Celebrating the Seasons. Robert Atwell
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let him hear your voice, then he will let you see our salvation. Is not this what you have been waiting for, what you have been weeping for and sighing after day and night in your prayers? Answer, O Virgin, answer the angel quickly; or rather, through the angel answer God. Speak the word and receive the Word. Offer what is yours and conceive what is God’s. Breathe one fleeting word and embrace the eternal Word.
Why delay? Why be afraid? Believe, speak, receive! Let your humility be clothed with courage, and your reserve with trust. In such circumstances, O prudent Virgin, do not fear presumption, for although the reserve which makes you silent is attractive, how more important at this juncture is it for your goodness to speak.
O Blessed Virgin, open your heart to faith, your lips to speak, your womb to your Creator. Behold, the long-desired of the nations is standing at the door and knocking. Oh, what if he should pass by because of your delay and again in sorrow you should have to begin to seek for him whom your soul loves? Rise up, then, run and open! Arise by faith, run by the devotion of your heart, open by consent.
And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word.’
21 December
O Oriens
O Dayspring, splendour of light eternal and Sun of Righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death.
A Reading from a commentary on St Luke’s Gospel by Ambrose of Milan
The angel revealed the message to the Virgin Mary, giving her a sign to win her trust. The angel told her of the motherhood of an old and barren woman to show that God is able to do all that he wills. When she hears this Mary sets out for the hill country. She does not disbelieve God’s word: she feels no uncertainty over the message or doubt about the sign. She goes eager in purpose, dutiful in conscience, hastening for joy.
Filled with God, where would she hasten but to the heights? The Holy Spirit does not proceed by slow, laborious efforts. Quickly, too, the blessings of her coming and the Lord’s presence are made clear: as soon as ‘Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb, and she was filled with the Holy Spirit’.
Notice the contrast and the choice of words. Elizabeth is the first to hear Mary’s voice, but John is the first to be aware of grace. Elizabeth hears with the ears of the body, but John leaps for joy at the meaning of the mystery. She is aware of Mary’s presence, but he is aware of the Lord’s: a woman aware of a woman’s presence, the forerunner aware of the pledge of our salvation. The women speak of the grace they have received while the children are active in secret, unfolding the mystery of love with the help of their mothers, who prophesy by the spirit of their sons.
The child leaps in the womb; the mother is filled with the Holy Spirit, but not before her son. Once the son has been filled with the Holy Spirit, he fills his mother with the same Spirit. John leaps for joy, and the spirit of Mary rejoices in her turn. When John leaps for joy Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, but we know that though Mary’s spirit rejoices she does not need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Her son, who is beyond our understanding, is active in his mother in a way beyond our understanding. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit after conceiving John, while Mary is filled with the Holy Spirit before conceiving the Lord. Elizabeth says: ‘Blessed are you because you have believed.’
You also are blessed because you have heard and believed. A believing soul both conceives and brings forth the Word of God and acknowledges his works.
Let Mary’s soul be in each of you to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Let her spirit be in each to rejoice in the Lord. Christ has only one mother in the flesh, but we all bring forth Christ in faith. Every soul receives the Word of God if only it keeps chaste, remaining pure and free from sin, its modesty undefiled. The soul that succeeds in this proclaims the greatness of the Lord, just as Mary’s soul magnified the Lord and her spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour. In another place we read: ‘Magnify the Lord with me.’ The Lord is magnified, not because the human voice can add anything to God but because he is magnified within us. Christ is the image of God, and if the soul does what is right and holy, it magnifies that image of God in whose likeness it was created and, in magnifying the image of God, the soul has a share in its greatness and is exalted.
22 December
O Rex Gentium
O King of the Nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save us, whom you formed from the dust.
A Reading from a commentary on St Luke’s Gospel by the Venerable Bede
Mary said: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.’
The Lord has exalted me by a gift so great, so unheard of, that language is useless to describe it; and the depths of love in my heart can scarcely grasp it. I offer then all the powers of my soul in praise and thanksgiving. As I contemplate his greatness, which knows no limits, I joyfully surrender my whole life, my senses, my judgement, for my spirit rejoices in the eternal Godhead of that Jesus, that Saviour, whom I have conceived in this world of time.
‘The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.’
Mary looks back to the beginning of her song, where she said: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.’ Only the soul for whom the Lord in his love does great things can proclaim his greatness with fitting praise and encourage those who share her desire and purpose, saying: ‘Join with me in proclaiming the greatness of the Lord; let us magnify his name together.’
Those who know the Lord, yet refuse to proclaim his greatness and sanctify his name to the limit of their power, ‘will be called least in the kingdom of heaven’. His name is called holy because in the sublimity of his unique power he surpasses every creature and is far removed from all that he has made.
‘He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy.’
In a beautiful phrase Mary calls Israel the servant of the Lord. The Lord came to his aid to save him. Israel is an obedient and humble servant, in the words of Hosea: ‘Israel was a servant, and I loved him.’
Those who refuse to be humble cannot be saved. They cannot say with the prophet: ‘See, God comes to my aid; the Lord is the helper of my soul.’ But ‘anyone who makes himself humble like a little child is greater in the kingdom of heaven.’
‘The promise he made to our forebears, to Abraham and his children for ever.’ This does not refer to the physical descendants of Abraham, but to his spiritual children. These are his descendants, sprung not from the flesh only, but who, whether circumcised or not, have followed him in faith. Circumcised as he was, Abraham believed, and this was credited to him as an act of righteousness.
The coming of the Saviour was promised to Abraham and to his descendants for ever. These are the children of promise, to whom it is said: ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs in accordance with the promise.’
23 December
O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, our king and lawgiver,
the desire of all nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.
A reading from Said or Sung by Austin Farrer
The universal misuse of human power has the sad effect that power, however lovingly used, is hated. To confer benefits is surely more godlike than to ask them; yet our hearts go out more easily to begging children than they do to generous masters. We have so mishandled the sceptre of God which we have usurped, we have played providence so tyrannically to one another, that we are made incapable of loving the government of God himself or feeling the caress of an almighty kindness. Are