Rorate, caeli de super...

Friday, March 24 2006
College, Los Baños, Laguna
10:20 PM

Rorate, caeli de super, et nubes pluant iustum. Aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Saviour.- Isaiah 45:8 (Douai-Reims)

I was intrigued when my Graduale Romanum told me that the Introit for the Solemnity of the Annunciation was the same as that for the Fourth Sunday of Advent - the Sunday in which the longing for the Lord's coming is expressed most intensely in the Propers for the day. Now my fascination just grew when I discovered that even the Offertory (Ave Maria) and the Communion (Ecce virgo concipiet) for the Annunciation were taken from the same Fourth Sunday of Advent. The only propers that do not match are the Gradual (replaced by Tollite portas, taken from the Monday between December 17 and 24), and the Alleluia (replaced by the Tract Audi, filia, taken from the Commons).

This Introit, Rorate caeli, is for me forever associated with that hauntingly beautiful Advent hymn of the same name.

Turn your fierce anger from us, O Lord;
and remember not our sins for ever.
Your holy cities have become a desert,
Zion a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation;
our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you.

We have sinned and become like one who is unclean;
we have all withered like a leaf,
and our iniquities like the wind have swept us away.
You have hidden your face from us;
and abandoned us to our iniquities.

You are my witnesses, says the Lord;
and my servant whom I have chosen;
that you may know me and believe me.
I myself am the Lord, and none but I can deliver;
what my hand holds, none can snatch away.

Comfort my people, comfort them;
my salvation shall not be delayed.
I have swept your offences away like a cloud;
fear not, for I will save you.
I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Redeemer.

God has heard our cry, the cry of a people sinful individually and collectively, a people who has realized that it cannot buy God's favor and pardon of its sins.

God has heard our cry, our admission that we can do nothing, and that in our hands alone the world, and even many of His temples, has become a wasteland, not just physically but also spiritually, for "we have sinned and become like one who is unclean".

God has heard our cry, our desert experiences, our experiences of spiritual dryness, our souls' dark nights, and sent His only Son. Only in Him does our desert experiences, our experiences of spiritual dryness, our dark nights, our whole Lenten journey, make sense, for desert experiences, dark nights of the soul, this Lent, cannot be understood apart from Christ, He who forgives our sins and comforts us, and He who underwent the ultimate desert experience nailed to the Cross. Only in Him can the wastelands we have caused bear fruit once again.

*****

Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear: and forget thy people and thy father's house.
And the king shall greatly desire thy beauty; for he is the Lord thy God, and him they shall adore.- Psalm 44:11-12 (Douai-Reims)

Today our Blessed Mother totally abandoned any thought she may or may not have had for her own benefit.

Today she "forgot her people and her father's house", so to speak, in order to say "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word."

Today she gave herself up completely to the Lord's will, whatever may happen in her life.

Her Fiat made our salvation possible; her Fiat made possible the marvelous things "which the prophets longed to see". In her Fiat to the Lord's Divine Word, taken in unity with the Word's Amen to the Father and the Agape of the Holy Spirit, we find our guiding principle for Lent, indeed for all times, such that our fasts, our works of charity, our disciplines, our penitential acts, would not go in vain: a life lived as an Amen to the Father, a Fiat to His Divine Word, and an Agape in the Holy Spirit.

Hail, O you, through whom Joy will shine forth!
Hail, O you, through whom the curse will disappear!
Hail, O Restoration of the Fallen Adam!
Hail, O Redemption of the Tears of Eve!
Hail, O Peak above the reach of human thought!
Hail, O Depth even beyond the sight of angels!
Hail, O you who have become a Kingly Throne!
Hail, O you who carry Him Who Carries All!
Hail, O Star who manifest the Sun!
Hail, O Womb of the Divine Incarnation!
Hail, O you through whom creation is renewed!
Hail, O you through whom the Creator becomes a Babe!
Hail, O Bride and Maiden ever-pure!

- Akathist to the the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, First Oikos