A Chapter Conference for the Ember Friday of Advent 2017

+ At Vespers this evening we sang: O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti. “O King of the gentiles and their desired One, the cornerstone that makes both one: come, and deliver man, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.”

As this antiphon implies, it is December 22nd. Indeed it is the Friday evening before a long Christmas weekend. By now most people shall be on holiday preparing for Christmas festivities, or will travelling to share in the joy of these with family or friends. For many “Christmas” will have begun, if not long since, then at least with the end of this working week.

And yet we still have some 48 hours before the solemn vigil of Christmas will be sung here in our Chapter room – 48 hours in which the Church intensifies her prayer for the coming of the Desired One, in which she continues to hope and long for the deliverance and peace that only He can bring.

The liturgy of these days is a stark reminder of the true nature of the Christmas feast, of precisely what it is that we celebrate. This evening’s O Rex gentium yearns for the deliverance of mankind, recalling the creation of man from the dust of the earth almost by way of reminding Almighty God of a duty He owes to us who, by our own misdeeds, became ‘undelivered’!

I doubt that many of our contemporaries, amidst the Christmas feasting that has long since begun, shall be concerned about their deliverance. They may, perhaps, join in the singing of the popularised version of O Rex gentium found in the hymn Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which sings “O come, Desire of nations, bind; In one the hearts of all mankind; Bid Thou our sad divisions cease; And be Thyself our King of peace.” But amidst these pleasant wishes for unity of heart and the ending of divisions, and whilst welcoming the King of peace, the deliverance which is at the heart of our preparation for Christmas and which is a prerequisite for true and lasting peace, indeed which is the very reason for the Incarnation itself, can be somewhat sentimentally obscured.

For Advent and Christmas are about longing for and celebrating the reality of our deliverance from sin and from the everlasting death that our sins deserve by the reality of God becoming man as our Saviour. It is this which we prepare earnestly to celebrate. It is for this reason that in this Ember week we have prayed and fasted more, that we have purged ourselves of worldly distractions in order the better to prepare to welcome our Saviour.

Even monasteries are busy places before Christmas, and amidst our many duties in preparing for this feast let us not fail to recall our own need for deliverance from sin, from its attractions, from its effects. Let us remember our duty, also, to carry with us into choir and to the altar our many friends, kind benefactors and family members who do not have the privilege of the riches of our life of liturgical prayer, for whom these days may well be spent more so as Martha than as Mary (cf. Luke 10:38-42). Let us pray too for those for whom Christmas is a mere secular activity, that they may come to know its Truth and that, rising to its demands, they may enjoy the everlasting peace its deliverance brings.

Tomorrow we shall assist our bishop in solemnly celebrating Ember Saturday with Tonsure and the ordination of Acolytes, Exorcists and Subdeacons. It is fitting that the Church’s tradition is to confer orders in Embertide, when we have prayed and fasted more intensely than usual, so that the graces given in these beautiful rites shall be more fecund in the lives of those for whom they are celebrated for the salvation of their souls and for the good of the whole Church.

Three amongst us this evening shall be tonsured tomorrow morning. As the bishop tonsures you, you will pray with him the words of Psalm 15:5 Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis mei; tu es qui restitues hereditatem meam mihi. “O Lord, the portion of my inheritance and my chalice; You are He who will restore my inheritance.”

Tonsure is a formal and public beginning of your path, please God, to Sacred Orders. It marks you – literally by the fivefold cutting of your hair – as one who henceforth belongs to the Lord for sacred service at His Altar. For monks and other religious the profession of vows is already a setting apart for the Lord’s service. Nevertheless, for they, clerical tonsure intensifies their belonging to the Lord as one whom the Church shall, please God, call to serve Him not only in the choir and in the enclosure, but also most appositely at His altar.

My sons, tonsure opens the door to the staircase which leads to Sacred Orders. We pray that in the coming years you will progress step by step towards the Altar of Sacrifice. Tomorrow, and each year in the future, please allow the Church’s sacred rites to teach you the nature of your ministry and to form you into the sacred ministers she so earnestly desires and needs. Ensure that through the purification of Embertide your hearts and minds are ever more pure.

And tomorrow, as you pray Psalm 15:5 with the bishop, give yourself to the Lord, to the King of the gentiles who comes for our deliverance, who – if indeed you do so give yourself – shall truly be your portion and your inheritance, now and forever. +