{"id":187810,"date":"2015-12-20T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-20T06:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=187810"},"modified":"2015-12-20T00:01:52","modified_gmt":"2015-12-20T06:01:52","slug":"prayers-4th-sunday-advent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/prayers-4th-sunday-advent\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prayers – 4th Sunday of Advent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since we can learn much from what we pray day in and day out in our Liturgy it would be profitable for us to reflect more profoundly upon the prayers of each day. We should especially do this over the season of Advent which marks the end of one liturgical year, and the beginning of the next. \u00a0<\/em>This is the 4th of a series of posts which focus upon the prayers in the Mass during the time of Advent. The other posts for the Advent Season are here: (Week I <\/a>)(Week II<\/a>) (Week III<\/a>).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Collect of the 4th<\/sup> Week of Advent, a masterfully crafted prayer dating from the eighth century, comprehensively, \u201csituates the mystery of Christ\u2019s incarnation and birth in the context of his saving death and its full effect: our resurrection to glory.\u201d[1]<\/a> The prayer, which will be familiar to those who are accustomed to praying the Angelus, is as follows:<\/p>\n

Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,
\nyour grace into our hearts,
\nthat we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
\nwas made known by the message of an Angel,
\nmay by his Passion and Cross
\nbe brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
\nWho lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
\none God, for ever and ever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This prayer \u201cadmirably binds together the two Advents of Christ and in the final petition connects the last Sunday of the season with the first two on which we prayed to be at Christ\u2019s side in his kingdom and to be admitted to his company in heaven.\u201d[2]<\/a> We thus see that the reason Christ, the King of Kings, came to us in humility, born of the Virgen in Bethlehem \u201cwas His immense mercy, His multiplied compassion, His abundant charity,\u201d which finds its ultimate expression in the Cross.[3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> St. Bernard goes on to explain that although we should have gone to Him, he instead came to us, because:<\/p>\n

\u201cthere stood a twofold impediment in the way\u2026 our eyes were heavy, and He \u201cdwelt in light inaccessible.\u201d We lay as paralytics on our beds, and could not raise ourselves to the Divine elevation. Wherefore this most benign Saviour and Physician of souls descended to us from His lofty throne, and tempered His brightness to the weakness of our sight. He clothed Himself with His most glorious and spotless body as with the shade of a lantern, thus attempering to us His splendor.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Catarino_Veneziano_-_Madonna_and_Child,_the_Crucifixion,_and_Saints_-_Walters_37635\"

Catarino Veneziano Madonna and Child, the Crucifixion, and Saints<\/p><\/div>\n

The Incarnation is an act both of supreme humility and supreme mercy. As St. Irenaeus points out so beautifully, \u201cthe Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.\u201d[5]<\/a> The wood of the Manger, and the wood of the Cross, are intimately bound up in each other, for in one manner of speaking they are but one action of divine providence undertaken for our salvation; the Incarnation is the beginning of the kenosis which will be completed on the Cross when Christ breathes out the words \u201cconsummatum est<\/em>\u201d[6]<\/a>. Each year we journey liturgically speaking from the Manger to the Cross and Resurrection, walking with Christ through His life on Earth and rehearsing, hopefully, our journey in communion with Him to salvation. Indeed, even at each Mass we see a microcosm of this year long liturgical drama, for Christ is expected, comes, is broken and offered, and then those who are being sanctified participate in Holy Communion which is the Sacrament (sign) of the Heavenly Communion for which we long.<\/p>\n

\"Madonna-Mary-and

Mary and the Child Jesus<\/p><\/div>\n

In closing, let us return once more to the meaning of Advent as a whole, which contemplates the mystery of God made flesh, in order to move us to desire ardently communion with Him for the sake of our salvation. Writing about the choice of \u201cAdventus\u201d as the name for the season, Ratzinger comments:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe Christians adopted this word in order to express their special relationship to Jesus Christ. For Christians, he was the king who had entered this wretched province Earth and bestowed on it the gift of his visit; and they believed that he was present in the liturgical assembly. In general terms, when they used this word, they intended to say: God is here. He has not withdrawn from the world. He has not left us alone. Although we cannot see him and take hold of him as we do with objects in this world, nevertheless he is here, and he comes to us in many ways.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Week

Week 4<\/p><\/div>\n

Thus we recognize that our ours is a faith that sees in the world, in persons, and most especially in the Liturgy, small comings of Christ which prefigure his ultimate coming, at the end of time, and which were made possible and were prefigured\u00a0 by his first coming in the Incarnation. This is Advent in a nutshell \u2013 an opening of the eyes, so we can see, the Advents, big and small, in our lives, that we, \u201cto whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son\u00a0was made known by the message of an Angel,\u201d might live in communion with Him now and forever.<\/p>\n

Let us pray this week for the grace to open our eyes to the coming of Christ in our lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Lauren Pristas , Collects of the Roman Missals : A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons before and After the Second Vatican Council (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 53, 55.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Patrick Regan, Advent to Pentecost : Comparing the Seasons in the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite<\/em> (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2012). 33<\/p>\n

[3]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Saint Bernard, Sermons of St. Bernard on Advent & Christmas: Including the Famous Treatise on the Incarnation Called \u201cMissus Est\u201d<\/em> (London; Manchester; Glasgow; New York; Cincinnati; Chicago: R. & T. Washbourne; Benziger Bros., 1909), 10.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Ibid. 11.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> St. Irenaeus,\u00a0Adversus haereses.<\/em>\u00a03, 19, 1: PG 7\/1, 939.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> John 19:30<\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Benedict XVI, The Blessing of Christmas<\/em>, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 17\u201318.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since we can learn much from what we pray day in and day out in our Liturgy it would be profitable for us to reflect more profoundly upon the prayers of each day. We should especially do this over the season of Advent which marks the end of one liturgical year, and the beginning of… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[384,3018,1231,45,131,74,3026],"class_list":["post-187810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-blog","tag-advent","tag-collect","tag-liturgical-season","tag-liturgy","tag-mass","tag-prayer","tag-the-prayers","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t