“O great mystery, and wondrous sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in their manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!”
Let us allow ourselves to be enveloped in the reality of this mystery!
The short reading below is from a sermon by Saint Augustine selected for the Office of Readings for December 21:
Rightly, then, did the Prophets announce that He would be born; truly did the heavens and angels announce that He had been born. He who sustains the world lay in a manger, a wordless Child, yet the Word of God, Him whom the heavens do not contain the bosom of one woman bore. She ruled our King; she carried Him in whom we exist; she fed our Bread. O manifest weakness and marvelous humility in which all divinity lay hid! By His power He ruled the mother to whom His infancy was subject, and He nourished with truth her whose breasts suckled Him. May He who did not despise our lowly beginnings perfect His work in us, and may He who wished on account of us to become the Son of Man make us the sons of God.[i]
Listen to these beautiful musical arrangements of this ancient responsory of Matins (now known as “Office of Readings:”)[ii]
“O Magnum Mysterium”
by Tomás Luis de Victoria
O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen
Text:
O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum
natum, jacentem in praesepio.
Beata Virgo, cuius viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Jesum Christum.
Alleluia!
English Translation:
O great mystery,
and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in their manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! [iii]
Adoration of the Magi
Read Saint Augustine’s Sermon 184 |
For the Feast of the Nativity: Of the Birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Book pages 3-6 (Document pages 26-29).
de Fabriano, Gentile. “Adoration of the Magi (Anbetung Der Heiligen Drei Könige, Gesamtansicht).” Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons. Accessed January 2, 2021. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gentile_da_Fabriano_001.jpg.
[i] Saint Augustine, “Sermon 184,” in Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons, vol. 38, trans. Sister Mary Sarah
Muldowney, R.S.M., The Fathers of the Church Series (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), p. 6.
[ii] “The Office of Readings.” About the Office of Readings. Universalis. Accessed December 21, 2020. http://universalis.com/n-liturgy-readings.htm.
[iii] Rooney, Br. Charles Marie. “O Great Mystery.” Dominicana, January 9, 2020. https://www.dominicanajournal.org/o-great-mystery/.
The Epiphany of the Lord – January 2021
