From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Prope est jam Dominus: venite adoremus.
De Isaia Propheta.
Cap. lxiv.
Utinam dirumperes cœlos, et descenderes; a facie tua montes defluerent; sicut exustio ignis tabescerent: aquæ arderent igni, ut notum fleret nomen tuum inimicis tuis; a facie tua Gentes turbarentur. Quum feceris mirabilia, non sustinebimus: descendisti, et a facie tua montes defluxerunt. A sæculo non audierunt, neque auribus perceperunt: oculus non vidit, Deus, absque te, quae præparasti exspectantibus te. Occurristi lactanti, et facienti justitiam: in viis tuis recordabuntur tui: ecce tu iratus es, et peccavimus; in ipsis fuimus semper, et salvabimur. Et facti sumus ut immundus omnes nos, et quasi pannus menstruatae universae justitiae nostræ: et cecidimus quasi folium universi, et iniquitates nostrae quasi ventus abstulerunt nos. Non est qui invocet nomen tuum; qui consurgat, et teneat te: abscondisti faciem tuam a nobis, et allisisti nos in manu iniquitatis nostrae. Et nunc, Domine, Pater noster es tu, nos vero lutum: et fictor noster tu, et opera manuum tuarum omnes nos. Ne irascaris, Domine, satis, et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostræ: ecce, respice, populus tuus omnes nos. Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta, Sion deserta facta est, Jerusalem desolata est. Domus sanctificationis nostræ, et gloriæ nostræ, ubi laudaverunt te patres nostri, facta est in exustionem ignis: et omnia desiderabilia nostra versa sunt in ruinas.
The Lord is now nigh: come, let us adore.
From the Prophet Isaias.
Ch. lxiv.
O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down; the mountains would melt away at thy presence; they would melt as at the burning of fire; the waters would bum with fire; that thy name might be made known to thy enemies: that the nations might tremble at thy presence. When thou shalt do wonderful things, we shall not bear them: thou didst come down, and at thy presence the mountains melted away. From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee. Thou hast met him that rejoiceth, and doth justice: in thy ways they shall remember thee: behold thou art angry, and we have sinned; in them we have been always, and we shall be saved. And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. There is none that calleth upon thy name, that riseth up and taketh hold of thee: thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us in the hand of our iniquity. And now, O Lord, thou art our Father, and we are clay: and thou art our maker, and we all are the works of thy hands. Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold, see, we are all thy people. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate. The house of our holiness, and of our glory, where our fathers praised thee, is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things are turned into ruins.
O Jesus, Thou Flower of the field, Thou Lily of the valley, Thy visit is to change our barren parched earth into a garden of delights! We had lost Eden and all its lovely magnificence, by our sins; and lo! Eden is restored to us; Thou art coming, that Thou mayst set it in our hearts. O heavenly plant, tree of life, transplanted from heaven to earth, Thou first takest root in Mary, that fruitful soil; and thence Thou wilt come to us, and we must be to Thee a grateful land, cherishing the divine seed and making it fructify. Let it be so, O divine Husbandman! who didst appear to Magdalene under the form of a gardener. Thou knowest how far are our hearts from being ready for Thy working in them. Move, and break, and water this land; the season is come; our hearts long to be fertile, and to have growing within them that exquisite Flower which makes the beauty of all heaven, and comes down to hide its splendour for a time here below. O Jesus! let our souls be fertile; let them be crowned with the flowers of virtue; let them become flowers growing around Thee, O divine Flower, and forming to the heavenly Father a garden, which He may unite with that which He formed from all eternity. O Flower of heaven, Jesus! Thou art also the Dew, refresh us; Thou art the Sun, warm us; Thou art the fragrant Perfume, impart to us Thy sweetness; Thou art the sovereign Beauty, give us of Thy fair and ruddy bloom, and make us cluster round Thee in eternity, as a crown Thou hast wreathed to Thyself.
O God of our fathers! delay not, but show Thyself unto us. The city which Thou lovest is desolate; come and raise up Jerusalem; avenge the glory of her temple. This was the cry of the prophet; Thou hast heard it, and hast come to deliver Sion from her captivity, giving her a new era of glory and holiness. Thou hast come, not to destroy but to fulfil the law; and, by Thy visit, Sion has been changed into the Church, Thy bride. But why, O Thou her beloved Saviour! why hast Thou turned away Thy face? Why is this Church of Thy love left in the wilderness, weeping like Jeremias over the ruins of the sanctuary, and as Rachel over her children that had been taken from her? Why has her inheritance been delivered to the stranger? By Thy power, she had become the mother of countless children; she had nourished them; she had taught them, in Thy name, the things that pertain to the present and the future life; and these ungrateful children have turned against her. She has been driven from nation to nation, bearing away with her the heavenly treasure of faith; her mysteries have ceased to be celebrated where once they were the glory and happiness of the people; and from Thy throne above, O divine Word, Creator of the universe, Thou seest everywhere, throughout the earth, altars overturned and temples profaned. Oh! come, then, and rekindle the smouldering fire of faith.
Remember Thy apostles and Thy martyrs; remember Thy saints who have founded Churches, and honoured them by their virtues and miracles; remember Thy bride the Church, and support her during her earthly pilgrimage, until the number of Thy elect is filled up. She longs to possess Thee in the eternal light of the vision; but Thou hast given her a heart with such mother’s love, that she will not leave her children as long as there is one to save, nor cease to save until that day come when there shall no more be a militant Church, but the one sole triumphant Church, inebriated with the enjoyment of the sight and embraces of her God. But that last day has not yet come, O Jesus! there is yet time for Thee to descend from heaven and visit Thy vineyard. Restore to the branches of the tree the leaves which have fallen in the storm of iniquity. Let this tree of Thy predilection bud forth new branches; and the old ones, which have separated from it, and have seemed to force Thy justice to cast them in the fire, let them be once more grafted on the parent trunk, so torn by their rupture from her. Come, O Jesus, for the sake of Thy Church; she is dearer to Thee than was the Jerusalem of old.
Hymn Taken from the Anthology of the Greeks
(December 21)
Acervus areæ uterus tuus, Dei Mater, dignoscitur; spicam inexcultam, omnem sensum superantem, Verbum ferens ineffabiliter, quod in spelunca Bethlehem paries, eum qui omnem creaturam divina agnitione aliturus est in charitate, et a fame lethifera humanum genus liberaturus.
Innupta Virgo, unde venis? Quis te genuit? Quæ mater tua? Quomodo Creatorem fers in brachiis? Quomodo non corrupta fuisti utero? Magnas in te gratias, in terra stupenda adimpleta cernimus mysteria, o omnipancta. Prout decet speluncam adornamus, et a cœlo petimus sidus; Magi progrediuntur ab oriente orbis ad usque occidentem, salutem visuri mortalium, tuis in brachiis sicut facem prælucentem.
Lucidum Magistri palatium, quomodo venis in exiguissimam speluncam, Regem paritura Dominum, omnisancta, Virgo Dei sponsa.
Eva quidem per inobedientiæ nocumentum exsecrationem subintroduxit; tu autem, Virgo Dei Mater, per tuæ gestationis germinationem mundo florere fecistibenedictionem; unde omnes te magnificamus.Ne contristeris, Joseph, meum intuens uterum; videbis enim qui ex me nasciturus est atque gaudebis, eumque sicut Deum adorabis, aiebat Dei Mater suo sponso, dum Christum paritura veniret. Illam commemoremus dicentes: Gaude, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, et per te nobiscum.
Thy womb, O Mother of God, is the heap of wheat of the Canticle; carrying, in an ineffable manner, the ear of com, which, like no other, grew without being sown; thy Child is the Word, and thou wilt give him birth in Bethlehem’s cave: he it is will lovingly feed every creature with the knowledge of God, and free the human race from deadly hunger.
Whence comest thou, O pure Virgin? Thy father and mother, who are they? How dost thou carry thy Creator in thy arms? Mother, and yet a Virgin! These are great graces, and stupendous mysteries, which have been done in thee, all-holy creature! We adorn the cave as it behoves us, and we look for the star in the heavens: the Magi are coming from the east to our western world, to see the Saviour of men shining in thy arms as a bright torch.
O Mary! fair palace of our Master, how is it thou comest into so poor a cave, there to give birth to the King our Lord, O all-holy Virgin, bride of God?
Eve, indeed, by the crime of disobedience brought a curse into the world: but thou, Virgin-Mother of God, by the flower thou bearest, hast made blessing bloom inthe world; therefore do we all magnify thee.The Mother of God, when the birth of Christ was near, spoke thus to her spouse: Be not sad, Joseph, finding that I am Mother; for thou shalt see him who is to be born of me, and thou shalt rejoice and adore him as thy God. Let us commemorate this divine Mother, saying: Be glad, O full of grace! the Lord is with thee, and with us by thee.
Prayer from the Ambrosian Missal
(In the Mass of the first Sunday of Advent)
Deus, qui Unigenito tuo novam creaturam nos tibi esse fecisti, respice propitius in opera misericordiae tuae, et in ejus adventu ab omnibus nos maculis vetustatis emunda. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
O God, who, by thine onlybegotten Son, hast made us to be a new creature unto thyself, mercifully look on the works which thy mercy has produced, and cleanse us, in the coming of thy Son, from all the stains of our old habits. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.