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“O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis.”​​

( “O Dawn of the East, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice: come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”​ )

~ "O Antiphon" of December 21st, from Isaiah 9:2 & Malachi 4:2 ~

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  All peoples are in desperate need of a Savior, of a Redeemer who is capable of ransoming us from the darkness of our sins and from the blinding and numbing wound of ignorance from which all of humanity suffers.  In the original fall of the human race, our first parents inflicted grave wounds in the souls of every person who would live after them. (The only exception to this, by a singular act of prevenient grace, is the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepared as a worthy vessel for the Incarnate Word and possessing the unique privilege of being both daughter and Mother of God.)  Our wills are damaged.  Our intellect is clouded.  In Christ, God has revealed the Truth to humanity as the sure foundation of what is lasting.  All else apart from Him fails and fades into dark obscurity.  God brings clarity and light back to our souls when we are baptized, or when we return to Him through the sacrament of penance.  

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  When Holy Mass was offered in the ancient Church, Christians would face "East" with the priest in a shared posture of worship. When Christians first gathered on Sundays to worship the Lord, they were anticipating the second coming of Christ. We tend to think of the Mass in terms of looking back in remembrance of the Last Supper, or the Crucifixion, or the Resurrection of Christ. However, much more than these, our celebration of Mass is a looking forward with longing to the Lord's return in glory as we beseech Him to deliver us from the evils of sin, death, and damnation. Hence, for nearly 2,000 years, all apostolic Christians, at least symbolically, shared a common eastward posture of liturgical prayer so that they could greet the coming of the Savior, both in the consecration of the bread and wine and in the expectation of the glorious return of the King of Glory.  They turned to the rising sun who is Justice Itself, whose light will lay bare the truth of our every word, thought and deed in the Final Day. This ancient and venerable tradition is indeed apostolic in origin, predating even the use of priestly vestments and church buildings, as is attested by Scripture and the witness of many Church Fathers throughout the centuries in Eastern and Western churches.

 

  During this season of Advent and going into the Christmas season, a select number of our liturgies will be celebrated in this traditional 'eastward' posture of prayer toward the altar - toward the Lord -  to help us to enter bodily and spiritually into the shared expectation of the Light of Salvation rising in the East to dispel the darkness of the world. These will include three Pre-Dawn Masses by candle light on Saturdays at 7:00am ( Dec. 6, 13, & 20), the 8:00am Mass on December 8 for the feast of the Immaculate Conception with our school students, and additionally, Midnight Mass at the close of Christmas Eve, at 12:00am. Many of our parishioners who attended the Saturday Advent Masses last year continue to express their positive experience of prayerfulness and reverential beauty that these liturgies convey while contemplating the sacred mysteries of our redemption.

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  In this holy season of preparation for the coming of our Savior, let us turn, body and soul, to the LIGHT that is rising in the world. May we repent of our sinful ways and habits, anchoring ourselves to Christ in His Holy Church, that we might experience the transformative power of God's love coming into the world.

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  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

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O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer,
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight!​

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Oremvs Pro Invicem!

Father Albert Beltz, KHS, Pastor​​