I invite you to reflect with me for a few moments on the Collect or Opening Prayer for the Fourth Sunday of Advent which you will hear at Mass this Sunday.
Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,
your grace into our hearts,
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
was made known by the message of an Angel,
may by his Passion and Cross
be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
your grace into our hearts,
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
was made known by the message of an Angel,
may by his Passion and Cross
be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
Have you heard that somewhere before? Of course you have. It’s the prayer we pray at the Angelus every day. The Collect from the papal liturgy of the seventh century, where it was used for the Feast of the Anunciation. Now we use it on the last Sunday of Advent, just before the Nativity of the Lord, Christmas.
Notice how the prayer makes reference to the message of an angel which first heralded the incarnation. Soon we will be hearing choirs of angels as they proclaim to the shepherds good news, great tidings: that today is born is born for you, in the City of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!
This is the season of angels, of messengers who herald the coming of the Lord, Just like the angels who will accompany him when he comes in glory at the end of time to judge the living and the dead! The angel of the Lord comes to Mary!
That’s the first point if this collect: The Incarnation and the Angel.
The second begins with the crib, but it leads us to the cross. Which makes me think of an ancient sarcophagus in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The sarcophagus is not far form the place where Saint Peter’s bones are venerated in the crypt of the Vatican Basilica.
In a frieze which rests on the top of the sarcophagus is a rather typical ancient depiction of the adoration of the magi. Mary is seated in a throne, holding the Christ child before the kneeling wise men. What makes the depiction unique, however, is what is found just behind the head of the Blessed Virgin, where a cross is lightly etched into the marble.
Thus we have in that sarcophagus and in this Collect both, the Crib and the Cross, the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery. Neither makes sense without the other: for how could Christ have died for our salvation unless he had “taken the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of man”? And how can we understand the immensity of God’s kenotic love without the shadow of the cross falling upon the manger and the hay?
It’s all here: the coming of Christ in Bethlehem and in glory, the cross and the crib. And it all starts with the manger, in the fullness of time, as the prayer reminds us:
Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord,
your grace into our hearts,
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
was made known by the message of an Angel,
may by his Passion and Cross
be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
your grace into our hearts,
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
was made known by the message of an Angel,
may by his Passion and Cross
be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
