Advent candlelight and sunrise mark Rorate Mass

A special Advent Mass in honor of Mary begins in candlelight and ends with dawn breaking as it celebrates the Blessed Virgin — the Morning Star — and Christ, light of the world, with a congregation’s peaceful, prayerful presence at the Eucharist.

At Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis, a Rorate Mass will be celebrated 7:15 a.m. Dec. 11, the Saturday before Gaudete Sunday and the third week of Advent, which also emphasizes the joy and promise of Christ’s coming at Christmas.

With the back windows at Our Lady of Peace facing east, sunrise streams into the nave, said Father Joah Ellis, pastor. “If the pews faced the other way around, it would be blinding people at Mass,” he said.

Our Lady of Peace doesn’t usually offer a Saturday Mass. But after considering the votive Rorate Mass in 2019 and deciding they couldn’t fit it to their schedules just then, Father Ellis and Elizabeth Pike, director of music and liturgy, decided to offer the Mass in 2020, with appropriate pandemic precautions in that first year of COVID-19.

“It was really Father’s passion project,” Pike said. “It was something he really wanted to do. And I was happy to do it. (But) once the liturgy started, I found it to be really moving, to be part of it, and to offer it to the congregation together.”

Last year’s Mass started at 6:30 a.m. and skies were cloudy, Father Ellis said. But with candles alone lighting the sanctuary and Pike’s prayerful voice ringing clear without accompaniment, the Mass began with the Latin words it is named for: “Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum” or “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just” and “Aperiatur terra et germinet salatorem” — “Let the earth be opened and send forth a Savior.”

Candlelight remains the only illumination throughout the Mass. Combined with the special effort to get up early, before the rest of the world stirs, the darkness lends an air of being out of time and place, Pike said. It allows quiet prayer with plenty of time left in the morning for people to get where they need to go, she said.

“As a liturgist, I don’t always have the quiet we offer to others,” Pike said. “We can experience this, and you don’t have to rush.”

Parishioners Drs. Ken and Laurel Haycraft, both 75, attended last year’s Rorate Mass and plan to attend this year’s. “Going to Mass is wonderful, but Saturday with candlelight draws you right down into prayer,” Laurel Haycraft said.

“It’s a reminder of how important Mary is in bringing us to Jesus,” Ken Haycraft said.

The Rorate Mass is an ancient tradition most often celebrated in communities devoted to the Latin Mass. But it also can be celebrated in the vernacular, and at Our Lady of Peace, the rich tradition of chant — both Latin and English — is an important part of the Mass.

Father Ellis said he isn’t certain where he first read about the Rorate Mass. But it attracted him as a way for Our Lady of Peace to honor and learn more about its patroness, and to offer parishioners a quiet celebration of Advent during what can be a busy season. The Mass is beautiful, he said.

“You finish as the sun is rising. It reinforces that image of Advent, which is that Christ is the light coming into the world,” Father Ellis said. “I think what drew me to it is that it’s a powerful image or experience. Especially in the frantic pace of our world today, especially in the time of busy pre-Christmas rush. It is quiet, dimly light in the mornings before the coming of Christ.”

About 30 people attended last year’s Rorate Mass, Father Ellis said, including people outside the parish. Having even more people participate would be wonderful, he said.

“We are trying to make it something that those in the greater Twin Cities area who are interested will come,” he said. “It’s a very prayerful and meditative experience.”