What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Here is the first prayer for the Mass of 23 December, the last full day of Advent before the Vigil of Christmas. It is also Ember Saturday and the Roman Station is St. Peter’s Basilica.

COLLECT:
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
nativitatem Filii tui secundum carnem
propinquare cernentes,
quaesumus, ut nobis indignis famulis tuis
misericordiam praestet Verbum,
quod ex Virgine Maria dignatum est caro fieri,
et habitare in nobis.

This is an ancient prayer from Rotulus 24 published with the Veronese Sacramentary.

LITERAL VERSION:
Almightly eternal God,
we beseech you as we are discerning that
the Nativity of Your Son according to the flesh approaches,
that the Word grant mercy to us Your unworthy servants
for He deigned to be made flesh from the Virgin Mary
and the dwell amongst us.

It is bleak midwinter here at The Sabine Farm.  It is snowing now – huge featherlike slowmotion snow.  

I have music on fit for the season. I was working on the text of a sermon I will need to give soon.  My advent candles are lighted in their wreath.  I will soon build the fire in the fireplace and mull some wine as I contemplate supper after vespers in the Sabine Chapel.

In a slightly heartbreaking way this is nearly perfect.

One of my favorite hymns was just playing. The words are by Christina Rossetti. Here is some information about it.

"In The Bleak Midwinter" was written by Rossetti before 1872 but it was published posthumously first in 1904. Apparently Rossetti wrote the poem from a request of the magazine Scribner’s Weekly. The text of this Christmas hymn has been set to music by at least three composers, Gustav Holst, Harold Edwin Darke, and Thomas B. Strong.

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But his mother only,
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
with a kiss

What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart.

Let us look at what is going on here.

In the first verse, there is a description of the fallen state of man from the ancient Original Sin. Winter. St. Augustine wrote that fear of death is "our daily winter". Now the days get longer and things don’t seem so bleak.
In the second verse, there is the characteristic forward-backward vision of Advent and Christmas, contrasting the glory of the Second Coming with the humility of the First.
In the third verse, we hear of the self-emptying of the Eternal Word made flesh. It unites the ways in which the angelic host worships Him and Mary does: metaphysically transcendent flight and the concrete act of a mother’s loving kiss.
In the fourth verse... well …

What can you say?