Drop down, ye heavens

This is the Church’s “New Year.” With the First Evensong of Advent Sunday, we cross the threshold into the gift of a new liturgical year: fresh and as yet untested. For me, one of the great joys of the life of prayer is saying the first words of this evening’s prayers – full of hope, expectation, and the promise of another immersion into the Catholic Faith.

I have been blessed to serve in two congregations which use the Advent Prose. This ancient collection of passages from the prophets, originally connected to the Daily Office, serves as a probing entrance into the particular tonality of Advent. These days are both penitential and joyful in character, and the Prose we use to begin this Sunday’s liturgy expresses it so well:

Drop down, ye heavens, from above and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: the holy cities are a wilderness, Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation: our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee.

Drop down, ye heavens, from above and let the skies pour down righteousness.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing, and we all do fade as a leaf: and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away; thou hast hid thy face from us: and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

Drop down, ye heavens, from above and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know me and believe me: I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior: and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Drop down, ye heavens, from above and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, my salvation shall not tarry: I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions: Fear not, for I will save thee: for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

Drop down, ye heavens, from above and let the skies pour down righteousness.

The antiphon (refrain) “Drop down ye heavens…" may be used before and after the Song of Mary (Magnificat) at Evening Prayer during Advent

These words combine majesty and solemnity, humility and hope in a way unlike anything else in our worship. They are worthy of prayerful consideration throughout these four weeks. I feel both deeply privileged and acutely humbled to offer them in the liturgy. May all of us enter into Holy Advent in peace, with open hearts, that we may hear God’s word to us in this season, joining the Blessed Virgin in preparation to receive the gift of Christ’s coming now and at the end of the ages.