Table of Contents Editorial........................................... 3 Essay: Envisioning Bethlehem.......................... 4 AdventStations..................................... 8 BlessingofanAdventWreath.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 BlessingofaChristmasTree......................... 30 Daily Reflections for Each Day of Advent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Praying the O Antiphons (December 17–23) . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Proclamation of the Birth of Christ.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Blessing before a Christmas Stable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 AdventPenanceService............................. 76 Advent Prayers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Acknowledgments .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Brief Biographies of Contributors .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 IndexofHymns.................................... 96
Advent 2025 Founding Publisher: Pierre-Marie Dumont Executive Publisher: Romain Lizé Editor-in-Chief: Rev. Sebastian White, o.p. Senior Editor: Very Rev. Romanus Cessario, o.p. Editor-at-Large: Rev. Peter John Cameron, o.p. Managing Editor: Samuel Wigutow Editorial Coordinator and Permissions: Diaga Seck-Rauch Iconography: Isabelle Mascaras Cover and Inset: Solange Bosdevesy
3 E d i t o r i a l Father Sebastian White, o.p. The season of Advent, with its call to vigilance, hope, and readiness for the coming of the Lord, begins every year at the very end of November or in the first few days of December. For those of us here in the United States, therefore, the new liturgical season always comes shortly after we celebrate Thanksgiving Day—this year, merely two days intervene. While the holiday tends to invite reflection on the material blessings of our life, it is also the perfect way to set the stage for Advent: what else warrants our deepest gratitude than the revelation that a child is born to us, a son is given to us (Is 9:5)? God was not content to give us a complicated plan for self-improvement, or even a messenger of his love. He gave us himself. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. While that may be a bit overstated, we know there is some truth to it: seeing or hearing the same things again and again easily leads us to take them for granted. The stories, readings, and themes of Advent are perhaps so familiar to us that they only rarely move us interiorly, especially when up against the Christmas shopping, travel plans, and busyness that tend to occupy these weeks. We at Magnificat hope that the prayers, essays, and reflections of this little booklet help you to savor anew the love of God this Advent. And may we never forget that God himself is the one who gives us the gifts we desire to give to him. So as we begin to think about the gifts we will be giving to (or hoping to receive from) our friends and family, the prayer of the 17th-century English poet George Herbert would be a good one to make our own: “O Thou who has given us so much, mercifully grant us one more thing—a grateful heart.”
4 Envisioning Bethlehem: A Czech Tradition James Monti There is wonderful air of mystery surrounding Christmas carols that have been handed down from generation to generation without any record of their origin. In 1921, a music scholar visiting the town of Polička on the Bohemian-Moravian border at Christmastime wrote down just such a carol sung for him by a Czech peasant girl: Zezulka z lesa vyliitla, kuku, known in English as “The Birds.” The carols tells of a cuckoo, a pigeon, and a dove all coming to visit the Christ Child and expressing their joy that “Christ was in the world.” For five centuries, Czechs have been flying to Bethlehem in spirit by artistically bringing Bethlehem to life in their churches and in their own homes. A Christmas tradition begins The Czech Republic is a country that cherishes as one of its most highly prized art treasures a huge animated Nativity diorama dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Christmas crèches have long been the primary symbol of Christmas in the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia. The emergence and subsequent popularization of Nativity scenes in Czech culture began with the arrival of the Jesuits in Prague in the mid-16th century. It was just three years after coming to the city when for Good Friday of 1559 the Jesuits erected a representation of the Holy Sepulcher in the former Dominican Church of Saint Clement (now called the Church of the Most Holy Savior), inspiring so much devotion that the emperor came twice in one night
5 to pray there. Three years later, in 1562, the Jesuits decided to do something on a similar scale for Christmas, erecting in the same church what was to be the country’s first Christmas crèche. Indicative of the splendor and popularity of this crèche is the fact that by Christmas of 1564 it was being described as having “attracted countless visitors” with its “arduous decoration.” Both the Jesuits and the Franciscans spread the custom of the Christmas crèche across Bohemia during the second half of the 16th century. At least some of these early Czech Nativity scenes are said to have featured life-size statues. Through the 17th and 18th centuries, the splendor and magnificence of the crèches considerably grew. There were even crèche figures wrought in gold and studded with jewels, accompanied by figures of angels playing silver musical instruments. Prague’s own Marian shrine of Loreto (built in imitation of the Italian shrine of Loreto) possesses in its treasury a home altar shrine of the Nativity with silver figures originally made for a prominent Bohemian family in the first quarter of the 17th century. Another magnificent set of Bohemian Christmas crèche figures, dating from the end of the 1600s and consisting of five lavishly clothed figures with movable limbs, is preserved in the Church of Saint Vitus in the town of Kostelec nad Labem. Crèches in the home In the late 18th century, the Christmas crèche tradition came under attack from the eccentric Austro-Hungarian emperor Joseph II (1741–1790), who attempted to refashion Catholicism in his empire to make it conform to the rationalism of the “Enlightenment.” In response to his banishment of Nativity
6 scenes from churches, Czech Catholics resisted by making Nativity scenes in their own homes. Over the course of time, the Czechs developed distinctive customs in the construction of Nativity dioramas. These include the depiction of a city at the top of a mountain directly behind the manger, intended to represent the Heavenly Jerusalem. The various human figures drawn from everyday Czech life that populate these dioramas are predominantly engaged in bringing or preparing some sort of gift for the Christ Child. In the 18th century, the German concept of employing paper prints of the different Nativity figures in lieu of three- dimensional figures spread to Bohemia and became very popular in the 1800s. By the early 20th century, prominent Czech artists were painting these pictorial figures, which were then printed on sheets from which they could be cut out and placed in the crèche. Animating the Nativity The Czechs’ most acclaimed contribution to the art of making Christmas crèches has been the development of “mechanical” crèches, crèches with animated figures, set in motion by an array of clockwork machinery concealed beneath or behind the diorama. As early as 1680, the Jesuits are said to have erected a “mechanism of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ” in the southern Bohemian town of Jindřichův Hradec (Neuhaus). The most revered of all the Czech mechanical Nativity scenes bears the name of one of its makers, Josef Probošt (1849–1926), a farmer, who worked together with the carpenter Josef Kapucián for over forty years to create the 373 wooden human figures for this diorama, comprising both Biblical figures and native
7 Bohemians. The entire multi-terraced structure consists of over two thousand wooden parts, including the numerous gears, gear shafts, and belts that animate the diorama, engineered and constructed by a third craftsman, Josef Friml. The Probošt Nativity is one of over three hundred Christmas crèches preserved in the Czech Republic’s Museum of Nativity Scenes in Třebechovice pod Orebem. The Czech stocking-weaver Tomáš Krýza (1838–1918) was not yet twenty when he began work on what was to become the largest mechanical Nativity diorama in the world, a project he worked upon for the rest of his life. Over the course of sixtyplus years, Krýza populated his massive crèche with nearly 1,400 human figures and animals, 133 of which he put into motion with an intricate, manually powered array of gear work. Krýza’s crèche lines three walls of an exhibition room at the Museum of the Jindřichův Hradec Králové Region, which received the crèche in 1936. A small electric motor has been added to power the gear work. Czech Catholics suffered under four decades of Communist oppression—from 1948 until 1989—until they were at last free again to practice their faith openly. The Christmas crèches that have been handed down by the Czechs from generation to generation embody a faith that will carry all of us to the eternal Christmas of heaven, if we, like the Magi, persevere in our journey. (James Monti is the author of A Sense of the Sacred: Catholic Worship in the Middle Ages, The Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week (Our Sunday Visitor), and The King’s Good Servant but God’s First: The Life and Writings of Saint Thomas More (Ignatius).
8 Advent Stations: The Ancestors of Christ and the Fulfillment of God’s Plan Father Sebastian White, o.p. The Advent Stations take us on a tour of the Old Testament. Like the traditional Lenten Stations of the Cross, these seven Advent “stations” or “stopping points” provide a way to ponder the mystery of how God prepared the world to receive his Son at the moment of the Annunciation. Each station contains an Old Testament foreshadowing of the Incarnation, a meditation, the New Testament fulfillment in Christ, and then a prayer. They can be prayed alone, with your family, or even in church with a group of the faithful. First Station The Creation of Adam and Eve Let us make man in our image 1 Image: Adam and Eve Placed in the Garden of Eden (16th c.), Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California. Public domain.
9 Old Testament Scripture: Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.” God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” Meditation Creation is something only God can do. No other being, not even the highest angel, can bring something out of nothing. God created the world and crowned it with human life out of his own infinite goodness; he was not looking to acquire something but only to give something: his life, his beatitude, his love. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, believed the devil’s lie and turned away from the one who already wanted them to be “like gods,” the one who had made them in his own image. And out of fear and shame they hid from the very one who forgives, the one who says, “Behold, I make all things new.” But God writes straight with crooked lines: “O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” (Easter Exsultet). This first Advent station directs us to glorify God for the wonderful gift of existence, and even more so for our redemption, for we are made new by Jesus Christ, the new Adam, born of Mary, the new Eve. New Testament Scripture: Revelation 21:1-5 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former
34 A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 24:37-44 Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” The Gospel of the Lord. Sunday, November 30 First Sunday of Advent
35 At the Table We were all seated at a table in the cafeteria for dinner. A lively conversation hummed along as the meal progressed. As we came to an end, the discussion touched upon an absent friend. For whatever reason, I added a critical word. Not two seconds later, I recognized him at a neighboring table, clearly within earshot. I was immediately ashamed. It’s embarrassing to be caught gossiping. Our minds reel when we recognize our moral ugliness. We revisit the event ad nauseam thinking how we could have avoided it. What are the chances, we ask ourselves? How could I have acted differently? In today’s Gospel, the Lord likens his coming to that of a flood or a thief. His advent is something of a surprise. Who knows when he will appear at the end of the age (or at a neighboring table)? How, then, do we prepare for that day lest his arrival embarrass us? If we are to prove worthy in the end, it won’t be the result of clever thinking. Rather, it will be fruit of conversion—a continual turning to the Lord already present in our midst. So even while we rely upon him to pardon our inattention, we seek above all to include him in our conversation, even to let him direct the discussion. For he is not far off. Indeed, he is already seated at the table. Father Gregory Pine, o.p. Loving Father, use our inattention as an occasion of conversion. Convict us of our disregard that we might long more eagerly for your holy presence.
36 “Into your hands” A nurse once told me that he had held in his hands the heart for a transplant patient. That image has remained with me for years. He almost literally held someone’s life in his hands! The centurion mentioned in today’s Gospel was a man who got things done. He gave orders and saw to it that they were carried out. In front of the Lord, however, he simply entrusts his heart into the hands of Jesus. He tells him, My servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully. When Jesus offers to go to his home to cure the servant, the centurion speaks those famous words, Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. We often think that we are trusting Jesus; that we are placing into his hands our whole heart. Are we? Or are we sharing with him something in our heart and then insisting that we dictate the solution and supervise his response? We think Jesus requires our watchful eye because the situation is too complicated, too painful, or too impossible. Is your heart anxious, fearful, or broken? Does something in your life seem impossible? Like the centurion, place your heart into the hands of the Divine Physician with total trust and simply wait for the Lord. Reflection based on Matthew 8:5-11 Father David Barnes Loving Father, into your hands I place all that weighs upon my heart, and will trustingly wait for your beloved Son only to say the word. Monday, December 1 Monday of the First Week of Advent
37 Christmas Presence Many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks these remarkable words to his disciples. I believe he also speaks them to us in the liturgy. I love to ponder how the Holy Spirit works through the liturgical cycle: readings chosen decades in advance land on my ears today, and the living Word of God speaks to my heart here and now. We too have seen what so many prophets and kings wished to behold—the Living God—present on the altar in the Blessed Sacrament. Do we think of ourselves as more privileged than kings? Well, so we are. Jesus is within our reach every day. Our sacramental union with God is more intimate than the prophets could have imagined. This is standard fare for a Catholic. God with us. Emmanuel, here, in his Body, Blood, soul, and divinity. What could be a better Christmas present? We would be fooling ourselves to suggest that our experience of Jesus’ Eucharistic presence is just like what that of his presence in person would be. But we will encounter him that way someday. During Advent, we recall that Jesus will come again in person at the end of time. Please God, may we remain in his Eucharistic company now so that we may truly know him when we stand before him face to face. Reflection based on Luke 10:21-24 Gina Loehr Father and Giver of all good gifts, thank you for giving me your son, present in the Eucharist. May I grow to know and love him more deeply this Advent season. Tuesday, December 2 Tuesday of the First Week of Advent
38 Unspoken Needs A practical motto a number of my generous Sisters in the convent live by is: see the need, meet the need. Whether it’s taking the trash to the curb, putting elbow grease into a dirty pot, or helping a mom with her stroller, the Sisters are ready to offer a hand. What’s even more remarkable is how intuitive my Sisters are in meeting the deep needs of the human heart that are never spoken. They give others a sense of belonging and help them to know that they are seen and loved. In today’s Gospel, we read that after the crowds encountered Jesus, they saw the mute speaking, the deformed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind able to see. After three days healing those who came to him, Jesus could have rightfully taken a break. Instead, he determined that he would not send them away hungry. He performs a miracle and feeds thousands with seven loaves. A touching detail follows: they picked up the fragments left over. God, who performs miracles for the masses, is also concerned about the details of our lives; everything matters to him. He does not want any fragments to be lost. God himself picks up the fragments, the leftovers, the broken pieces of our lives, and brings us to wholeness, meeting every unspoken need of our hearts. Reflection based on Matthew 15:29-37 Sister Maris Stella Karalekas, s.v. Merciful Father, gather all the scattered pieces of our minds and hearts and draw us into your own heart. Wednesday, December 3 Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
39 Resembling Jesus Years ago, I entered an adoration chapel as an older couple was leaving. The man profoundly reverenced the Eucharist, face to the ground, apparently deeply recollected. As he got up from his prostration, he snarled at his wife, a look of contempt marring his pious demeanor. This experience awakened me to the reality that beautiful thoughts and external devotion are not a worthy foundation for discipleship. God’s own words are fragile as sifting sand when unaccompanied by deeds which demonstrate them. Jesus says it himself in today’s Gospel: Everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined. How can we avoid this forecast of destruction? By building our lives on the rock foundation of acting on Jesus’ words, we become like him, strong to suffer the winds and rains of life without being deformed by them. As we live in obedience to Jesus, we also come to resemble him, bearing a family likeness (cf. Lk 8:21). By this resemblance, we will be recognized and welcomed on the Last Day when we seek entrance to the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 7:21-23). Reflection based on Matthew 7:21, 24-27 Sister Agnes Therese Davis, t.o.r. Dear Father, we thank you for calling us to resemble your only begotten Son. By the gift of your Spirit, strengthen our resolve to act on what we have heard from your lips, that we might be conformed to Jesus and so show his face to the world. Thursday, December 4 Thursday of the First Week of Advent
40 Fear of the Unseen There is something particularly frightening about a threat that one cannot see. Hearing a growl in the dark is more frightening than seeing an animal in the light. I once took a medicine that had the side-effect of making my vision go blurry, and I had an inkling of how terrifying it would be to go blind. If the idea of losing one’s physical sight is terrifying, spiritual blindness ought to be even more terrifying. And yet most people are not frightened by it, because it does not even occur to them to think of it. We are surrounded by invisible malicious spirits, powers of evil whom we cannot see and who want to do us more harm than any wild animal could ever do. And yet few people even have an inkling of this invisible threat. In today’s Gospel two blind men ask Jesus to have pity on them—to have pity on the hardship and fear that their blindness causes them. Jesus goes into a house and there he heals them. The Church Fathers see in this house an image of the Church in which Jesus heals our spiritual blindness. Through the Church Jesus gives us knowledge of the truth. We can thus recognize the spiritual dangers that surround us, but even more the spiritual protection that God grants to us, which dispels our fear. Reflection based on Matthew 9:27-31 Father Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. Eternal Father, have pity on me. Give me spiritual light, so that I can recognize the loving protection you give me from the powers of darkness. Friday, December 5 Friday of the First Week of Advent
80 Advent Prayers Prayer for Hope Poem O God, we dare not place our hope in you because we have no hope to place. We have forgotten mercy, like the dew; we have lost sight of days of grace. Our heart’s bowl brims with hollow emptiness. Our dreams have vanished like the smoke of incense burned to gods of faithlessness upon an altar stone that broke. O God, you have stirred up the darkened heart with promises of light to come. The embers of our cold hearth shift and start a flicker that may yet become the fire we fear because we shy from burns our soul once suffered at the hands of our own treachery. If life returns for us, we dread rebirth’s demands. O God, ignore our plea for cold despair, its ashes undisturbed, its chill unwarmed by any hint borne on the air by unseen angels, crying still that promises are kept. Grant us instead that small perturbing flick of flame that wakens even in the living dead just hope enough to call your name! Psalm 42 42:2; 43:3, 4 R/ Athirst is my soul for the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God?
81 As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God. R/ Send forth your light and your fidelity; they shall lead me on And bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling-place. R/ Then will I go in to the altar of God, the God of my gladness and joy; Then will I give you thanks upon the harp, O God, my God! R/ Word of God Jeremiah 29:11-14 Iknow well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, you will find me with you, says the Lord, and I will change your lot; I will gather you together from all the nations and all the places to which I have banished you, says the Lord, and bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you. Prayers for Hope Even in the darkness that lies between despair and hope, we dare to pray: R/ O God our Savior, you are the hope of all the earth. O God, when hope flickers and faints, rekindle within us the fire of your Spirit: – that we may burn with desire for your promised salvation. R/
Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 1998, 1997, 1970, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, D.C. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Scripture selections are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament. Copyright © 1986, 1970 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 3211 Fourth St., N.E., Washington, D.C. 200171194, and are used by license of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal © 2010, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved. English translation of Magnificat by the International Consultation on English Texts. Psalm 63 reprinted from The Psalms: a New Translation. © 1963, The Grail, England. Admin. by GIA Publications, Inc., www.giamusic.com. All rights reserved. Published with the approval of the Committee on Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catholic Household Blessings & Prayers, Revised Edition, pp. 73-75; pp. 78-81. Copyright © 2007, Bishops Committee on the Liturgy, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. From The Roman Missal, Third Edition, Appendix I. Cover: Nativity, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1618–1682), private collection. © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images. Page 33: The Virgin and Child, Tommaso Masaccio (1401–1428), Uffizi Gallery, Florence. © Mondadori Portfolio /Archivio Antonio Quattrone / Bridgeman Images. © Magnificat Inc., New York, 2025. Printed in Germany by C.H. Beck. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 93
94 Brief Biographies of Contributors Father David Barnes, a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston, is the pastor of Saint Patrick’s Church in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Father Romanus Cessario, o.p., serves as Senior Editor for Magnificat and holds the Adam Cardinal Maida Chair of Theology at Ave Maria University. Father Cajetan Cuddy, o.p., is General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology. He teaches dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. Sister Agnes Therese Davis is a member of the Franciscan Sisters, t.o.r. of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother, founded in Steubenville, Ohio, in 1988. She serves in ministry with the materially poor. www.franciscansisterstor.org Anthony Esolen is translator of Augustine’s Confessions (TAN), translator and editor of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House), and author of four volumes of essays, How the Church Has Changed the World (Magnificat). Father Carter Griffin is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington and the rector of Saint John Paul II Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Forming Families, Forming Saints (Emmaus Road). Father Donald Haggerty, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, serves at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. He is author of several books on contemplative prayer and the spiritual life. Charity Hill produces the podcast Bright Wings: Children’s Books, authors The Family Supplement for Well-Read Mom, and teaches high school literature, history, and philosophy. Sister Maria Frassati Jakupcak, o.p., is a member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. She teaches English at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston.
95 Sister Maris Stella Karalekas, s.v., is a member of the Sisters of Life, a community of women religious founded by John Cardinal O’Connor. They are dedicated to protecting and enhancing the sacredness of every human life, and to promoting hope and healing in Christ. (www.sistersoflife.org) Lisa Lickona is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Saint Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry in Rochester, New York. She formerly served as Magnificat’s Editor for Saints. Gina Loehr is the mother of six and a dairy farmer’s wife. Her essays appear regularly in the journal Hearth and Field. James Monti is the author of A Sense of the Sacred: Catholic Worship in the Middle Ages, The Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week (Our Sunday Visitor), and The King’s Good Servant but God’s First: The Life and Writings of Saint Thomas More (Ignatius). Father Gregory Pine, o.p., a Dominican friar of the Province of Saint Joseph, is a professor of theology, the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly (Our Sunday Visitor), and a host of the podcast Godsplaining. Rita A. Simmonds (ritaasimmonds.com) is an award-winning poet. She is the author of a memoir entitled Convicted by Mercy: The Journey of Frank Simmonds from the Streets to Sanctity and four books of poetry, her latest being He Called (Magnificat). Kathryn Griffin Swegart is an award-winning author of Catholic books for children. She lives on a small farm in Maine and blogs at kathrynswegart.com. Father Richard Veras is director of pastoral formation at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in New York. He is author of The Word Made Flesh: Foreshadowed, Fulfilled, Forever (Magnificat). Father Edmund Waldstein, o. cist., is a monk and professor at Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) Abbey, near Vienna. Samuel Wigutow serves as Magnificat’s Managing Editor. He lives in New York City.
96 Behold a broken world… Timothy Dudley-Smith. © 1985, Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. www.hopepublishing.com. All rights reserved. Used by permission. 89 For God, the living God… Sicut Cervus; medieval hymn, tr. Sister Frances Clare, o.p., Corpus Christi Monastery. © Corpus Christi Monastery, Bronx, N.Y. Used with permission. 82 Not as a king you come here… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 69 O Christ, on whom the nations… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 67 O come, Desire of nations… Veni, veni Emmanuel, 12th cent., tr. John Mason Neale, 1852, et al., alt. Public domain. 29 O come, divine Messiah… Venez, divin Messie, Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, 1663-1745; tr. Sr. Mary of St. Philip, 1877. Public domain. 85 O come, O come, Emmanuel… Veni, veni Emmanuel, 12th cent., tr. John Mason Neale, 1852, et al., alt. Public domain. 56–69 O come, thou Dayspring… Veni, veni Emmanuel, 12th cent., tr. John Mason Neale, 1852, et al., alt. Public domain. 32 O God, we dare not place… Genevieve Glen, o.s.b., b. 1945. © 2002, Benedictine Nuns, Abbey of St. Walburga, Virginia Dale, Colorado. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 80 O God, who once came down… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 58 O heavenly Wisdom, hear… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 55 O Key of David, hailed by… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 62 O Root of Jesse, upon whom… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 60 O very God of very God… John Mason Neale, 1818-1866, alt. Public domain. 65 Wake, awake, for night… Philip Nicolai, 1598, tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863, slightly alt. Public domain. 86 Index of Hymns Title Page
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