Holy Mass and concludes all the Hours today. "He that hath an ear," then, "let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches" (Apocalypse 2:29).

Keeping Watch in the Night

Nothing in the course of the liturgical year can be compared to Advent Matins (also called Nocturns, or Vigils, and in the Liturgia Horarum, Readings), prayed in the pre-dawn darkness. This morning's monastic Matins were blessedly long: after each Nocturn of psalmody came four readings, each followed by a responsory, with the whole vigil culminating in the Holy Gospel (Matthew 24:37-44) and the ancient hymn to the Holy Trinity, the Te Decet Laus. One needs to pray at length -- to persevere in keeping watch -- for the grace of the Word to touch the heart, and begin to change it.

Grazing Among the Responsories

If you are not familiar with the traditional Advent responsories at Matins, find yourself a monastic or Roman breviary, and pasture your soul among them. They are the distillation of the prayer of Israel brought to perfection in the prayer of the Church. In them every soul can discover how true it is that, through the sacred liturgy, the Holy Spirit "helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings" (Romans 8:26).

Saint Cyprian Speaks

What most struck me this morning was the homily read before the Gospel. It was taken from Saint Cyprian's Treatise on the Unity of the Catholic Church. Rarely have I read a text that speaks so clearly to the present age. Judge for yourself. Here it is:

We Rather Buy and Increase Our Store

But in us unanimity is compromised in proportion to the abundance of good works become scarce. Then [he is referring to the Acts of the Apostles] they used to give for sale houses and estates; and that they might lay up for themselves treasures in heaven, presented to the apostles the price of them, to be distributed for the use of the poor. But now we do not even give the tenths from our patrimony; and while our Lord bids us sell, we rather buy and increase our store. Thus has the vigour of faith dwindled away among us; thus has the strength of believers grown weak.

Shall Our Lord Find Faith on the Earth?

And therefore the Lord, looking to our days, says in His Gospel, "When the Son of man cometh, think you that He shall find faith on the earth?" (St. Luke 18:8) We see that what He foretold has come to pass. There is no faith in the fear of God, in the law of righteousness, in love, in labour; none thinks of fearing the future, and none takes to heart the day of the Lord, and the wrath of God, and the punishments to come upon unbelievers, and the eternal torments decreed for the faithless. That which our conscience would fear if it believed, it fears not because it does not at all believe. But if it believed, it would also take heed; and if it took heed, it would escape.

Break the Slumber of Our Ancient Listlessness

Let us, beloved brethren, arouse ourselves as much as we can; and breaking the slumber of our ancient listlessness, let us be watchful to observe and to do the Lord's precepts. Let us be such as He Himself has bidden us to be, saying, "Let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He shall come from the wedding, that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open to Him. Blessed are those servants whom their Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching."

Unburdened and Disentangled

We ought to be girt about, lest, when the day of setting forth comes, it should find us burdened and entangled. Let our light shine in good works, and glow in such wise as to lead us from the night of this world to the daylight of eternal brightness. Let us always with solicitude and caution wait for the sudden coming of the Lord, that when He shall knock, our faith may be on the watch, and receive from the Lord the reward of our vigilance. If these commands be observed, if these warnings and precepts be kept, we cannot be overtaken in slumber by the deceit of the devil; watchful servants, we shall reign with the triumphant Christ.

The Novena in Preparation for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary begins today and continues through December 7th.

Tota pulchra es, Maria,
et macula non est in te.
Tu gloria Jerusalem,
tu laetitia Israel,
tu honorificentia populi nostri.
Tu advocata peccatorum,
O Maria, Virgo prudentissima,
Mater clementissima,
ora pro nobis
ad Dominum Jesum Christum.

V. Sicut lilium inter spinas.
R. Sic Amica mea inter filias Adae.

Oremus.

Deus, qui per immaculatam Virginis Conceptionem
dignum Filio tuo habitaculum praeparasti:
quaesumus; ut qui ex morte ejusdem Filii tui praevisa,
eam ab omni labe praeservasti,
nos quoque mundos ejus intercessione
ad te pervenire concedas.
Per eundem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum,
Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat,
in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus:
per omnia saecula saeculorum.
Amen.

Thou art all-lovely, O Mary,
and in thee there is no stain.
Thou art the glory of Jerusalem,
Thou art the joy of Israel,
Thou art the honour of our people.
Thou art the advocate of sinners,
O Mary,Virgin most prudent,
Mother most clement,
pray for us
to our Lord Jesus Christ.

V. Like a lily among thorns.
R. So is my Beloved among Adam's daughters.

Let us pray.

O God, who by means of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
didst prepare a worthy dwelling for Thy Son,
and foreseeing His death,
didst thereby preserve her from all stain,
grant that we too by her intercession
may come to Thee unstained by sin.
Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord,
Who is God, living and reigning with Thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Power of the Mother With the Son

For if "God heareth not sinners, but if a man be a worshipper of Him and do His will, him He heareth"; if "the continual prayer of a just man availeth much"; if faithful Abraham was required to pray for Abimelech, "for he was a prophet"; if patient Job was to "pray for his friends," for he had "spoken right things before God"; if meek Moses, by lifting up his hands, turned the battle in favour of Israel, against Amalec; why should we wonder at hearing that Mary, the only spotless child of Adam's seed, has a transcendent influence with the God of grace?

And if the Gentiles at Jerusalem sought Philip, because he was an apostle, when they desired access to Jesus, and Philip spoke to Andrew, as still more closely in our Lord's confidence, and then both came to Him, is it strange that the Mother should have power with the Son, distinct in kind from that of the purest angel and the most triumphant saint?

If we have faith to admit the Incarnation itself, we must admit it in its fullness; why then should we start at the gracious appointments which arise out of it, or are necessary to it, or are included in it? If the Creator comes on earth in the form of a servant and a creature, why may not his Mother on the other hand rise to be the Queen of heaven, and be clothed with the sun, and have the moon under her feet? (The Venerable Servant of God John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Discourses to Mixed Congregations")

Spiritual Rescue Operations

Priests caring for souls -- and others as well: parents, spouses, and friends -- may find themselves at times engaged in a kind of spiritual rescue operation on behalf of a particular person. In such situations it is crucial to recall two words of Our Lord from Saint John's Gospel: "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5), and "Behold your mother" (Jn 19:27).

The Name of Jesus

No human agent, however devoted to prayer and fasting he may be, can by his own power, restore a soul to health. It is by the name of Jesus, that is to say, by His adorable Person, that souls are delivered from bondage and oppression, healed, and raised to life.

Thus taught the Apostle Peter: "Here is a man you all know by sight, who has put his faith in that Name, and that Name has brought him strength; it is the faith which comes through Jesus that has restored him to full health in the sight of you all" (Ac 3:16).

Intercessory Prayer

When a soul, weakened by sin, hardened by impenitence, and sometimes blinded by the powers of darkness cannot invoke the Name of Jesus for herself, the consoling doctrine of the Mystical Body authorizes others to do this on her behalf. This is the mystery of intercessory prayer. In its simplest form, intercessory prayer is the invocation of the Name of Jesus.

The Immaculate Virgin Mary

That being affirmed, know that no creature in heaven or on earth can pronounce the saving Name of Jesus as can the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God. The name of Jesus in the Heart of Mary, and on her lips, is a remedy of boundess efficacy. For this reason the sacred liturgy applies to the Mother of God the psalmist's prophecy: Diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis -- "Thy lips overflow with gracious utterance" (Ps 44:3).

Omnipotentia Supplex

Guided by a sure instinct coming from the Holy Spirit, Christians have, from the earliest centuries, besought the Mother of God to invoke the Name of Jesus on their behalf. Instructed by experience, the Church acclaims her as omnipotentia supplex, all-powerful in her supplication. There are critical situations in which the wisest and most efficacious course of action is to entrust or consecrate the person or persons concerned to the all-holy Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception. Saved in advance by the Precious Blood of the Lamb, and full of grace at the very instant of her conception in the womb of her mother Saint Anne, the Immaculata crushes the head of the ancient serpent beneath the weight of the grace that fills her.

A Prayer

Last year I served a fortnight as interim chaplain to the Benedictines du Saint-Sacrement at the Sanctuary of Notre Dame d'Orient in the Aveyron, France. (This particular title of the Mother of God refers not to the Orient (East), but rather to Our Lady's readiness to tend her ear to us at every moment: auriens.) While at Notre-Dame d'Orient I was inspired to write a prayer of intercessory consecration to Immaculate Virgin Mary.

This prayer of consecration may be helpful when one experiences a need to entrust particular souls in difficulty to the Immaculate Conception. When a priest prays it, he may want to don the stole and pray it before a blessed image of the Most Holy Virgin. This intercessory consecration is appropriate for the unbinding and healing of situations marked by habitual sin and moral suffering. The Immaculate Virgin Mary is ever-ready to intervene in the lives of her children. She is the Mother of Mercy and the Mediatrix of All Graces. Here is the prayer, first in English, and then in the original French.

In the name of the Father, + and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Most holy Virgin Mary.
-- thou whom the FATHER didst preserve from the first instant of thy conception
from all evil and from the least shadow of sin,
-- thou whom the Precious Blood of JESUS didst render immaculate and all-beautiful, even before that same Blood was formed in thy virginal womb and poured out upon the altar of the Cross,
-- thou whom the HOLY SPIRIT didst fill full with every grace in view of the glorious motherhood of the Son of God for which thou wast created,
-- thou art she who crusheth the head of the ancient serpent,
thou art she who alone overcometh the evil that is in us and around us.

To thee, O Mary,
thy Son hast entrusted the liberation of souls enchained by sin,
the healing of wounded souls,
and the sanctification of souls who have suffered evil's worst ravages.

Thou hast only to open thy immaculate hands over them,
and they are shot through with the rays of thy purity.
Through thee, entereth the light to shine in the darkest places.
Through thee, souls are washed in a downpour of graces.
Through thee, the Holy Spirit succoureth the weakest souls
and giveth to the sterile a wonderful fecundity.

Thou, O Mary, art the only hope of thy children scarred by sin
and poisoned by its venom.
To those whom the enemy hath made to go astray in bitterness and in fear,
thou openest the path of life and of beatitude.

This is why, impelled today by the boldness that cometh of the Holy Spirit,
and by a confidence that is altogether that of a son,
[and when the consecration is made by a priest:
and in virtue of my priesthood,]
I entrust to thee N. and N.,
in consecrating them to thy pierced and immaculate Heart.

Show thyself the Mother of mercy.
Show thyself our all-powerful Queen,
for there is nothing that resisteth thy supplication
in the presence of Jesus, the King of Love.

Mediatrix of all graces,
save these souls from the tentacles of evil.
Heal them, even in those secret and painful wounds,
that only thy most gentle motherly hand can touch
without adding to their pain.

From this moment on,
these souls are consecrated entirely to thee.
Do thou for them whatsoever thy maternal Heart will suggest to thee.
Purify them in the Precious Blood of thy Jesus the Lamb without stain,
so that now, and even unto the ages of ages,
they may live for the praise of the glory
of the Father + and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

O LORD JESUS CHRIST, Who hast commanded
that the men whom Thou hast called
and set apart for the service of Thy holy altars,
should themselves be holy:
give them such holiness
that in them Thy Father may take delight
and Thy Bride, the Church, find consolation.

Send Thou upon them the promised Paraclete,
to keep them firm in their faith
in the midst of an unbelieving world;
to keep them ardent in their love
among those that love Thee not;
to keep them pure amidst the impure;
and to keep them Thine amidst those who are as yet not Thine,
but whom Thou, O gentle Shepherd,
didst come to seek and to save.

And give them grace,
through the intercession of our most gracious Lady and Queen,
Thy Mother, Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin,
so to serve Thee
among all the changes and chances of this passing world,
that hereafter they may be ready
to enter in with Thee, O Eternal High Priest,
to the sanctuary not made by human hands
where Thou livest for ever to make intercession for us,
and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost,
one God, world without end. Amen.

Those noble hymns, which had solaced anchorites on their mountains, monks in their cells, priests in bearing up against the burden and heat of the day, missionaries in girding themselves for martyrdom--henceforth became as a sealed book and as a dead letter.

A Disaster

One of the most scandalous post-conciliar ruptures with liturgical continuity occurred with the publication of the American edition of the Liturgy of the Hours by the Catholic Book Publishing Company in 1975. The American Catholic clergy and faithful were given four volumes flawed by scant regard for the model provided by the Editio Typica of the Liturgia Horarum. These volumes betray no understanding or experience of the exigencies of choral prayer.

What Were They Thinking?

The editors had no idea, for example, that the function of antiphons is to launch and repose the psalmody, both musically -- being in function of the mode of the psalm tone -- and theologically, by providing a hermeneutical key to the psalm in a given liturgical context. Stupidly, they placed the psalm prayer after the doxology and before the repetition of the antiphon, thus annihilating one of the antiphon's principal functions and fracturing the natural flow of the ending of the doxology into the antiphon. Is it really possible that no one in the employ of the American bishops noticed this in 1975?

And the Hymns

The most egregious deficiency of the American edition however, is, with precious few exceptions, the arbitrary replacement of the Church's official hymnody with a potpourri of compositions never intended for the Divine Office. This is a problem that John Mason Neale addressed in an article published in 1849:

Hymns of the Western Church

Among the most pressing of the inconveniences consequent on the adoption of the vernacular language in the office-books of the Reformation, must be reckoned the immediate disuse of all the hymns of the Western Church. That treasury, into which the saints of every age and country had poured their contributions, delighting, each in his generation, to express their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, in language which whould be the heritage of their Holy Mother until the end of time--those noble hymns, which had solaced anchorites on their mountains, monks in their cells, priests in bearing up against the burden and heat of the day, missionaries in girding themselves for martyrdom--henceforth became as a sealed book and as a dead letter.

Day Unto Day and Night Unto Night

The prayers and collects, the versicles and responses, of the earlier Church might, without any great loss of beauty, be preserved; but the hymns, whether of the sevenfold daily office, of the weekly commemoration of creation and redemption, of the yearly revolution of the Church's seasons, or of the birthdays to glory of martyrs and confessors--those hymns by which day unto day had uttered speech, and night unto night had taught knowledge--could not, by the hands then employed in ecclesiastical matters, be rendered into another, and that a then comparatively barbarous, tongue.

Still Expecting in Patience the Rest

One attempt the Reformers made--the version of the Veni Creator Spiritus in the Ordinal; and that, so far perhaps fortunately, was the only one. . . . The Church of England had, then, to wait. She had, as it has well been said, to begin over again. There might arise saints within herself, who, one by one, should enrich her with hymns in her own language; there might arise poets, who should be capable of supplying her office-books with versions of the hymns of earlier times. In the meantime the psalms were her own; and grievous as was the loss she had sustained, she might be content to suffice herself with those, and expect in patience the rest.

The Orbit Determined By Christ

"At the very moment when the Magi, guided by the star, adored Christ the new king, astrology came to an end, because the stars were now moving in the orbit determined by Christ. This scene, in fact, overturns the world-view of that time, which in a different way has become fashionable once again today. It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love--a Person. And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free."

Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

Until the Stars in Welcome Sing

This is my homespun translation of the seventh century hymn for Vespers in Advent: Conditor Alme Siderum. (John Mason Neale's translation is far superior to mine. Read it and hear the ancient syllabic melody here.) When Advent rolls round and I sing this hymn in Latin or in English translation, I see in my mind's eye Van Gogh's Starry Night. In the little church with the tall steeple at the bottom of the painting there must be a lingering scent of incense. Advent Vespers will have been sung. The Creator of the Starry Night is glorified.

O Light unconquered, Source of Light,
Whose radiance kindles stars and sun,
Shine tenderly on us this night;
Creation groans until you come.

Immense your grief to see our plight:
When sin had shrouded all, you came.
True Dayspring bursting death's dark bands,
Emmanuel, your saving name!

Night weighed upon a weary world
When silently you pitched your tent,
Enclosed within the Virgin's womb
True man, true God from heaven sent.

So to the darkened world in need,
Eternal Word, you came as man.
You came as Bridegroom, swift and strong,
To claim the prize the course you ran.

Until your glory fills the skies,
Until the stars in welcome sing,
Until you judge both small and great,
From sin, protect us, Sovereign King.

To God the Father, God the Son,
To God the Spirit ever be
Glad songs of praise throughout the night
While faith adores the mystery. Amen.

The Cross, the Passion, and the Most Holy Eucharist

Today's Saint Silvester Guzzolini (1177-1267), founder of the so-called Blue Benedictines (from the colour of their habit) or Silvestrines, exemplifies the monastic spirituality of the thirteenth century. Nourished by the Word of God, Silvester filled the gaze of his soul with the mysteries of the Passion of Our Lord, contemplating His wounds and desiring nothing so much as to follow Him along the way of the Cross. So strong was this desire of his that on one occasion he was mystically transported to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. As one might expect, Silvester's devotion to the Passion of Jesus found its highest expression in the ardent love he had for the Most Holy Eucharist. This is reflected in the beautiful Secret for his feast:

With all reverence, O Lord,
do we offer these gifts to Thy divine Majesty:
praying that by the devout preparation of our minds
and purity of heart,
we may be made imitators of the blessed Silvester,
and so deserve to receive in a holy manner
the Body and Blood of Thy Son.

The Mother of God

Silvester nurtured a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Mercy, to whom he entrusted himself entirely. Our Lady responded by demonstrating her maternal love for him with singular graces. On one occasion, he fell in the staircase while descending to the Night Office. The Blessed Virgin came to help him and, in the twinkling of an eye, Silvester found himself safe and sound back in his cell. One hears of similar episodes in the lives of modern saints such as Padre Pio, Marthe Robin, and Mother Yvonne-Aimée of Malestroit.

Communion from the Hands of Our Lady

The most famous Marian prodigy in his life took place when, of a night, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him in a dream and said, "Silvester, dost thou desire to receive the Body of my Son?" With trepidation he answered, "My heart is ready, O Lady; let it be done unto me according to thy word." With that, the Mother of God gave him Holy Communion. Claudio Ridolfi painted the episode in 1632.

The Collects

There are two Collects for today's feast. The first alludes to the horrifying experience that caused Silvester to change his way of life and embrace the monastic state. In 1227, as a fifty year old canon of the cathedral of Osimo, he saw the decomposing body of a man who, in life, had been comely and strong. Silvester then said to himself: "What he was thou art, and what he is, thou shalt be." With that, he decided to withdraw into solitude.

The second prayer, found in the new Antiphonale Monasticum, reflects the two principle graces of his life: solitude and community. The Latin text has this magnificent conclusion: et in humili caritate ad aeterna tabernacula festinare!

O most clement God, Who,
when the holy abbot Silvester,
by the side of an open grave,
stood meditating on the emptiness of the things of this world,
didst vouchsafe to call him into the wilderness
and to ennoble him with the merit of a singularly holy life;
most humbly we beg of Thee, that like him,
we may despise earthly things,
and enjoy fellowship with Thee for evermore.

O God who bestowed upon Saint Silvester
zeal for the sweetness of solitude
and for the labours of the cenobitical life,
grant us, we beseech Thee,
to seek Thee always with a sincere mind
and in humble charity
hasten toward the eternal tabernacles.