Fourth Sunday of Advent

The fourth Sunday of Advent is a semi-double Sunday of the second class and its liturgical colour, from Mattins this year, is violet. Only a double of the first class feast may displace the Sunday in occurrence. The Gospel pericopes from St. Luke concern the preaching of St. John the Baptist preaching the baptism of repentance by the Jordan and the reference to Isaias "Prepare ye the way of the LORD: make straight His paths: every valley shall be filled: and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

Yesterday afternoon at second Vespers of the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle the antiphons Juravit Dominus etc were sung, doubled, with psalms 109, 112, 115, 125 & 138. The Office hymn was Exsultet orbis gaudiis. After the collect of the feast a commemoration of the Sunday wa sung with the Great 'O' Antiphon O Oriens proper to the twenty-first day of December. At Compline the Dominical preces were omitted.

At Mattins the invitatory is Prope est jam Dominus * Venite adoremus and the Office hymn is Verbum supernum prodiens. In the first nocturn the lessons are taken, as usual in Advent, from Isaias. In the second nocturn the lessons are again taken from St. Leo's sermon on the fast of the tenth month. The homily in the third nocturn is from the twentieth homily of St. Gregory on St. Luke's Gospel. A ninth responsory, Intuemini, quantus sit iste, is sung in place of the Te Deum. At Lauds the antiphons proper to the Sunday, Canite tuba etc., are sung with the Dominical psalms. The Office hymn is En clara vox. The Suffrage is omitted in Advent.

At the Hours the antiphons from Lauds are used in the usual sequence. At Prime the versicle in the short responsory is Qui venturus es in mundum and the Dominical preces are sung.

Mass is sung after Terce. The ministers wear violet folded chasubles. The Gloria is omitted. The second collect is of the BVM in Advent, Deus qui de beate, the third collect Ecclesiae etc. The Creed and the preface of the Trinity are sung. As the Gloria is not sung the dismissal is Benedicamus Domino, sung by the deacon facing the altar.

At Vespers the antiphons, Canite tuba etc, are sung, not doubled, with Pss 109, 110, 111, 112 & 113. The Office hymn is Creator alme siderum. The antiphon on the Magnificat is O Rex Gentium which is sung doubled with the choir standing. At Compline the Dominical preces are sung.

In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the Sunday takes precedence in concurrence over the feast of St. Thomas so Vespers are of the Sunday without a comemmoration of St. Thomas. Therefore, this year, St. Thomas' feast does not have Vespers at all in 1962-land. Mattins is cut down to a single nocturn of three lessons as usual. The Dominical preces have been abolished. At Mass the ministers wear dalmatic and tunicle, there is only one collect and the dismissal is Ite, missa est.

Art: Jerome Nadal