The First Sunday of Advent
“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence!”
In a rich interpretive move, the prolific exegetical artist Chris Powers elides the “rending of the heavens” named in Isaiah 62:1 into the “tearing of the veil of the Temple” at Jesus’s death (ie Mark 15:38). Certainly, the rupture of the heavenly veil opened by Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross has the character of a response to the prophet’s plea, but to collapse the whole to the crucifixion misses three important ruptures: the Incarnation, the experience of revelation, and apocalyptic judgement. While these two dimensions are present in the Crucifixion, they importantly retain a color and character unique to their phenomenological qualities. Yet the image of rupture speaks beautifully to the unspeakable yearning we have for that day, when the work that God had done in Christ reaches its full manifestation in our lives, experience, and history.
Concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
— Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 13:32)
First Sunday of Advent
Texts for this Week
Prayer
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Vox clara ecce intonat — A clear voice, behold, cries out!
Below are two contemporary renditions of the office hymn for the Lauds (early morning prayer) during the Advent season, used in the Latin church from at least the 6th C. (If you’re the kind of person who likes to geek out over the Latin, here it is in parallel with Neale’s translation over at the ever-edifying Thesaurus Precum Latinarum, and here is the hymn tastefully chanted to its original Gregorian melody). Both capture the rich gravitas of the lyrics better than the tradition hymn tune MERTON, although for those who have a strong association between the tune and the beginning of the journey towards Christmas, the more upbeat version from the Folk Hymnal might better fit the mood.
Introitus
Ad te levavi anima meam
This week’s introit comes from Psalm 25:1-3.
Unto you, O Lord, I lift up my soul: O my God, I trust in you. Let me not be ashamed, neither let my enemies laugh at me: for no one who trusts in you will ever be ashamed. Ps. Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths.
Because it is the first psalm in the Western antiphoner, it is often beautifully illuminated in medieval manuscripts with rich themes of the season, and has been subject to multiple extraordinary musical treatments over the centuries, as Stephen Brannen points out. Here’s the text chanted according to the Gregorian melody, and a polyphonic setting of the text by Palestrina.
