Like the Dewfall

Isaiah gives us the defining image for today’s Mass, as we prepare for the Incarnation of the Lord at Christmas. Indeed, the Church cites the prophet in the Entrance Antiphon for today: “Drop down dew from above, you heavens, and let the clouds rain down the Just One; let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour.

It is this passage which inspires the Second Eucharistic Prayer, when we call upon God to: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and + Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Likewise, the Prayer over the Offerings asks that the Holy Spirit make holy the gifts we have placed upon the altar, “just as he filled with his power the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

In the days to come, we will sing a hymn which goes back to the early eighteenth century, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing. It recalls how “Christ, the everlasting Lord” has come in time, “offspring of the Virgin’s womb.” Then follows these beautiful and profound lines: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th'incarnate Deity, pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.”

This hymn, then, is as much about the Eucharist we celebrate and the Holy Communion we receive as it is about the Word made Flesh who came to save us. They are the one and the same Christ who, on the night before he died for us, took bread and said ‘take and eat…take and drink…for this is my Body and Blood, given for you.”