“O Come, O Come Emmanuel” isn’t the only Advent hymn.

I’m willing to bet that you have heard the achingly gorgeous “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”. The melody that we use today is called “Picardy”, a French medieval folk melody, but the hymn is ANCIENT, from the earliest days of the Holy Catholic Church. The words are from the Cherubic Hymn (sung at the Offertory) of the ANCIENT Rite of St. James the Less, son of Alphaeus, Apostle, Bishop of Jerusalem, and cousin of Our Lord. We’re talking the first DECADES after Our Lord’s Passion, Resurrection and Ascension. St. James the Less, Bishop of Jerusalem, was martyred in ARSH 62, and this is from his Rite.

The title comes from Habakkuk 2: 20.

When is the last time you quoted Habakkuk?

But the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before Him.
Dominus autem in templo sancto suo : sileat a facie ejus omnis terra!

Here are the Benedictine nuns of Gower, Missouri, the selfsame community founded by Mother Wilhelmina Lancaster, found incorrupt last year, singing this exquisite Advent hymn off their CD, which I recommend that everyone have in their collection. These nuns truly give us all a foretaste of heaven with their pure, clear voices.

Please do contemplate these heart-rending verses as the Sisters’ voices draw us nearer to heaven, and to Our Eucharistic Lord even now, during this all-too-brief season of Advent.

Mother Wilhelmina Lancaster, pray for me, pray for us.

Lord Jesus Christ, in the crib, on the Cross, and in the Most Holy Eucharist, have mercy on us.

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Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the Body and the Blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His Own Self for heav’nly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the pow’rs of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six-winged seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the Presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
“Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!”