The Sistine Chapel Ceiling. An Artistic Vision Without Precedent. (Part Four).

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Raphael's Isaiah was painted in imitation of Michelangelo's Prophets.

Artist: Raphael (1483–1520).

Date: 1511.

Current location: Sant'Agostino, Rome, Italy.

Source/Photographer: Web Gallery of Art:

(Wikimedia Commons)

The twelve Prophetic figures are:

Jonah (IONAS) – above the Altar;
Jeremiah (HIEREMIAS);
Persian Sibyl (PERSICHA);
Ezekiel (EZECHIEL);
Erythraean Sibyl. (ERITHRAEA);
Joel (IOEL);
Zechariah (ZACHERIAS) – above the Main Door of the Chapel;
Delphic Sibyl. (DELPHICA);
Isaiah (ESAIAS);
Cumaean Sibyl. (CVMAEA);
Daniel (DANIEL);
Libyan Sibyl (LIBICA).

The seven Prophets of Israel, chosen for depiction on the Ceiling, include the four, so-called, Major Prophets: Isaiah; Jeremiah; Ezekiel; Daniel. Of the remaining twelve possibilities among the Minor Prophets, the three represented are Joel, Zechariah and Jonah. Although the Prophets Joel and Zechariah are considered "Minor", because of the comparatively small number of pages that their Prophecy occupies in the Bible, each one produced Prophesies of profound significance.

They are often quoted:

Joel for his: "Your sons and your daughters shall Prophesy, your elderly shall dream dreams and your youth shall see visions". These words are significant for Michelangelo's decorative scheme, where women take their place among men, and the youthful Daniel sits across from the brooding Jeremiah with his long white beard.

English: Coat-of-Arms of the Popes of the family Della Rovere:

Pope Sixtus IV and Pope Julius II.

Español: Escudo de los papas de la familia Della Rovere:

Sixto IV y Julio II.

Date: 18 March 2014.

Source: Own work.

Author: Echando una mano.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Zechariah prophesied: "Behold ! Your King comes to you, humble and riding on a donkey". His place in the Chapel is directly above the door through which the Pope is carried in Procession on Palm Sunday, the day on which Jesus fulfilled the Prophecy by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and being proclaimed King.

Jonah's main Prophecy concerned the downfall of the City of Nineveh. While this alone does not seem to warrant him a place above the High Altar, it is the person of Jonah, himself, that is of symbolic and Prophetic significance, a significance which was commonly perceived and had been represented in countless works of art, including Manuscripts and Stained-Glass Windows.

Jonah, through his reluctance to obey God, was swallowed by a "mighty fish". He spent three days in its belly and was eventually spewed up on dry land, where he went about God's business. Jonah was thus seen as presaging Jesus, Who, having died by Crucifixion, spent part of three days in a tomb and was Raised on The Third Day. So, on The Ceiling of The Sistine Chapel, Jonah, with the "great fish" beside him and his eyes turned towards God the Creator, represents a "portent" of the Resurrection of Christ.

A reconstruction of the appearance of the Chapel in the 1480s, prior to the painting of the Ceiling.

An engraving, which attempts to reconstruct the probable appearance of the Interior of The Sistine Chapel before the internal reorganisation, the moving of the Screen; and the painting of the Ceiling and The Last Judgement by Michelangelo.

Artist: Unknown.

Date: 19th-Century.

Current location: Sistine Chapel, Rome, Italy.

Source/Photographer: Web Gallery of Art.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In Vasari's description of the Prophets and Sibyls, he is particularly high in his praise of the portrayal of Isaiah: "Anyone who studies this figure, copied so faithfully from nature, the true mother of the art of painting, will find a beautifully composed work, capable of teaching in full measure all the precepts to be followed by a good painter.”

The Sibyls were prophetic women who were resident at shrines or temples throughout the Classical World. The five depicted here are each said to have Prophesied the Birth of Christ. The Cumaean Sibyl, for example, is quoted by Virgil in his Fourth Eclogue as declaring that "a new progeny of Heaven" would bring about a return of the "Golden Age". This was interpreted as referring to Jesus.

In Christian Doctrine, Christ came not just to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. It was understood that, prior to the Birth of Christ, God prepared the world for his coming. To this purpose, God used Jews and Gentiles alike. Jesus would not have been born in Bethlehem (where it had been Prophesied that His Birth would take place), except for the fact that the pagan Roman Emperor Augustus decreed that there should be a Census. Likewise, when Jesus was Born, the announcement of His Birth was made to rich and to poor, to mighty and to humble, to Jew and to Gentile. The Three Wise Men (the "Magi" of the Bible), who sought out The Infant King with precious gifts, were pagan foreigners.

English: Michelangelo's rendering of The Erythraean Sibyl on The Sistine Chapel's Ceiling.

Deutsch: Deckenfresko zur Schöpfungsgeschichte in der Sixtinischen Kapelle,

Szene in Lünette: Die Erythräische Sibylle.

Artist: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

Date: 1508-1512.

Source/Photographer: The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei.

DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In The Church of Rome, where there was an increasing interest in the remains of the City's pagan past, where scholars turned from reading Mediaeval Church Latin to Classical Latin, and the philosophies of the Classical World were studied along with the Writings of Saint Augustine, the presence, in The Sistine Chapel, of five pagan Prophets is not surprising.

It is not known why Michelangelo selected the five particular Sibyls that were depicted, given that, as with the Minor Prophets, there were ten or twelve possibilities. It is suggested by John O'Malley that the choice was made for a wide geographic coverage, with the Sibyls coming from Africa, Asia, Greece and Ionia.

Vasari says of the Erythraean Sibyl: "Many aspects of this figure are of exceptional loveliness; the expression of her face, her head-dress and the arrangement of her draperies; and her arms, which are bared, are as beautiful as the rest."

The Sistine Chapel Ceiling fresco,

by Michelangelo, depicting The Cumaean Sibyl, on the right.

Artist:

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

Date: 1508-1512.

Current location: Sistine Chapel, Rome, Italy.

Source/Photographer: Web Gallery of Art.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In each corner of The Chapel is a triangular Pendentive, filling the space between the walls and the Arch of the Vault, and forming the Spandrel above the windows nearest the corners. On these curving shapes, Michelangelo has painted four scenes from Biblical stories that are associated with the Salvation of Israel by four great male and female heroes of the Jews: Moses; Esther; David; and Judith:

The Brazen Serpent;
The Punishment of Haman;
David and Goliath;
Judith and Holofernes.

The first two stories were both seen, in Mediaeval Theology and Renaissance Theology, as pre-figuring The Crucifixion of Jesus. In the story of The Brazen Serpent, the people of Israel become dissatisfied and grumble at God. As punishment, they receive a plague of poisonous snakes. God offers the people relief by instructing Moses to make a snake of brass, set up on a pole, the sight of which gives miraculous healing. Michelangelo chooses a crowded composition, depicting a dramatic mass of suffering men, women and writhing snakes, separated from redeemed worshippers, by the snake, before an Epiphanic light.


PART FIVE FOLLOWS

Advent. Part Two.

Text taken from The Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B.

(Translated from the French by Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.)

Advent. Volume 1. St. Bonaventure Publications, www.libers.com

Originally published 1949.

Republished by St. Bonaventure Publications, July 2000.

Unless otherwise stated, Illustrations are taken from UNA VOCE OF ORANGE COUNTY

which reproduced them, with the kind permission of St. Bonaventure Press, from 

The Saint Andrew Daily Missal, 1952 Edition.

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of The Lord.

Saint Ivo of Chartres, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and several other Doctors of the 11th- and 12-Centuries, have left us Set Sermons de Adventu Domini, quite distinct from their Sunday Homilies on the Gospels of that Season.

In the capitularia of Charles the Bald, in 846 A.D., the Bishops admonish that Prince not to call them away from their Churches during Lent or Advent, under pretext of Affairs of State, or the necessities of war, seeing that they have Special Duties to fulfil, and particularly that of preaching during those Sacred Times.

The oldest document, in which we find the length and exercises of Advent mentioned with anything like clearness, is a passage in the Second Book of the History of the Franks, by Saint Gregory of Tours, where he says that Saint Perpetuus (Sixth Bishop of Tours), one of his predecessors, who held that See about the year 480 A.D., had decreed a Fast three times a week, from the Feast of Saint Martin until Christmas. It would be impossible to decide whether Saint Perpetuus, by his regulations, established a new custom, or merely enforced an already-existing Law. Let us, however, note this interval of forty, or, rather, forty-three, days, so expressly mentioned, and consecrated to Penance, as though it were a second Lent, though less strict and severe than that which precedes Easter.

John, preaching the Baptism of Penance.

Later on, we find the Ninth Canon of The First Council of Macon, held in 582 A.D., ordaining that during the same interval between Saint Martin's Day and Christmas, the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, should be Fasting Days, and that the Sacrifice should be celebrated according to the Lenten Rite.

Not many years before that, namely in 567 A.D., the Second Council of Tours had enjoined the Monks to Fast from the beginning of December till Christmas. This practice of Penance soon extended to the whole forty days, even for the Laity; and it was commonly called Saint Martin's Lent.

The capitularia of Charlemagne, in the Sixth Book, leave us no doubt on the matter; and Rabanus Maurus, in the Second Book of his Institution of Clerics, bears testimony to this observance. There were even special rejoicings made on Saint Martin's Feast, just as we see them practised now at the approach of Lent and Easter.

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PART THREE FOLLOWS

Ordo MMXV Now Available.

Illustration: THE SAINT LAWRENCE PRESS LTD

Zephyrinus is delighted to be able to strongly recommend, to all Readers, the availability, now, of the new Ordo MMXV, from THE SAINT LAWRENCE PRESS LTD ONLINE SHOP

An excellent Review of this Ordo can be read on the Blog of Fr John Hunwicke, which is available at FR HUNWICKE'S MUTUAL ENRICHMENT

Fr Hunwicke's Review includes the following Text:

"This little book will show you, day by day, a wonderland in which Festivals have:

Octaves and Vigils;

Humble Festivals have First Vespers, in accordance with a Tradition which goes back even behind the New Covenant to the Judaic system;

Commemorations enable you to remember Festivals which are partly obscured by other observances;

The Last Gospel is sometimes changed to enable a different Gospel to be read;

Newman's favourite Canticle "Quicumque vult" (the 'Athanasian Creed') is said; et cetera and kai ta loipa.

What you will get a glimpse of is The Roman Rite as it was in 1939, before the Pius XII changes got under way. Not many, of course, will feel able to observe this Calendar in their Mass and Office. But you will understand the 'reformed' rites of 1962 and 1970 so very much better by seeing what they replaced.

Rather like understanding a diverse landscape all the better, by having the geological knowledge of what's underground, so as to understand why the visible contours and strata are the way they are.

You will see, give or take some details, the skeleton and structure of The Daily Prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman, Bishop Challoner, The English Martyrs, all The Saints (and sinners and common ordinary Christians) of The Western Church in the 17th-Century, 18th-Century and 19th-Century.

You will get some surprises !

Go for it !!!"

Zephyrinus recommends this Ordo to all Readers. It contains so much information that is not mentioned, or available, to today's Catholics in their present-day "single sheet Newsletters".

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The Mystery Of Advent. Part Three.

Non-Italic Text is taken from The Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B.
(Translated from the French by Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.)
Advent. Volume 1. St. Bonaventure Publications, www.libers.com
Originally published 1949.
Republished by St. Bonaventure Publications, July 2000.

Italic text is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.

Illustrations are taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

The first three Great O Antiphons (which commence on 17 December) are shown on this Verso
 of folio 30 from The Poissy Antiphonal, a certified Dominican Antiphonal of 428 folios from Poissy, France, written 1335-1345, with a complete annual Cycle of Chants for The Divine Office 
(Temporal, Sanctoral and Commons) and a Hymnal. 
Date: 1335 - 1345.

Source: La Trobe University Library, Medieval Music Database, 

The Poissy Antiphonal, folio 30v.

Author: Unknown.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Church aspires also to The Second Coming, the consequence of The First, which consists, as we have just seen, in the visit of The Bridegroom to The Bride. This Coming takes place, each year, at The Feast of Christmas, when the new Birth of The Son of God delivers the Faithful from that yoke of bondage, under which the enemy would oppress them. [Collect for Christmas Day.]

The Church, therefore, during Advent, Prays that she may be visited by Him Who is her Head and her Spouse; visited in her hierarchy; visited in her Members, of whom some are living, and some are dead, but may come to life again; visited, lastly, in those who are not in communion with her, and even in the very infidels, that so they may be converted to The True Light, which shines even for them.

The expressions of The Liturgy, which The Church makes use of, to ask for this loving and invisible Coming, are those which she employs when begging for The Coming of Jesus in The Flesh; for the two visits are for the same object.

English: Church of Saint-Étienne in Beauvais, France. 

Jesse Tree Window by Engrand Le Prince, 1522-1524.

Français: Vitrail de l'église Saint-Étienne de Beauvais, France, 

représentant l'arbre de Jessé. Sa réalisation, par Engrand Le Prince, date de 1522-1524.

Source: Book "Stained Glass: An Illustrated History" by Sarah Brown.

Author: Engrand Leprince.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In vain would The Son of God have come, nineteen hundred years ago, to visit and save mankind, unless He came again for each one of us and at every moment of our lives, bringing to us and cherishing within us that Supernatural life, of which He and His Holy Spirit are the sole principle.


The following is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.

SEASON OF ADVENT.
(From The First Sunday of Advent to 24 December).

Doctrinal Note.

If we read The Liturgical Texts, which The Church uses in the course of the four weeks of Advent, we see clearly that it is her intention to make us share the attitude of mind of the Patriarchs and Seers of Israel, who looked forward to the Advent of the Messias in His Twofold Coming of Grace and Glory.

During this Season, the Greek Church commemorates Our Lord's ancestors, especially Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On The Fourth Sunday, she honours all the Patriarchs of The Old Testament; from Adam to Saint Joseph, and the Prophets, of whom Saint Matthew speaks in his genealogy of Our Lord.

The Latin Church, without honouring them in any special form of Devotion, nevertheless speaks to us of them in The Office, when quoting the promises made to them concerning The Messias.

PART FOUR FOLLOWS

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Thank God.

Illustration: CATHOLICVOTE.ORG

The Sistine Chapel Ceiling. An Artistic Vision Without Precedent. (Part Three).

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Sistine Chapel fresco, by Michelangelo.

The Downfall of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Date: 1509.

Source: Web Gallery of Art[1]

Author: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

(Wikimedia Commons)

While much of the symbolism of The Ceiling dates from The Early Church, The Ceiling also has elements that express the specifically Renaissance thinking that sought to reconcile Christian Theology with the Philosophy of Renaissance Humanism.

During the 15th-Century in Italy, and in Florence, in particular, there was a strong interest in Classical Literature and the Philosophies of Plato, Socrates and other Classical writers. Michelangelo, as a young man, had spent time at the Humanist academy established by the Medici family in Florence. He was familiar with early Humanist-inspired sculptural works, such as Donatello's Bronze David, and had himself responded by carving the enormous nude Marble David, which was placed in the Piazza near the Palazzo Vecchio, the home of Florence's Council.

The Humanist vision of Humanity was one in which people responded to other people, to social responsibility, and to God, in a direct way, not through intermediaries, such as The Church. This conflicted with The Church's emphasis. While The Church emphasised Humanity as essentially sinful and flawed, Humanism emphasised Humanity as potentially noble and beautiful.

These two views were not necessarily irreconcilable to The Church, but only through a recognition that the unique way to achieve this "elevation of spirit, mind and body" was through The Church as the agent of God. To be outside The Church was to be beyond Salvation. In The Ceiling of The Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo presented both Catholic and Humanist elements in a way that does not appear visually conflicting. The inclusion of "non-Biblical" figures, such as the Sibyls or Ignudi, is consistent with the rationalising of Humanist and Christian thought of The Renaissance. This rationalisation was to become a target of The Counter Reformation.

Sistine Chapel fresco by Michelangelo,

God dividing the waters, showing the illusionary architecture,

and the positions of the Ignudi and Shields.

Date: 1509.

Source: Web Gallery of Art[1].

Author: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

(Wikimedia Commons)

The iconography of The Ceiling has had various interpretations in the past, some elements of which have been contradicted by modern scholarship and others, such as the identity of the figures in the Lunettes and Spandrels, continue to defy interpretation.

Modern scholars have sought, as yet unsuccessfully, to determine a written source of the Theological programme of The Ceiling, and have questioned whether or not it was entirely devised by the artist, himself, who was both an avid reader of the Bible and a genius.

Also of interest, to some modern scholars, is the question of how Michelangelo's own spiritual and psychological state is reflected in the iconography and the artistic expression of The Ceiling. One such speculation is that Michelangelo was tormented by conflict between homosexual desires and passionate Christian beliefs.

English: The Prophet, Joel. Fresco, painted by Michelangelo and his assistants,

for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, between 1508 and 1512.

Polski: Fresk w Kaplicy Syksyńskiej przedstawiający

Sąd Ostateczny Michała Anioła.

Source: Scanned from book.

Author: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Sistine Chapel is 40.5 metres long and 14 metres wide. The Ceiling rises to 20 metres above the main floor of The Chapel. The Vault is of quite a complex design and it is unlikely that it was originally intended to have such elaborate decoration. Pier Matteo d'Amelia provided a Plan for its decoration, with the architectural elements picked out, and The Ceiling painted Blue and dotted with Gold Stars, similar to that of the Arena Chapel, decorated by Giotto, at Padua.

The Chapel walls have three horizontal tiers, with six windows in the upper tier down each side. There were also two windows at each end, but these have been closed up above the Altar, when Michelangelo's Last Judgement was painted, obliterating two Lunettes. Between the windows are large Pendentives, which support the Vault. Between the Pendentives are triangularly-shaped Arches, or Spandrels, cut into the Vault above each window. Above the height of the Pendentives, the Ceiling slopes gently without much deviation from the horizontal. This is the real architecture. Michelangelo has elaborated it with illusionary, or fictive, architecture.

The first element, in the scheme of painted architecture, is a definition of the real architectural elements by accentuating the lines where Spandrels and Pendentives intersect with the curving Vault. Michelangelo painted these as decorative Courses, that look like sculpted Stone Mouldings. These have two repeating motifs, a formula common in Classical architecture. Here, one motif is the Acorn, the symbol of the family of both Pope Sixtus IV, who built The Chapel, and Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo's work.

The Persian Sibyl,

by Michelangelo.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling Fresco.

This File: 20 March 2005.

User: Ccson.

(Wikipedia)

The other motif is the Scallop Shell, one of the symbols of The Madonna, to whose Assumption The Chapel was Dedicated in 1483. The Crown of the wall then rises, above the Spandrels, to a strongly projecting painted Cornice, that runs right around The Ceiling, separating the pictorial areas of the Biblical scenes from the figures of Prophets, Sibyls and Ancestors, who, literally and figuratively, support the narratives. Ten broad painted Cross-Ribs, of Travertine, cross The Ceiling and divide it into, alternately, wide and narrow pictorial spaces, a grid that gives all the figures their defined place.

A great number of small figures are integrated with the painted architecture, their purpose apparently purely decorative. These include two faux marble Putti, below the Cornice on each Rib, each one a male and female pair; stone ram's-heads are placed at the apex of each Spandrel; Copper-Skinned nude figures in varying poses, hiding in the shadows, propped between the Spandrels and the Ribs, like animated book-ends; and more Putti, both clothed and unclothed, strike a variety of poses as they support the name-plates of the Prophets and Sibyls.

Above the Cornice, and to either side of the smaller scenes, are an array of Round Shields, or Medallions. They are framed by a total of twenty figures, the so-called Ignudi, which are not part of the architecture but sit on inlaid Plinths, their feet planted convincingly on the fictive Cornice. Pictorially, the Ignudi appear to occupy a space between the narrative spaces and the space of the Chapel, itself.

Sistine Chapel painting in the triangular Spandrel,

in the fourth Bay over the Ezekiel (Hezekiah)-Manasseh-Amon Lunette,

and between the Cumaean Sibyl and Isaiah. Part of the Ancestors of Christ series.

Artist: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

Date: 1509.

Source/Photographer: Web Gallery of Art, URL:http://www.wga.hu/html/m/michelan/3sistina/7triangl/04_5sp4.html

(Wikimedia Commons)

Along the Central Section of the Ceiling, Michelangelo depicted nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, the first Book of the Bible. The pictures fall into three groups of three, alternating, large and small Panels.

The first group shows God creating the Heavens and the Earth. The second group shows God creating the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, and their disobedience of God and consequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden, where they had lived and walked with God. The third group, of three pictures, shows the plight of Humanity, and, in particular, the family of Noah.

The pictures are not in strictly chronological order. If they are perceived as three groups, then the pictures in each of the three units inform upon each other, in the same way as was usual in Mediaeval Paintings and Stained-Glass. The three Sections, of Creation, Downfall and Fate of Humanity, appear in reverse order, when read from the entrance of the Chapel. However, each individual scene is painted to be viewed when looking towards the Altar. This is not easily apparent when viewing a reproduced image of the Ceiling, but becomes clear when the viewer looks upward at the Vault. Paoletti and Radke suggest that this reversed progression symbolises a return to a state of Grace. However, the three Sections are generally described in the order of Biblical chronology.

The Lunette of Jacob and Joseph, the Earthly father of Jesus.

The suspicious old man may represent Joseph.

Sistine Chapel fresco, by Michelangelo. One of the Ancestors of Christ series. Note: This is not Joseph, who ruled Egypt, or Jacob, son of Isaac. This is the Joseph that was the Earthly father of Jesus. It is the last in the Series of Ancestors on The Sistine Chapel Ceiling.

Artist: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

Date: 1509.

Source: Web Gallery of Art[1]

(Wikimedia Commons)

The scenes, from the Altar towards the Main Door, are ordered as follows:

The Separation of Light and Darkness;
The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth;
The Separation of Land and Water;
The Creation of Adam;
The Creation of Eve;
The Temptation and Expulsion;
The Sacrifice of Noah;
The Great Flood;
The Drunkenness of Noah.

Adjacent to the smaller Biblical scenes, and supported by the Ignudi, are ten circular Parade Shields (Medallions), sometimes described as being painted to resemble bronze. Known examples are actually of lacquered and gilt wood. Each is decorated with a picture drawn from The Old Testament, or the Book of Maccabees, from the Apocrypha.

The Medallions represent:

Abraham about to sacrifice his son, Isaac;
The Destruction of the Statue of Baal;
The worshippers of Baal being brutally slaughtered;
Uriah being beaten to death;
Nathan the Priest condemning King David for murder and adultery;
King David's traitorous son, Absalom, caught by his hair in a tree, while trying to escape, and beheaded by David's troops;
Joab sneaking up on Abner to murder him;
Joram being hurled from a Chariot onto his head;
Elijah being carried up to Heaven;
On one Medallion, the subject is either obliterated or incomplete.

PART FOUR FOLLOWS

The Mystery Of Advent. Part Two.

Text taken from The Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B.
(Translated from the French by Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.)
Advent. Volume 1. St. Bonaventure Publications, www.libers.com
Originally published 1949.
Republished by St. Bonaventure Publications, July 2000.

Illustrations are taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

English: The Adoration of The Shepherds.
Français: L'adoration des bergers.

Artist: Georges de La Tour (1593–1652).

Date: circa 1645.

Current location: Louvre Museum, France. 
Web-Site: www.louvre.fr

(Wikimedia Commons)

As for The Third Coming, it is most certain that it will be, most uncertain when it will be; for nothing is more certain than death, and nothing less sure than the hour of death.

When they shall say, peace and security, says the Apostle, then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape. So that The First Coming was Humble and Hidden, The Second is Mysterious and Full of Love, The Third will be Majestic and Terrible.

In His First Coming, Christ was judged by men unjustly; in His Second, He renders us just by His Grace; in His Third, He will Judge all things with Justice. In His First, a Lamb; in His Last, a Lion; in the one between the two, the Tenderest of Friends.' [De Adventu. Sermon III. Peter of Blois.]

An Angel with a Lamb, 
as a Symbol of Christ's Sacrifice, 
by Melozzo da Forli, 1482.

The Holy Church, therefore, during Advent, awaits in tears, and with ardour, the arrival of her Jesus in His First Coming. For this, she borrows the fervid expressions of The Prophets, to which she joins her own Supplications.

These longings for The Messias, expressed by The Church, are not a mere commemoration of the desires of the ancient Jewish people; they have a reality and efficacy of their own, an influence in the great act of God's Munificence, whereby He gave us His Own Son.

From all Eternity, the Prayers of the ancient Jewish people and the Prayers of The Christian Church ascended together to the prescient hearing of God; and it was after receiving and granting them, that He sent, in the appointed time, that Blessed Dew upon the Earth, which made it bud forth the Saviour.

The Adoration of The Lamb.

From the Ghent Altarpiece, by Jan van Eyck,1429.

The following is taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia.

Rorate Coeli (or Rorate Caeli), from the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 45:8), in the Vulgate, are the opening words of a Text used in Catholic and, less frequently, Protestant Liturgy. It is also known as The Advent Prose, or, by the first words of its English translation, "Drop down ye heavens from above."

It is frequently sung as Plainsong, at Mass, and in The Divine Office, during Advent, where it gives expression to the longings of Patriarchs and Prophets, and, symbolically of The Church, for The Coming of The Messiah. Throughout Advent, it occurs daily as the Versicle and Response after the Hymn at Vespers.

“ ℣ Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum
(Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just)

℟ Aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorem"
(Let the earth be opened and send forth a Saviour"). ” ]


PART THREE FOLLOWS