Tag Archives: advent

Homily for Advent I 2016

27 Sunday Nov 2016

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Detail from the Church of Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, Richmond

 

It is always a very great pleasure for me to come to this parish and to visit a place that has such a wonderful and rich liturgical life. Your Pastor has helped to create for you here a place in which we can truly experience what a mediæval English carol called “heaven and earth in little space.” In the beauty and reverence of the Sacred Liturgy we come into the realm of the natural and peer into the realm of the supernatural. We catch a glimpse of the reality of heaven through the signs and symbols of the liturgical celebration on earth, and so understand more and more what it is to be members of the mystical Body of Christ, joined as we are in our worship to the worship of the saints in the kingdom of heaven. We experience in the “little space” of our church building the worship of heaven here on earth.

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Homily for Sunday XXXIII of the Year

12 Saturday Nov 2016

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Crucifixion, Germany, c. 1200, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

As we come to the end the great swathes of green Sundays of the Year, over the course of the past few weeks the Church has begun to hint at the arrival of a new liturgical season. Next Sunday she will celebrate the solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, and the following Sunday she will be clothed in violet as she begins that majestic season of Advent; the time when those who are one with Christ in baptism celebrate his threefold coming. As Saint Bernard says: “In the first coming he comes in the flesh and in weakness; in the second, he comes in spirit and in power; in the third, he comes in glory and in majesty.”

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Divine Worship: Late Advent Ferias

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

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The Nativity of the Lord, Saint Mary’s, Charleston SC

As we have already mentioned, the winter Ember Days having moved from their traditional position in the third week of Advent, Divine Worship: The Missal makes available certain Mass formularies proper to the weekdays from 17 to 24 December. In this article we will consider how these days are commemorated in Divine Worship and what we might gain from their inclusion in the liturgical life of the personal ordinariates.

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Homily for Advent IV

20 Sunday Dec 2015

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The Banishment from Eden, by Martin Travers in Divine Worship: The Missal

In five days’ time the Church will once again take up the joy and festivity that is characteristic of her annual celebration of the Lord’s first coming in his nativity. After four weeks of intense spiritual preparation, we will have the chance to recognize the advent of our Messiah—Christ, the true God and true Man—and to keep festival with our brothers and sisters across the world, and indeed throughout the ages, as we mark once more that birth which is at once like any other, and yet unlike any other at all. At the threshold of so great a feast, the Church pauses one last time to catch her breath that, arriving at the manger, our hearts may be truly ready to offer the worship and adoration that is due our incarnate God, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. As she comes to rest on this fourth Sunday of our Advent journey, the Church’s liturgical texts present us with the person of Our Blessed Lady, she who embodies—in a most literal way—the journey to the nativity of the Lord; she who did not simply prepare for this moment by the nine months of her pregnancy, but was prepared before time for this noble task, by God himself. As the seventeenth-century divine, Thomas Ken, put it: “The Holy Ghost His temple in her built, / Cleansed from congenial, kept from mortal guilt; /And from the moment that her blood was fired, / Into her heart Celestial Love inspired.”

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Collects of Divine Worship: Advent IV

19 Saturday Dec 2015

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The Sacrament of Confession, Saint Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, MD

Raise up, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us: that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sorely hindered in running the race that is set before us, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

As we come to the threshold of the Lord’s nativity, the strains of the Advent Prose may be heard to echo in the collect given to us by the Church for this day. Indeed, that very text is found in the Introit at the Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent: “Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and bring forth a Saviour.” And we are put in mind also of another text: “O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at thy presence” (Is. 64: 1).

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Homily for Ember Friday in Advent

18 Friday Dec 2015

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Sacrifice of Noah, Italy, c. 1600, in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Nestled between the feast of the virgin-martyr Saint Lucy and the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church sets aside three days for a particularly acute preparation for the coming feast of the Lord’s nativity. These Ember Days, known in Latin as the Quatuor Tempora, are found (as that name suggests) at four times of the year, fixed not to the liturgical cycle but the seasons. By these Almighty God, whom we recall in this season of Advent as Alpha es et O, the Lord of all things, sanctifies mankind as by his incarnation: blessing with his divine and supernatural presence the human and natural realm in which we live.

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Collects of Divine Worship: Advent III

11 Friday Dec 2015

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Saint John the Baptist, Caldwell Chapel, The Catholic University of America

O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The collect of the Third Sunday of Advent introduces a fresh insight for our journey toward the dual coming of Christ, in his incarnation and at the end of time. Having pleaded for the grace to prepare ourselves for his advent on the first Sunday, two means are presented to achieve this end in subsequent weeks. In one of the collects for the Second Sunday of Advent, the scriptures are held up before us. In today’s prayer the Church intercedes for her ministers and stewards of the sacred mysteries: those consecrated for service at the altar, and entrusted with the noble task of handing on the priceless gift of the truth of the holy gospel.

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Divine Worship: Advent Ember Days

05 Saturday Dec 2015

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Ordination of a Priest, Saint Mary’s, Charleston, SC

On the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of the first week of the season of Advent, Divine Worship: The Missal gives three Mass formularies for the winter, or Advent, Ember Days. In the Book of Common Prayer, as in the calendar and missal of 1962, these fall in the last full week of Advent, following the feast of Saint Lucy on 13 December. They are days traditionally marked by fasting and abstinence, and from at least the fifth century they were also associated with the spiritual preparation for ordinations. Here we will briefly consider the Ember Days in general, and also the particular context of the Ember Days of Advent in Divine Worship: The Missal.

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Collects of Divine Worship: Advent II

04 Friday Dec 2015

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Cathedral Church of Saint Catharine of Siena, Allentown, PA

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of thine Only Begotten Son: that through his advent we may be worthy to serve thee with purified minds; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

As in the days before this holy season began, so today the Church calls upon her Lord to stir up our hearts in preparation for the advent of Christ; his twofold coming in the nativity and in judgement at the end of time. This sacred time calls us to a certain penance and purification that we may be worthy to serve our Almighty Father; the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The Collect, directed as always to God but setting the “agenda” of our ecclesial and common prayer, reflects this sentiment, and denotes a specific purpose: to serve thee with purified minds.

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Collects of Divine Worship: Advent I

28 Saturday Nov 2015

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Christ in Majesty, Andrea de Giona (1424), The Cloisters, NY

Christ in Majesty, Andrea de Giona (1424), The Cloisters, NY

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

In the opening Collect of the liturgical year, the Church directs her prayer to God the Father in supplication, pleading his strength and his protection on the Christian faithful. In so doing Our Holy Mother lays before her children three parallels, setting the scene for the season that is upon us, and focussing our hearts and minds on the choices and tasks we must face in this privileged and holy time.

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