EMBER FRIDAY IN ADVENT

        Visitation - Mariotto Alberinelli, 1503

Today is a day of fast and abstinence.

     EMBER FRIDAY IN ADVENT

The Lord is now nigh; come, let us adore.

The Church does not read anything from the Prophet Isaias today; she merely gives, in the Office of Matins, a sentence of that chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, which relates the mystery of our Lady's Visitation: and to this she subjoins a fragment of St. Ambrose's Homily upon that passage. The considerations and affections with which this important event of our Lady's life ought to inspire the faithful, shall be given further on, in the Proper of the Saints. The Station for today is in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which many believe to have been first built by Constantine, and in which the glorious bodies of the two holy Apostles Philip and James the Less, buried under the altar, await the second Coming of Him, who chose them as his co- operators in the work of the first, and who, on the last day, will give them to sit upon thrones near his own, judging the twelve Tribes of Israel. That we may the better conform to the intentions of our Holy Mother the Church, who offers to our contemplation the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin, let us recite the following Hymn, composed in honour of this Mystery, during the ages of faith:

Madonna and Child - Concert of Angels and Nativity c. 1515

A PROSE IN HONOR THE BLESSED VIRGIN

(Taken from the Ancient Roman-French Missals)

Hail, Branch of Jesse, Fruit-bearing Branch! Hail, Gate of the Temple, closed to all but God! Be glad, thou Fleece of Gedeon, full of the dew of the Holy Spirit! Be glad, thou tent of Solomon, of all the first in beauty! Hail, shining Star of Jacob, lighting up the sea! Hail, thou sealed-up Sanctuary, thou Burning Bush! What bliss is thine, that thou the humble Star shouldst be clad with the Sun, and then bring forth the Sun! What bliss is thine, that thou shouldst be elected the bright Ladder reaching up to heaven. Sing to thy God, thou Aurora rising in the light of the new Star! Sing, thou Ark of the Covenant, bearing unto us sinners thy three treasures. Oh! let thy soul magnify Jesus! and oh! sweet Mary, pray that, with thee, we too may magnify him. Amen.

PRAYER FROM THE GALLICAN SACRAMENTARY

(In Adventu Domini, Collect)

O Lord God, Father Almighty, purify the recesses of our heart, and mercifully wash away all the stains of our sins; and grant, O Lord, that cleansed from our sins by thy merciful blessing, we may await in confidence the dread and terrible Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

               Homily by St Ambrose

               Commentary on Luke

When any one asketh another for credence, he is bound to give some reasonable ground. And so the Angel, when he announced to Mary the counsel of God, gave, as a proof, the conception of Elizabeth, then aged and barren, that Mary might perceive, by this example, that with God nothing is impossible. When the holy Virgin had heard it, she arose and went to visit her cousin. She did not go to see if what she had heard was true, because she did not believe God, or because she knew not who the messenger had been, or yet because she doubted the fact adduced in proof. She went joyfully as one who hath received a mercy in answer to his vow goeth to pay the same. She went with devotion, as a godly person goeth to execute a religious duty. She went into the hill country in joyful haste. And is it not something that she went up into the hills? God was already in her womb, and her feeling bore her continually upward. The grace of the Holy Spirit knoweth no slow working.

     Godly women will learn from the example of the Mother of God to take a tender care of their kinswomen who are with child. In pursuance of this charity, Mary, who had hitherto remained alone at home, was not deterred by her maidenly shyness from entering on a public journey; she faced for this end the hardships of mountain travelling; and encountered with a sense of duty the weary length of the way. The Virgin left her home, and went into the hill country with haste, unmindful of the trouble, and remembering only the office to which her cousinly love prompted her, in spite of the delicacy of her sex. Maidens will learn from her not to idle about from house to house, to loiter in the streets, nor to take part in conversations in public. Mary, as she was hasteful to pass through the public roads, so was she slow again to enter on them she abode with her cousin about three months.

         Visitation - Mariotto Alberinelli

     As the modesty of Mary is a pattern for the imitation of all maidens, so also is her humility. She went to see Elizabeth, like one cousin going to visit another, and as the younger to the elder. Not only did she first go, but she first saluted Elizabeth. Now, the purer a virgin is, the humbler ought she to be. She will know how to submit herself to her elders. She that professeth chastity ought to be a very mistress of humility. Lowly-mindedness is at once the very ground in which devotion groweth, and the first and principal rule of its teaching. In this act of the Virgin then we see the greater going to visit and to succour the lesser Mary to Elizabeth, Christ to John.

 R. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down the Righteous One.

Let the earth open, and let her bring forth the Savior.
V. Send forth the Lamb, O Lord, the Ruler of the land, from the rock in the wilderness unto the mount of the daughter of Zion.
R. Let the earth open, and let her bring forth the Savior.