HEARING MASS DURING ADVENT
A Purgative Method of Hearing Mass During Advent
To be used as a means of preparing for the Feast of Christmas in conjunction with the practice of frequent Confession.
Before Mass
Prepare for Mass by studying and praying the Propers for the day. Use whatever prayers you are accustomed to use in order to prepare for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. However, now add to your usual preparations an examination of conscience. Examine your conscience to discover a particular sin, fault or weakness that you would like to conquer by means of hearing the Mass with devotion.
Place yourself, momentarily, on the banks of the river Jordan. St. John the Baptist looks at you and commands you: "Prepare the way of the Lord!"
When the Lord comes, do you want Him to find you wallowing in this sin, fault or weakness? Will you want this stain on your soul when your Master comes to take an accounting of your soul? It is time to rid yourself of this fault or weakness! Firmly resolve to be rid of it, for the Lord is near!
The Sign of the Cross and the prayers at the foot of the altar
Meditate on the longings of the patriarchs and prophets for the Advent of the Messiah. The world in which they lived was a constant flux toward and away from the keeping of God’s commandments. How lost would the Israelites have been if they could not look forward to the coming of the Messiah that would set aright their understanding of those holy Commandments and impart to them the power to live them in such a way as to be pleasing to God.
You, like them, must now find hope in looking forward to the Advent of Christ in your heart, so that He can heal your troubled conscience, and give you rest from your labors. Pray that Christ might reign in your heart, and thereby conquer the fault or weakness that troubles you. Beg mercy and forgiveness from God along with the priest and the other ministers at the altar.
The Priest ascends to the altar and the Kyrie
Meditate on your own weakness. Beg God to grant you a complete and honest distrust of yourself and your natural powers. By your own natural powers, have you been able to overcome this fault or weakness? Why after struggling with it do you return to it, like the dog that returns to its own vomit? How many times have you received the sacraments, but to no avail in this struggle? It is because of your secret pride. You still trust in your own powers. This will never do. You will never advance far in virtue or in this particular struggle if you stubbornly cling to your own methods and your own devises. Beg God to grant you a complete and honest distrust of yourself and your natural powers.
The Epistle, Gradual and Gospel
Meditate on the infinite power and majesty of God. He is capable of affecting anything and everything for you if you only ask. How deep and inscrutable is the wisdom of God. How unlimited is His love for His children. Jesus, Our Blessed and Adorable Lord, came as the Babe of Bethlehem to live as our Good Shepherd for thirty-three years. How He sought through all those thorn strewn ways for His lost sheep, even to the shedding the very last drop of His Precious Blood! What will this infinitely powerful and indelibly loving Lord not do for you if you at this moment cry out to Him for help? Will He not lift you up on His shoulders and carry you back to the flock? Pray that God might grant you an unquestioning trust in Him, and in Him alone.
The Offertory
So weak and small are you in your own devises, you can’t even hear this Mass without fruit or benefit if God should withhold His grace from you. But this God came to you as a mere Babe. He was a Child in His mother’s arms, a most adorable and lovely Child, mild, sweet, and kind. He who considered equality with God something not to be grasped at, now at this moment is about to stoop down again. He does so to visit you, and He does so to grant your desires. Having complete distrust in yourself, but total confidence in this all-powerful, yet loving, Lord, offer to Him the weakness or fault that troubles you. At His first coming, He came as a gentle Child, so as to draw all men of good will and humble heart to Him. Now He comes to you in the Mass as a gentle physician to make you whole.
The Sanctus and Canon
The night sky has not yet broken open with the joyous chorus of the angelic voices, nor has Gabriel visited the shepherds who keep their lonely watch in silence and sorrow. As the ringing of the sanctuary bells fades, and the last echo of the chanted Sanctus diminishes, this same silence, endured by the shepherds, now falls on your soul. How poor and destitute you are as you wait and watch. In your heart cry out for deliverance; cry out for your Messiah, just as the poor shepherds frequently did in their own hearts as they kept their silent watch.
At the Consecrations
Christ is born in the humble stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger filled with straw. The straw represents His coming sufferings on Calvary. Your Lord has come, pricked first by the straw in a manger, then later by the nails of the Cross, to deliver you! To heal you! To make you a son of God! What a gift this is! Adore Him under the appearances of bread and wine. Worship Him Who has come to you at this very moment. Is there any mercy He will hold back from you when He has given you His very own Flesh and Blood?
The Líbera nos and fraction and the commingling of the Sacred Body and Blood
The moment is quickly approaching for you to take the medicine of eternal life. Christ Our Lord has made of Himself a perfect offering for you and for your deliverance from what troubles you. Meditate on the price He paid. Think about the scourging, His crown of thorns, the nails that pierced His precious flesh, and the agony He endured for three hours on the Cross. He suffered for your salvation, and He suffered that you might live in Him and with Him.
The Agnus Dei
The divine plan was not completed in Our Blessed Lord’s first Advent. Rather the divine plan will be completed definitively at the end of time, when on that last and dreadful day Jesus Christ will return like the lightening that flashes from one end of the sky to the other. He will come in might and power, and His coming will bring joy for the elect, but dread for those who have forsaken Christ, ignored Christ, and disowned His gift of sanctifying and actual grace.
Christ comes to you now as a gentle and kind physician, and He will heal you of this weakness or fault if you but have total confidence in Him and distrust of yourself. However, man’s secret pride is always a force to be reckoned with. It insinuates itself, tricks the soul, and causes despair after it succeeds in leading you back into sin. You are about to receive the heavenly medicine for your soul, but stoke a fiery fear in your heart of returning once more to trust of self, and thereby fall again into this weakness or fault.
At Communion
Ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to lend you her Immaculate Heart, and then beg her to pray that you might be filled with the Holy Ghost. Receive the Lord actually or spiritually, and quiet your mind. It is Christ that acts in you so that you might be pleasing to God. He will shape your will and conscience. Allow Him to do so in peace. Place yourself before the manager, the manager from which you have fed on the Bread of Life, and listen to the Babe of Bethlehem.
The Prayers during the Ablutions
You now possess in your heart the Lord of the Universe who has come to you with all the power of the infinite God and all the love of the Good Shepherd. Beg Him to keep you in His graces, to open your mind and heart to the teachings of Holy Mother Church, and to order your life and circumstances to afford you a victory over this particular sin, fault or weakness.
The Dismissal, Blessing and Last Gospel
The combat is not now over. It will not be over until you breathe your last breath. However, that is not the end. There is an eternal reward for those who have fought well and eternal damnation for those who were cowards in the spiritual combat. If you have asked earnestly, God has certainly given you the graces necessary to be victorious. However, you must still cooperate with Him, and God endeavors to perfect you by trying you like gold is tried by fire.
Do not be discouraged if you should fall or give into weakness. God permits man to fall in proportion to his pride. If you commit this fault or fall into this weakness again, immediately probe your consciousness, entreat the Lord to enlighten you and encourage your distrust of self and increase your dependence on Him. God has allowed you to fall so that you might discover your hidden pride. Do not trouble yourself, but quickly and peacefully return to your former practice, seek the consolation of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession, and return with ardor and devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The first Advent of Christ was preceded by long wanderings in the desert, wars, dissension, and exiles. Why should you consider yourself entitled to anything else? Prepare yourself by the sustaining graces afforded to you by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and frequent Confession. By steadily endeavoring on this path, walking it in unity with the sufferings of Christ, Who leads us by His own example, you will attain the victory.
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