The Introit, for instance, refers to Sion, holy mount of Jerusalem, so often mentioned as the symbol of the interior life of the faithful soul; it speaks also of the soul as a docile sheep led by God. It publishes His coming “to save the nations.” After calling upon God to “stir up our (interior) hearts” in the Prayer, so as to “prepare,” notice how the Epistle stresses social charity, “to receive one another as Christ also hath received you.”
Again, the Gospel enumerates some of the interior and social “works of Christ,” which together with His miracles, testify that He is the long expected Divine Saviour of the world. The blind of soul now see; the lame of will now walk; the lepers of sin are absolved; the poor become rich with a new Gospel.
Today is feast day of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra, known in his time for his defense of orthodoxy at the Council of Nicea which condemned Arianism, as well as his many miracles and generosity. He is the original and authentic Santa Claus. The saint died in 324. His relics were removed from a Moslem controlled Middle East in a daring raid upon the monastery where they laid and are now preserved at Bari, Italy. II Sunday of Advent takes precedence and he is not commemorated in the newer version of the rubrics.