Liturgy and Personality by Dietrich von & Hildebrand Hildebrand & Dietrich von & Hildebrand Hildebrand & Dietrich von & Hildebrand Hildebrand

Author:Dietrich von & Hildebrand Hildebrand & Dietrich von & Hildebrand Hildebrand & Dietrich von & Hildebrand Hildebrand [Hildebrand, Dietrich von & Hildebrand, Alice von & Barron, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939773005
Publisher: Hildebrand Press

O God from God, and light from light,

Who are Thyself the day.

Our chants shall break the clouds of night,

Be with us while we pray.

. . .

Chase the sloth and drowsiness that bind

The senses with a spell.

The unfolding of the liturgical year as a whole is also an expression of awakenedness and vigilance. Here we find repeated on a larger scale what the liturgical day represents on a smaller one. We watch before God by keeping in mind the great fact of salvation—full of unchanging significance—as well as the magnalia Dei, and by participating in the sublime rhythm of the liturgical year. The liturgical days do not concern themselves with the crowding events in the limited daily lives of individuals or communities or states; they are wholly preoccupied with the consciousness of the magnalia Dei. The great deeds of God determine the days and the sections of time in the Liturgy. What a state of wakefulness is implied by this! This is indeed a victorious drive, a breaking through all the strata of earthly events clustering around us, the misery of individuals and peoples, the entanglements of states and families, as well as the temporal destiny of the Church. It is a drive toward supernatural reality.

Moreover, how organic is this form of being awake! During Advent, the Church invites us to participate in the longing of thousands of years, and awakens us in order to await the Advent of the Lord: “Brothers, knowing the season, that it is now the hour for us to arise from sleep . . .” the holy Church calls to us at the beginning of Advent. The Gospel of the First Sunday of Advent places the return of Christ clearly before our eyes. The longing is a specific expression of awakenedness. The worst form of slumbering, of bluntness, is to be so absorbed in our business of life that we do not even long for God any more. The entirely blunted man is the satiated one, the man who, satisfied with himself and the world, does not ask for anything beyond.

Advent is followed by Christmas and the Epiphany. What a call to awaken we hear each year at this time, as if the event were happening today, as if we were hearing the message for the first time! What a call to awaken resounds in the rejoicing over the birth of our Lord: the continually repeated “Hodie” (This day) of Christmas; the praise and thanksgiving offered to God for the Incarnation of the eternal Word in the “Ecce advenit Dominator Dominus” (Behold the Lord the Ruler is come!), and in the “Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem, quia venit lumen tuum, et gloria Domini super te orta est” (Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee!), and in the “Vidimus stellam ejus in Oriente” (We have seen His star in the East) of the Epiphany. Then comes the time of Lent. It is the time of the