I don't suppose many people nowadays read the Sermon of S Bernard given in old breviaries for the middle nocturn today, the Octave Day of the Assumption ... but I was struck by this bit: Mary is "digna plane quam respiceret Dominus, cuius decorem concupisceret Rex, cuius odore suavissimo ab aeterno illo Paterni sinus attraheretur accubitu."
Daring stuff, eh?
And, in today's Sarum Sequence, " ... propitiationis agnum, regnantem coelo aeternaliter, revocamus ad aram mactandum mysterialiter."
Even S John Henry Newman, possibly, thought it more reverent to leave such talk dramatically on the lips of 'Willis': the Mass "is, not the invocation merely, but, if I dare to use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble ...".
That He Himself should so set Himself at the beck and call of humans ...
2 comments:
With the reference to enticing scents is there not a pleasing symmetry with the, traditional, first nocturn lessons of the feast?
"In odórem unguentórum tuórum cúrrimus: adolescéntulæ dilexérunt te nimis".
From the Little Office of the B.V.M.
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