"Quaere, inquit, servum tuum, quoniam mandata tua non sum oblitus.  Veni ergo, Domine Jesu, quaere servum tuum, quaere lassam ovem tuam; veni, pastor, quaere sicut oves Joseph. Erravit ovis tua, dum tu moraris, dum tu versaris in montibus. Dimitte nonaginta novem oves tuas, et veni unam ovem quaerere quae erravit. Veni sine canibus, veni sine malis operariis, veni sine mercenario, qui per januam introire non noverit. Veni sine adjutore, sine nuntio, jam dudum te expecto venturum ; scio enim venturum, quoniam mandata tua non sum oblitus. Veni non cuм virga, sed cuм caritate spirituque mansuetudinis.[1]

The period of Advent is of ancient institution and we find it mentioned around the fifth century, as a time of the liturgical year destined to the preparation of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ secundum carnem. Indeed, Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year, which allows us to seize this opportunity to follow the voice of the Church with holy intentions.

The discipline of penance and fasting during Lent in preparation for Easter is certainly of apostolic origin, while that in expectatione Domini is later and inspired by the former, but less rigid and passed over the centuries to abstinence only on certain days of the week. "It is true that St. Peter Damian, in the eleventh century, still assumed that the Advent fast was forty days, and that St. Louis, two centuries later, continued to observe it to that extent; but perhaps this holy king practiced it thus out of a particular devotional transport. The laxity of modern generations has prompted the Church's maternal wisdom to attenuate the rigors of the past, without preventing them from being practiced voluntarily; but perhaps the present situation leads us to consider as appropriate, precisely because they are not imposed, the privations practiced by our ancestors in obedience to an ecclesiastical precept.

The Advent liturgy owes much to the work of St. Gregory the Great, not only for the texts of the Office and the Mass, but also for the plainchant compositions themselves. The ancient trope Sanctissimus namque, which introduces the introit Ad te levavi of the First Sunday of Advent, recalls the inspiration of the Holy Pontiff by the Holy Spirit, who appeared in the form of a dove. Originally six, then five, the weeks of preparation for the Holy Christmas were reduced to four between the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century, so that the current usage is at least a thousand years old. The Ambrosian Church still maintains six weeks, for a total of forty-two days, modeled on Lent.

St. Ambrose, Doctor and Father of the Church, is one of the first authors of homilies on the theme of Advent. I would like to begin this meditation with a prayer from the Commentary on Psalm 118. The incipit of the prayer is Quaere, inquit, servum tuum. As you can see, the whole text is peppered with quotations from Sacred Scripture: not to show off a biblical culture, which the holy bishop of Milan certainly possessed, but because of that knowledge of the Word of God which is the fruit of an intimate and almost vital assiduity for the soul, just as air is indispensable for breathing. This assiduity led St. Ambrose to speak and write himself using the words of the sacred Author, not because he wanted to plagiarize divine Wisdom, but because he had made them so much his own that he repeated them in turn without realizing it.

When we approach, almost as laymen, the writings of these saints, we may feel somewhat disoriented and confused. But if we have the grace to participate in liturgical prayer by attending Mass and reciting the Divine Office according to the traditional form, we discover that it is the voice of the Church herself that accompanies us in this meditation of the Scriptures, beginning with the Invitatory at Matins. And this also applies to the Advent liturgy: Regem venturum Dominum, venite adoremus, sings the first prayer that is intoned in the middle of the night as we await the rising of the true unconquered Sun. This solemn invitation to worship the divine King is followed by the beginning of the book of the prophet Isaiah, which sounds like a stern reproach to his people:

"Listen, heavens, listen, earth, thus says the Lord: 'I have raised up children and made them grow, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his master, and the donkey his master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Woe to you, people of sin, people of iniquity! You are wicked and corrupt sons! They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned back. Why do you want to be struck again, accuмulating rebellion? The whole head is sick, the whole heart is longing. From the soles of the feet to the crown of the head there is nothing sound but sores and bruises and open wounds that have not been cleansed or bandaged or healed with oil." (Is 1:2-6).

The oracle of the Prophet shows the indignation of the Lord at the infidelity of his people, obstinate in their rebellion against his holy Law. But the literal or historical meaning[4] of Isaiah's passage concerning the Jєωs is accompanied by the moral meaning, that is, concerning what we should do. It is to us, then, that the Majesty of God turns: "Thus says the Lord" (ibid., 2), to admonish us once again, to show us our treachery, to urge us to conversion.

Thus, as we ask the Lord to deliver us from ore leonis and profundo lacu, we realize how undeserving we are of God's mercy, how unworthy we are of his mercy, and how deserving we are of his punishment. Deus, qui culpa offenderis, pœnitentia placaris... To the prostitutions - as Scripture calls them - into which the Jєωs fell, are added new and much worse prostitutions, not of the people to whom the Redeemer was promised, but of the one born from His side, the mystical Body of the Redeemer Himself; or rather : Of those who call themselves Catholics, but who by their infidelity dishonor the Bride of the Lamb, as members of the taught and teaching Church. The new Israel has shown itself no less rebellious than the old, and the new Roman Sanhedrin is no less guilty than those who made the golden calf and offered it to the worship of the Jєωs. If, then, the Prophet threatens with terrible plagues those who have disobeyed the Lord without having seen the Messiah to come, how much more serious must be the words of a Prophet "of the last times" in the face of the rebellion of mankind redeemed by the Blood of this divine Messiah, having been able to see the fulfillment of the Prophecies and the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity?

In the dramatic crisis which has struck the Church of Christ for sixty years, and which is manifesting itself today in all its gravity, a pusillus grex asks his Lord to spare lost humanity, when corruption and apostasy have penetrated even into the sacred precincts and the highest throne. And it is pusillanimous because the majority of those who have been regenerated by Baptism and have thus deserved to be called "sons of God" daily deny the promises of that Baptism, under the guidance of hirelings and false shepherds.

Think of how many believers, who have grown up in absolute ignorance of the rudiments of the Faith even though they have attended the catechism, are steeped in heretical philosophical and theological doctrines, convinced that all religions are equivalent; that man is not wounded by original sin but naturally good; that the State must ignore true Religion and tolerate error; that the mission of the Church is not the eternal salvation of souls and their conversion to Christ, but the protection of the environment and the blind reception of immigrants. Think of those who, although they fulfill the festive precept, do not know that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord are contained in the Holy Host, and think that it is only a symbol; think of those who are convinced that it is enough for them to repent in their innermost being in order to receive Communion, without imagining the torments that weigh upon those who receive the Body and Blood of the Lord unworthily. Think of how many priests, religious and sisters believe that the Council has brought a breath of fresh air to the Church, or that it has promoted the knowledge of Sacred Scripture, or that it has allowed the laity to understand the liturgy, which until then had been ignored by the masses and jealously guarded by a caste of rigid and intolerant clerics. Think of those who saw it as an indestructible beacon against the darkness of the world, an impregnable fortress against the onslaught of "modern" mentality, of widespread immorality, of the defense of life from its conception to its natural end. Finally, think of the irrepressible satisfaction of Christ's enemies to see his Church prostrate before the world, its ideologies of death, the idolatry of the State, of power, of money, of the myths of false science; a Church ready to deny its own glorious past, to adulterate the Faith and Morals taught by Our Lord, to corrupt its liturgy to please heretics and sectarians: not even the most delirious ramblings of the worst freemason could have hoped to see Voltaire's cry come true: Crush the wretch!

During Advent, we stand symbolically at the gates of the temple, like Ash Wednesday in Lent, and we observe from afar what is happening at the altar: here the birth of the King of Israel, there his Passion, Death and Resurrection. Let us imagine that we have to examine our conscience before being admitted to the Holy Place, as individual faithful and as members of the ecclesial body. We can only approach the adoration of the King of kings, the Lord of lords, if we understand, on the one hand, the infinite Good that is offered to us in the swaddling clothes of the manger, and on the other hand, our absolute unworthiness, which must necessarily be accompanied by the horror of our sins, the pain of having infinitely offended God and the desire to make reparation for the evil we have committed through penance and good works. And we must also understand that, as living members of the Church, we also have a collective responsibility for the faults of the other faithful and of our pastors; and as citizens, we have a responsibility for the public faults of the nations. Indeed, the Communion of Saints allows us to share with the souls in Purgatory and with the blessed souls in Heaven their merits, in order to counterbalance in an incomparably more effective way that "communion of the ungodly" which makes the effects of their bad deeds fall on their neighbors, especially on others who are enemies of God.

"Come to me, who am tormented by the attack of dangerous wolves," exclaims St. Ambrose. "Come to me, who have been cast out of paradise and whose wounds have long since been penetrated by the poisons of the serpent, to me who have wandered far from your flocks in these mountains."

We are beginning to realize that we are besieged by predatory wolves: by those who sow error, by those who corrupt morals, by those who spread death and despair, by those who want to kill us in our souls even before they kill us in our bodies. We realize how superficial, stupid and proud we have been to let ourselves be deceived by the false promises of the world, of the flesh and of the devil; how false were the words of those who, since the expulsion of our first Parents, continue to repeat the same temptations, to exploit our weaknesses, to appeal to our pride or to our vices in order to make us fall and to drag us with them to hell. We have forgotten that we were driven out of the earthly paradise, that we bear the marks of the poisonous bite of the serpent, that we have sinned by abandoning the safe pastures of the true faith to be seduced by the world, by the flesh, by the devil. Indeed, if we lived with the awareness of our initial guilt - which is also a collective guilt and, moreover, a hereditary one - and of all the evil that we commit and that we allow to be committed; if we meditated on our inability to save ourselves, except by the supernatural help that God grants us through Grace; if we were to convince ourselves that many of our acts are grave offenses against the Majesty of God and that we would deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth in a manner far worse than what happened to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, then we would not even need the Good Shepherd to come and get us, to abandon the ninety-nine sheep in the safety of the mountains where "the ravening wolves cannot attack them."

The holy bishop adds: "Come without dogs, come without bad workers, come without the hired hand who does not know how to pass the door. Come without assistance, without a messenger", because the dogs, the bad workers and the mercenary servant are temporary figures, destined to perish, to be dispersed at the breath of God's mouth, even if at this moment it seems that the world belongs to them. "Come, then, and seek your sheep, not by servants, not by hirelings, but you in person: unfaithful servants invite us to be "resilient" and "inclusive", to listen to the "cry of Mother Earth"[5], to be vaccinated with a serum made from aborted fetal cells; the hireling, "cujus non sunt oves propriæ" (...) scatters us, abandons us, does not chase away the fierce wolves and does not punish the bad workers, but on the contrary encourages them.

Why then should the Lord come? Why can we ask him: "Come in person"? St. Ambrose answers with prayer, quoting the psalmist: "For I have not forgotten your commandments" (Ps 118:176). Our obedience to God's will finds a perfect correspondence - and a divine example - in the obedience of the eternal Son of the Father from eternity of time, agreeing to become incarnate, to suffer and to die for our salvation: "Then I said, 'Behold, I am coming - for it is written of me in the scroll of the book - to do your will, O God'" (Heb 10:7). The Lord comes in obedience to the Father and we must await his coming by being in turn obedient to the will of the Holy Trinity, "for I have not forgotten your commandments".

The reason we can be sure that the Lord will come to get us, delivering us from the attack of the wolves and the evil influence of evil workers and hirelings, is that we must not forget what he has commanded us; we must not take his place in deciding what is good and what is evil; we must not follow the multitude into the abyss out of human respect or cowardice or complicity, but remain like the ninety-nine sheep in the safe pastures of Holy Church, "for the ravening wolves cannot attack them while they are in the mountains," closer to God by being detached from earthly things. In the same way, we must show holy humility, recognizing ourselves as sinners: "Come and seek the one sheep that has gone astray," for "you alone can bring back the lost sheep, and you will not hurt those from whom you have strayed," that is, Catholics of all times, who have remained faithful, safe from the wolves in the high pastures. "And they too will rejoice at the return of the sinner."

The prayer of St. Ambrose continues with a very profound and significant expression: "Receive me in the flesh that fell in Adam. Receive me not from Sarah, but from Mary, so that she may be not only an inviolable virgin, but a virgin preserved by the effect of grace, from every stain of sin." In Mary most holy, Sancta Virgo virginum, we find the Mediatrix of all graces: in her, a most pure creature, the eternal Word of the Father became incarnate, from her the Savior was born into the world; through her we are presented to her divine Son, and through her merits we can be received "into the flesh fallen in Adam," in virtue of the Grace that restores our friendship with God. An excellent starting point for meditation in preparation for Christmas.

But there is another very important consideration that St. Ambrose gives us at the end of his prayer: "Lead me to the cross that gives salvation to the wandering, in which alone the rest of the weary is found, in which alone the dying will live." Everything revolves around the Cross of Christ, it stands in time and eternity as a sign of contradiction, for it reminds us that it is the instrument of Redemption, salvation for the wandering, rest for the weary, life for the dying. A fourteenth-century miniature by Pacino di Buonaguida[6] offers a very rare and extremely symbolic image: the Lord climbs the Cross with the help of a ladder - the scala virtutum - to underline the voluntary nature of his sacrifice and the "paradox" of his double nature. In the iconography of the seventeenth century, we find a recurring image of the Child Jesus asleep on the Cross[7], an explicit allusion to the divine love and sacrifice of Christ. Christmas and Easter are intrinsically linked, so that in preparing for the birth of the Savior, we must always contemplate as the center and focus precisely the Cross, on which the infant Jesus rests and on which the immaculate Lamb ascends by a mystical ladder. It is there that we too must arrive, because it is only on the Cross that we find salvation, following the Lord: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him renounce himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Lk 9:23).

"Veni, ut facias salutem in terris, in coelo gaudium," "Come and bring salvation on earth, joy in heaven." May this be our invocation during this sacred time of Advent, to prepare us spiritually for the trials that await us.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

28th November 2021

1st Sunday of Advent

Translation by F. de Villasmundo, proofread by Archbishop Viganò 

Footnotes   

[1] "Come then, Lord Jesus, seek your servant [Ps 118:176], seek your weary sheep. Come, shepherd, seek, as Joseph sought the sheep [Gn 37:14]. Your sheep has wandered, while you delay, while you wander on the mountains. Let your ninety-nine sheep go, and come and seek the one that has gone astray [Mt 18:12ff; Lk 15:4]. Come without dogs, come without evil workers, come without the hireling servant who does not enter by the door [Jn 10:1-7]. Come without assistance, without a messenger. I have waited for your coming for a long time. For I know that you will come, for I have not forgotten your commandments [Ps 118:176]. Do not come with a rod, but with charity and in a spirit of gentleness [Cor 4:21]. "Sancti Ambrosii Episcopi Expositio Psalmi CXVIII, 22, 2

[2] Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, I. Advent - Christmas - Lent - Passion, trans. P. Graziani, Alba, 1959, pp. 21-26.

[3] "Sanctissimus namque Gregorius cuм preces effunderet ad Dominum ut musicuм donum ei desuper in carminibus dedisset, tunc descendit Spiritus Sanctus super eum, in specie columbæ, et illustravit cor ejus, et sic demum exortus est canere, ita dicendo: Ad te levavi...". - Trope at the Introit of the First Sunday of Advent -

Cfr. https://gregobase.selapa.net/chant.php?id=4654

[4] Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia (The letter teaches what has happened, the allegory what you must believe, the morals what you must do, the anagogy the end towards which you must tend) - Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla in Gal. , 4, 3.

[5] See https://www.vaticannews.va/it/papa/news/2021-10/ebook-papa-francesco-laudato-si.html and https://www.avvenire.it/opinioni/pagine/il-grido-della-terra-e-dei-poveri

[6] See https://scriptoriumdaily.com/ladder-at-the-cross/ - A painting from the school of Giotto with an identical subject can be found in the monastery of Sant'Antonio in Polesine, in Ferrara. See also Anna Eörsi, Haec scala significat ascensum virtutum. Remarks on the iconography of Christ climbing the cross on a ladder -

https://arthist.elte.hu/Tanarok/EorsiA/Fulltexts/Idegen/l%E9tra_a.htm


[7] See, for example, Guido Reni's painting, The Child Jesus Sleeping on the Cross, oil on canvas, ca. 1625.