Friday-4th week of Advent 2011

Today we hear a hymn of the Birth of Christ, taken from the poet Prudentius:

Come forth, sweet Babe! Child of chastity, Child of a Virgin Mother! Come, O thou, our Mediator, Man and God.

Though thou didst come, in time, from the mouth of the most high Father, and becamest incarnate at the angel's word; yet hadst thou, O eternal Wisdom, dwelt for ever in the bosom of thy Father.

This eternal Wisdom manifested itself when it made heaven, light, and the other creatures; by the power of the Word were all these made, for the Word is God.

But having thus created the world, and fixed the laws of the universe, this creator and maker still left not his Father's bosom.

Until at length thousands of years rolled on, and then he deigned to visit the world grown old in sin.

For man, blinded with passion, paid adoration to empty vanities, and believed that brass, or stiff blocks of stone and wood, were God.

Abandoned to idolatry, they became the slaves of the treacherous enemy, and plunged their enslaved souls into the dark abyss.

But the Son of God compassionated this destruction of his fallen creatures; for it was the ruin of his Father's image.

He took to himself a mortal body, that by the resurrection of that body he might break the chain of death, and raise up man to his Father.

Thou forebodest his sufferings, O noble Virgin! and yet to give birth to this thy Son is an honour which adds fresh lustre to thy spotless purity.

Oh that Virgin Mother, what joy for the world does she contain within her! A new age, a golden light, will come by her.

And now, a prayer from "Paradisus Animae":

By his mediation may all things work together for us unto good, for there is no salvation in any other. As, then, he is truly present in this Sacrament, so let him be with us everywhere. Let him nourish, govern, preserve, protect and guide us, according to his merciful good pleasure, as the sheep of his pasture. Nothing that happens to us will be to our harm, if it do not separate us from our sovereign Good. It is well for me that I stay close to the Lord, for besides thee what have I in heaven, or what can I desire upon earth?

Come, Lord Jesus. Come, let us adore Him!