Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Mass in the Morning
For those who will attend Mass in the morning, we shall hear proclaimed the Canticle—the Song—of Zechariah, which is sung or recited by every priest and religious and many laity of the Church when they pray Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. How could the father of John the Baptist have known that his song of praise to our gracious God would echo all over the world for two thousand years? A God who, as the man’s own name testifies, remembers “…his holy covenant.”
Thus tonight, for those who attend Mass in the evening in anticipation of Christmas Day, shall witness in the rich symbolism of the liturgy the “…dawn from on high…” breaking upon us, shining “…on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” Depending on the Mass we attend, we may hear recited the genealogy of Jesus, a regal declaration fit for a king, establishing Him as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as David the King, but also anchoring the very Son of God in human history, human reality: human nature. Should we attend at midnight, we shall hear the story of the birth of Jesus and the song of the angels whose joyous greeting to the shepherds—“Glory to God in the highest!”—has, like the song of Zechariah, echoed down through the ages in an even greater, being sung at Masses throughout the world on every Sunday and every great feast and solemnity.
We are, as Pope St. John Paul II famously declared, “…an Easter people, and alleluia is our song!” yet we are also a Christmas people, for the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus are all a part of the same great mystery: God granting us the gracious gift of His only Son to the world.