4th Sunday of Advent
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mt 1:18-24) an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says to him: “do not fear”, “do not be afraid”.
We know the difficult situation Joseph found himself in and how, as a “just man”, he tried to find a solution that would protect the woman he loved.
The angel’s word to Joseph, ‘do not fear, do not be afraid’ is addressed to each of us. In fact, fear often threatens to ruin our lives, fear that has many manifestations, but always originates from our unresolved.
If fear silently – and even many times imperceptibly – manages our lives by conditioning our choices, selecting our relationships, defining our horizons, we find ourselves living in a great deception, in a great lie that sums up the true and profound temptation that is we frequently face, in different ways, at every age of our existence.
Out of fear we do not make the choices that tell the truth about us, out of fear we do not separate ourselves by denying ourselves the possibility of becoming adults, out of fear we retract from challenges, out of fear we do not protect ourselves and those we love, out of fear we invent a god made of ‘things’ instead of relating to the One who can lead us beyond all our fears.
In that fragile and defenceless child that we will soon celebrate at Christmas there is all our fear, all our unresolvedness, all our fragility. There is everything that destabilises our life, makes us touch our weakness, our inabilities. That child must be welcomed, cared for and loved just like the child in each one of us.
The true God awaits us without defences, with our fears, not to erase them, but to transform them into our best resources, to lead us to “life in abundance”.
The entrance antiphon, the Introit of today’s celebration is taken from Chapter 45 of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (Is 45:8) with the following text:
“Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant Iustum:
aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.”
(Skies, let the Just One come forth like the dew, let him descend from the clouds like the rain.
The earth will open up and give birth to our Saviour).
The attached music, in Gregorian chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex published in Solesmes in 1979. The interpretation is by the Pontifical Musical Chapel “Sistina” at the concert held in Rome, at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia on 10 January 2018.
It is interesting to compare this antiphon of the Roman Rite with the Ambrosian Rite, where the same text is placed in the “Ingressa” of the third of the six Sundays of Advent, the Ingressa that essentially coincides with the Introit of the aforementioned Roman Rite.
As far as the Ambrosian Rite is concerned, the attached music, in Ambrosian Chant, is taken from the Antiphonale Missarum Iuxta Ritum Sanctæ Ecclesiæ Mediolanensis, published in Rome in 1935. The interpretation is by the Musical Chapel of the Duomo of Milan at the Concert held in Milan, in the Church of San Gottardo in Corte on 12 July 2022.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
