Link to Music

Today we learn the antiphon for Rorate Caeli, a hymn based on the beginning of the Introit for the 4th Sunday of Advent. A wonderful, simple antiphon to have on our lips during this last week before the Lord Comes!

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: thy holy city is a wilderness,Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation:our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee.

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.

Behold, O Lord, the affliction of thy people, and send forth him whom thou wilt send; send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion:that he may take away the yoke of our captivity.

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 Saviour: and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; my salvation shall not tarry: why wilt thou waste away in sadness? why hath sorrow seized thee?Fear not, for I will save thee: For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.