1st Tuesday of Advent

As promised, another entry from 'The Liturgical Year'. This is is a hymn, composed in the 9th century, and taken from the hymnarium of Blessed Joseph-Maria Tommasi:

May the sun, and stars, and land, and sea, sound forth the coming of the most high God: may the rich and poor unite their songs of praise to the Son of the supreme Creator!
He is the Saviour promised to our fathers; the glorious offspring of a Virgin: the Son of the mighty God born of him before the morning star.
He is the King of glory, and is coming to rule as God over kings, trample our wicked enemy beneath his feet, and heal this sick world of ours.
Let the angels rejoice, let all nations exult; he that is high is coming in lowliness to save what had been lost.
A God-Man is born, and the holy Trinity reigns; the Son co-eternal with the Father, our Lord, descends upon our earth.
Let the prophets cry out, and prophesy: Emmanuel is nigh unto us. Let the tongues of the dumb speak, and ye, poor lame ones, run to meet Him.
Let the lamb and the wild beast feed with each other:: let the ox and the ass know him that lies in the manger.
The royal glittering standard ushers in our divine Chief: ye kings prepare your gifts for the noble and royal Babe.
O the blessed message sent to the Virgin Mary! By believing she conceives; she is a Mother, and a Virgin knowing not man.
All ye nations and islands applaud this grand triumph. Run swiftly as the stag, lo! the Redeemer is coming.
Let the eyes of the blind, who have been sitting in darkness, now learn to throw off the murky night, and open to the true light.
Let Galilee, and Greece, and Persia, and India, receive the faith: a God deigns to become man, and remains the Word with the Father.
Praise, honour, power, glory, be to God the Father, and to the Son, together with the Holy Ghost, for eternal ages. Amen.

And now a hymn by Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), for Holy Communion:

This faith to Christian men is given--
Bread is made flesh by words from heaven:
Into his Blood the wine is turned:
What though it baffles nature's powers
Of sense and sight? This faith of ours
Proves more than nature e'er discerned.

Concealed beneath the twofold sign,
Meet symbols of the gifts divine,
There lie the mysteries adored:
The living Body is our food;
Our drink the ever-precious Blood;
In each, one undivided Lord.

Not he that eateth it divides
The sacred food, which whole abides
Unbroken still, nor knows decay;Be one, or be a thousand fed,
They eat alike that living Bread
Which, still received, ne'er wastes away.

The good, the guilty share therein,
With sure increase of grace or sin,
The ghostly life, or ghostly death:
Death to the guilty; to the good
Immortal life. See how one food
Man's joy or woe accomplished.