Let us, on this the Seventh Day within the Christmas Octave, consider the new-born Babe wrapt in the swaddling-clothes of Infancy. They are the indications of weakness; the Child that is swathed in them is helpless, and dependent on others; another's hand must loosen his bands, and until then, he is not free to move. It was in this infantine helplessness, and in the bondage of human weakness, that He, who gives life and motion to every creature, first appeared on our earth!
Let us contemplate our Blessed Lady wrapping the limbs of her Child, her God, in these swathing-bands: but who can picture to himself the respectful love wherewith she does it? She adores his humiliations - humiliations which he has taken upon himself, in order that he may sanctify every period of man's life, even that feeblest of all, infancy. So deep was the wound of our pride, that it needed a remedy of such exceeding efficacy as this! Can we refuse to become little children, now that He, who gives us the precept, sets us so touching an example? Sweet Jesus! we adore you wrapped inyour Swaddling-Clothes, and our ambition is to imitateyour divine humility.
The holy Abbot Guerric says, "Let not the eye of your faith be offended or shocked, Brethren, at these outward humble coverings. As the Mother of Jesus wrapped him in swaddling clothes, so does Grace and Wisdom, which is your spiritual mother, veil over with certain material things, the truth of our Incarnate God, and hide under the representation of symbolical figures, the majesty of this same Jesus. When I, Brethren, deliver to you by my words, the Truth, (which is Jesus) I am swathing Jesus in bands of exceeding great poverty. Happy the soul, that loves and adores not its Jesus the less because he receives him thus poorly clad! Let us, therefore, most devoutly think upon our Lord clothed in the swathing-bands, wherewith his Mother covered his infant limbs; that so, in the world of eternal happiness, we may see the glory and beauty, wherewith his Father has clad him; and this glory is that of the Only Begotten Son of the Father."
Let us once more celebrate the joyous Birth of our Jesus, making use of this ancient Prose so redolent of the piety of the ages of Faith. It is found in the old Roman-French Missals.
Sequence
• Every choir devoutly sings to the new born King.
• Melodising each word with organ-notes.
• Dear Holiday, whereon the earth is filled with joy, ne'er felt before.
• 'Twas on this grand Night, that Angels' voices intoned the sweet Gloria,
• A dazzling light shone at midnight on the Shepherds.
• They are tending their flocks, when suddenly they hear the divine announcement:
• "Glory infinite in the heavens, and on earth, Peace:
• "He that is eternal, is born of the glorious Virgin!"
• Then, let the heavenly host give forth excessive jubilee,
• And earth, from pole to pole, thrill with the loud melodious song.
• The enemy's intolerable cruelty is crushed.
• Let the whole race of men sing praise to the God now born upon the earth.
• Peace is restored to the world; let all things rejoice at the birth of the Child.
• Let our Gloria be sung today with voices full and shrill, that it may echo through creation.
• May He that alone rules all things -
• May He that alone governs all things -
• In his mercy save all kingdoms, and give them Peace.
• Amen.
The saintly Abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, is the author of the Hymn we will now offer to the incomparable Mother. It is full of that scriptural unction, which filled the writer's fervent soul.
Sequence
• Rejoice you Heavens, and be glad, earth, let no man keep his lips from praise.
• It was by the Virgin that man was restored to the primeval state.
• A Virgin brought forth our God, and the ancient anger ceased:
• The ancient discord ceased, and Peace and Glory came in its stead.
• Guilty man was drawn from the mire, when God lay on his Crib of straw.
• A wretched Stable held then within it the Food of heaven's own gift.
• The Virgin feeds the Creator, the Redeemer who had become her Child.
• Divine Wisdom lay hid in childhood.
• The milk of the Mother's breast fed her Jesus; her Jesus feeds us with the milk of his tender mercy,
• Giving us the sweetness of grace through the assuming our human nature.
• Therefore, let our sweetest music give our Ave Maria, In sacred words, and with speaking hearts.
• Hail! Virgin ever Blessed, that did destroy the curse.
• Hail! Mother of the Most High, and Spouse of the Lamb most meek.
• You did conquer the serpent, and crush his head,
• For the God that was born of you was the serpent's death.
• You are the Queen of heaven, and Reparatrix of the earth,
• The loved Mother of men, and the terror of the demons of hell.
• The Scriptural figures of Window, Gate, Fleece, Palace, House, Temple, and Earth - all are fulfilled in you.
• You are the Lily by your virginity; you art the Rose by your martyrdom:
• The Garden enclosed, the Fountain of gardens that cleanses the defilements of sin,
• Purifies those who are unclean, and brings the dead to life.
• O Queen of the Angels and, after God, the Hope of mankind!
• You are the couch of the King, and the Throne of God.
• You are the Star of the East, that puts to flight the shadows of the Western night.
• You are the Aurora, the Sun's harbinger, and the Day that knows not night.
• You are Mother of the God who is our Father; you give life to Him who gives life to us.
• Oh, may the Holy Mother's confidence in her Son reconcile Him to us his children!
• Mother of Jesus, pray for us to your Divine Son that he forgive us our sins,
• And, after this our pardon, give us grace and glory.
• Amen.
The Civil Year ends today. At Midnight a New Year will begin, as the world counts time, and the present one will sink into the abyss of eternity. It is one step further on in our lives, and brings us nearer to that end of all things, which Saint Peter says is at hand. The Liturgy, which begins a new Ecclesiastical Year on the First Sunday of Advent, has no special prayers, in the Roman Church, for the beginning of the Year on the First of January; but her spirit - which takes an interest in everything affecting the well-being of individuals or of society at large - her spirit is that we should, sometime in the course of this last day of the Year, make a fervent act of thanksgiving to God, for the blessings he has bestowed upon us during the past twelve months.
Rome sets us the example. Today the Sovereign Pontiff goes in state to the Gesu (or, as we should call it, Jesus' Church) and there assists at a solemn Te Deum; the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament follows it, blessing, as it were, the public act of thanksgiving, and giving a pledge of blessings for the coming Year.
The only Church that has given a Liturgical expression to the sentiments, which the close of the Year inspires, is that of the Mozarabic Rite, in which there occurs the following beautiful Preface, which we gladly offer to our readers. It is part of the Mass of the Sunday, which immediately precedes the Feast of the Epiphany.
Illatio
It is meet and just that we should give thanks to you, O Holy Lord, Eternal father, Almighty God, through Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord; who being, before all time, born of you, God the Father, did, together with you and the Holy Ghost, create all seasons, and deigned himself to be born in time, from the womb of the Virgin Mary. He, though the eternal One, established the fixed revolutions of years, through which this world runs its course, and divided the Year by regular and suitable changes of Seasons, wherewith the Sun should, in orderly variety, mark the round of the Year, as he ran the measured circuit of his course. For we, this day, dedicate by the gifts we offer, the close of the past year, and the commencement of that which follows, unto Him, the living God, by whose mercy we have lived through the years gone by, and are about to commence the beginning of another. Since, therefore, a sacred devotion, wherein we all share, has this Year brought us together to invoke thisyour Divine Son, we pour out our humble prayers unto you, O God, the Father, that, whereas you have consecrated the present portion of the year by the Birth of this same Son, you may vouchsafe to make this year a happy one to us, and to give us to spend it in your service. Fill, too, the earth with its fruits, and deliver our souls and bodies from sickness and sin. Take away scandal, defeat our enemy, keep down famine, and drive far from our country all such events as would bring evil upon her. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
- from the book The Liturgical Year: Christmas, volume 1, by the Very Reverend Dom Prosper Gueranger, Abbot of Solesmes, translated from the French by the Revered Dom Laurence Shepherd, Monk of the English-Benedictine Congregation, 2nd edition; published in Dublin Ireland by James Duffy, 15 Wellington-Quay, 1870