A new year of worship to God and service to neighbour begins today!
 
These Sundays before Christmas prepare us “to adore the King Who is to come.” They reveal the expectation of the ancient world in its long night of spiritual darkness. They reveal our hope that a prophesied Saviour will come. Immediately, in the Introit, we put our trust in God, Who will not deceive us, imploring him to “show Thy ways” where we may meet Him. For His coming, “nearer than we believed,” in today’s Mass, the Epistle warns us to “rise from sleep” and “cast off works of darkness” and put on “the Lord Jesus.”
 
The Gospel, by picturing how we must accept Christ as King of Justice at His second Advent at the end of the world, indirectly prevails upon us to prepare now for His first coming, as King of Mercy. Aware of the dangers ahead during this preparation, we invoke His Power in the Prayer, we offer this Sacrifice to be cleansed by His Power (Secret), and we promise to receive the Sacrament of His Mercy (Postcommunion).
 
Today is Feast of St. Saturninus M. of Carthage, martyred at Rome about 304 during the persecution of Diocletian. Although not commemorated in the Mass using the newer rubrics, pray to the Saint for resolve to fight off the evil of the world.
 
During Advent, the ferias of the first and second weeks are of the III class, and if no feast of the III class or higher occurs, then the Mass of the prior Sunday of Advent is Mass of the day. Commemoration of the feria is made in every feast celebrated during Advent. Although known as Little Lent in the past, the Season is actually joyful as we are looking forward to the birth of Our Divine Saviour.

The Sunday Mass brings us to the end of the Church year of public worship. 

Hence, the general theme appropriately refers to the end of the world.  In preparation for our final judgment, we beseech God to arouse “our wills” for “divine service” (Prayer), to be on our guard, awake and active, lest our faith sleep or be merely sentimental. 

The Epistle, therefore, begs us to be filled with a “knowledge of God,” to be “fruitful in every good work,” to recognize our duty and privilege to work with and for one another in true Christian community, which is the Communion of  “saints,” all for the sake of Him Who shed “His Blood.”  Lest “His Love” fail to inspire us.

The Gospel fills us with sentiments of holy fear, as we consider the destruction of the Jerusalem's of this world, the end of all time, and the beginning of eternity; as we consider further the necessity of fleeing to the “mountains” of God from the Judea of “false Christs” and false leaders, who sometimes are so clever as “to deceive even the elect,” enslaving, misleading, corrupting their minds, especially in the modern press, radio and television.  Today, we may well implore God through our Sacrifice to turn “our hearts” to Him (Secret) and to heal through our Sacrament what “is diseased in our hearts” (Postcommunion).  

Today is Feast of the Roman noblewoman, St. Cecilia, who conse­crated her virginity to God, yet was forced to marry Vale­rian, a pagan.  She told him her vir­ginity was under the protection of an angel.  Valerian was privileged to see the angel and converted to Christian­ity as did his brother Tiburtius who also saw the angel.  Both brothers were martyred in about 230 followed by St. Cecilia.  Her name is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass, and the priest bows toward the Crucifix at its mention. She is the Patroness of Musicians because, as the Antiphon of Vespers says, "At the sound of musical instruments, the virgin Cecilia sang to God in her heart." 

It is the time of the liturgical year when some of the Sunday’s that were not used after Epiphany are used as we tread towards the end of the year and move toward Advent and a new liturgical year.
 
This Sunday, we learn that Jesus came to found a universal Church and to unite Himself with the individual soul.

The Gospel is a “leaven” of Divinity hiding in the “three measures” of our intellect, will and body until our “whole” humanity is leavened. Like the tiny mustard seed becoming a large tree of shelter for the birds of the air, the Church, from humble beginnings in the Catacombs, has stretched out to undiscovered ends of foreign missions, her divine culture transforming or overcoming all human culture throughout nineteen centuries.

The Epistle first describes the interior life of faith, hope and charity in the souls of the first lay converts to Christ, and then proceeds to describe their Christian Action in propagating the Faith, so that they “were a pattern” to all, and their neighbours ‘in Macedonia and Achaia” like “birds of the air” came and “dwelt in the branches” of the Church.

The 15th November is the Feast of St. Albert the Great, German Franciscan, of the XIII Century, who taught philosophy and theology at the University of Paris and Cologne where St. Thomas Aquinas was one of his students. Later, he became Bishop of Regensburg. Although not commemorated in the Mass using the 1962 Missal, we can perhaps pray to the Saint for clear thinking and to strengthen both the Church and ourselves.

The Tenth Edition of Gregorius Magnus can be downloaded here.

Amongt some very good reading is the response of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce (FIUV) to the survey of the world's bishops on the Traditional Mass carried out by the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith earlier this year.

By an indult which dates back to a period following the First World War, Priests in England and Wales may celebrate a Requiem Mass for Remembrance Sunday today. The Mass said is that of the Anniversary.

For those Glorious Dead of conflict in the preservation of peace and freedom, dona eis requiem sempiternam!

The XXIII Sunday after Pentecost is celebrated outside of this dispensation and our liturgical notes focus our minds toward the conclusion of the church year.

So as we approach the end of the liturgical year, the Church now discusses the only conditions under which Jesus bestows human peace and Divine Life. After all, have not His words and life shown him to be a God, not "of affliction," but "of peace?" Has he not brought us "back" to His own "blessed Land" from our own "captivity" (Introit) in which "through our weakness we become entangled" (Prayer)?

Have we not become "enemies of the Cross," bringing about our own "destruction," as the Epistle describes it? The Epistle advises, however, that we first of all "stand fast in the Lord" and "be of one mind in the Lord" with one another in order that He might "reform the body of our lowness" in personal and public life and be delivered from the "depths" (Gradual). Christ will turn around to help us anywhere on the road of life if we only touch "the hem of His garment" in faith. But if we surround ourselves with a multitude of creatures and created things who laugh their Creator to scorn, "making a tumult," He will only come in when we put them out (Gospel ) . Hence, when we "pray" (Communion), our chief petition should be for an "increase of our service" to God (Secret), and to "overcome human dangers" so as to share in the "Divine" life.

Today is Feast of the Holy Four Crowned Martyrs, names unknown, but church is Rome on Coelian Hill, is named in their honour. Although not commemorated in Masses using the 1962 Missal, pray to them for strength against the evils that confront us.