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Whether we are Western Latin Catholics or Eastern Catholics we ought to be interested in what our forebears did in Rome for these Sundays of Advent. Our traditions run deep. We know better who we are by knowing who they were.
On this 3rd Sunday of Advent the Roman Station is at St. Peter’s on the Vatican Hill. In ancient times, there was no station for the 4th Sunday because ordinations were conferred during the night before. In the week before the ordinations the scrutinies of the candidates were conducted. Hence, the people gathered at St. Peter’s to intercede. During the night there were splendid and complicated festive ceremonies with processions to the various altars, the singing of psalms, lessons, and the Te Deum. When Mass was ended, the Roman Pontiff was crowned with the triple tiara and a vast cavalcade on horses headed across Rome to the Lateran Basilica, where there was a banquet. Today, something of the festive tone of the day remains in the rose vestments, flowers, and the possibility of a greater use of instrumental music.
The texts for Mass are shot through with a joyous tone, in anticipation of the feast to come. The Introit, taken from Philippians 4:4, sounds the theme, “Gaudete in Domino semper…”:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
This is also, with the prolongation of v. 7 (“And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”) the Epistle reading.
The Gospel from John 1 presents the scene to which the Lord referred in last week’s Gospel from Matthew 11 when He asked the Jews about John the Baptist, “Whom did you go out to see?” This week, priests and Levites come from Jerusalem to ask John who he is. This occasions John to exclaim what is our Advent theme, quoting Isaiah 40: “‘Make straight the way of the Lord” (John 1:23).
“Dirígite viam Dómini”… Make straight the way of the Lord.
“Dominus enim prope est”… For the Lord is near.
When the Lord returns, He is going to come by the straight way, whether you have helped to straighten it or not. Right now, that straightening can be gentle and merciful, even if there are repentant tears and the burdens of repairing wrongs and doing penance. However, when the Lord returns as Just Judge, King of Fearful Majesty, it will not be with gentle mercy. This week’s Gospel and next week’s from Luke 3 coordinate in Isaiah 40 about the ultimate Advent.
The Postcommunion of any Mass cannot be separated from the our collective and individual reception of Communion and our thanksgiving that should follow. “Eucharist”, from Greek eukarístos means “thanksgiving”. What is expressed in Postcommunion prayers is to be read and heard in the immediate and elevated attitude of confident hope in gratitude. Today we hear, and actively participate in offering the oration by attentively listening:
Implorámus, Dómine, cleméntiam tuam: ut hæc divína subsídia, a vítiis expiátos, ad festa ventúra nos preparent.
Clementia means “calmness, forbearance with the faults of others”. Here, paired with Tua, the divine attribute of God’s indulgence towards us is used as if it were a title, like “Your Grace”, or “Your Majesty”.
Subsidia is an interesting word. This is the plural of subsidium which flows from subsido, “to sit, crouch down, sink down, to wait”. Those of you with backgrounds in scholarly work in theology or history, perhaps other fields, spot this term in association with journals and publications. In military parlance, the subsidia are assisting troops of the Roman legion, the third rank of reserves. In other contexts subsidia are “aids, resources”. We are members of the Church Militant and we are hard at work. In Advent we are told to fill in the ditches and level the hills, to build a smooth road for the Lord’s approach in his adventus. Roman legionaries were forever building, straightening, making roads. At the end of Holy Mass, we sink down in grateful awe, at the coming of Christ in Communion when He brings us his “divina subsidia… divine aids”.
Next in the prayer we find a key element. We all like the idea of the joy of Heaven. However, we have to get there. God is giving us the means through the Church in the sacraments, particularly in baptism and, after that initial cleansing, through Penance and the Eucharist. These are great subsidia. Before the Eucharist, however, we have to deal with our sins in the Sacrament of Penance. In our Postcommunion we are described as a vitiis expiate. Expio is “to make satisfaction, amends, atonement for a crime or a criminal; to purify any thing defiled with crime; to atone for, to expiate, purge by sacrifice”. Christ made the once for all time expiation of our sins in his Sacrifice on the Cross. This same act of expiation is renewed on our Eucharistic altars. The effects of this expiation are applied to us in the sacraments in different ways, all making us able to receive the graces which God desires freely to bestow. Before we can receive the divina subsidia in such a way that they are beneficial for us, we have to be expiati a vitiis … forgiven from sins, vices. The participle is in the past, so the expiation takes place before the reception of the subsidia. This is where I say: get your horse cavalcade together and go to confession!
REALLY LITERAL RENDERING:
O Lord, we beseech Your Clemency, that these divine aids will prepare us, having been forgiven for our sins, for the feasts about to come.
Blessed Ildefonso Schuster writes of this Postcommunion in his massive, multi-volume The Sacramentary:
In the Post-Communion — the Eucharistia — we pray God that the sacred gift may so purify us as to prepare us fittingly for the coming solemnity. To dispose our souls for the worthy reception of divine grace demands suitable preparation before approaching the sacraments, by giving due care to prayer and meditation. If Jerusalem rejected the Messiah, it was precisely for want of preparation for the receiving of the Messianic grace. Wholly immersed in vain and worldly desires, she was indeed ill-prepared to see the King of Glory in the Man of Sorrows. Ritual and external practices of worship are praiseworthy and necessary, but preparation for the right use of grace is something far more searching and needful.
Just before this final oration we heard sung or pronounced the antiphon for our Communion procession:
Dícite: pusillánimes, confortámini et nolíte timére: ecce, Deus noster véniet et salvábit nos.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” (Is 35:4)
Don’t be afraid. Make straight the way of the Lord, for the Lord is near. Go to confession.
