One of the most striking features of our beautiful church of St. Ignatius of Antioch is our magnificent bell tower. It is the tallest church bell tower in the diocese of Cleveland, 240 feet tall. You can see the tower from miles away; you can hear it ringing from miles away as well.
Every day, as you might have noticed the Church bells ring at 12noon and at 6pm. In the old days, they would ring at 6am as well: 6, noon, and six, to mark the day’s beginning, middle, and end. For many centuries throughout the Catholic world, it has been tradition to stop what you are doing, when you hear the Church bells at those hours, and to pray. A nice way to keep the day directed to the glory of God. The bells ringing at 6, noon, and 6, in fact, are known as the Angelus Bells, because of the particular prayer, known as the Angelus, which is offered at those hours.
If you don’t know the Angelus, it’s very easy to learn. It consists of three little antiphons each followed by a Hail Mary, and then it concludes with a short prayer that is used on this 4th Sunday of Advent, the Collect Prayer that preceded the liturgy of the word. This 4th Sunday of Advent could be called Angelus Sunday, because our readings and liturgical prayers are the inspiration for the Angelus Prayer.
The Angelus Prayer begins Angelus Domini, Nuntiavit Mariae, The Angel of the Lord announced to Mary, and she conceived by of the holy spirit. And like I said, the Hail Mary, is then prayed. Then Ecce Ancilla Domini, Behold, I am the Handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy Word. And then another Hail Mary. And finally, Et Verbum Caro factum est. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. And then the third Hail Mary.
I’ve been praying the Angelus Prayer every day for many, many years, since seminary. I usually wake up a few minutes before 6am, and so I pray it first thing in the morning. Even when I sleep in a little bit, it’s the first prayer I offer each day.
The Angelus is a very important prayer because it calls to mind one of the most important events of human history. It was an event that God had been planning for thousands and thousands of years—a collaboration between angels, humans and the Three Persons of the Trinity. The Angelus reminds us of this amazing plan of God to save humanity from sin and death. And it reminds us that we are respond to God like Mary did, saying to God, “may it be done to me according to your Word…may God’s will be done in my life…may I respond to God with faith, always, daily, many times a day.” And the Angelus reminds us who Jesus is. He is God—The Word made flesh. He’s not just an ordinary baby, he’s not just another worldly teacher, he’s God, and we owe him our love, our devotion, our worship.
Praying the Angelus opens our mind and soul to this most important event, for one, to give God honor, and two, so we don’t begin to forget, and take it for great it for granted. So we’ll continue to ring those Angelus bells, to announce to the neighborhood our belief in the incarnation of Christ, as long as we’re here, for those bells pierce through the secular noise, don’t they, and at least for a moment, remind the religious and non-religious alike, of the world of faith.
One of the most repeated requests I received upon being made pastor of St. Ignatius was to reintroduce the ringing of the bells during Mass. We ring them, these days, when we are fortunate enough to have an altar server or someone to ring them.
The ringing of the bells during Mass is tied to the Angelus. The first time the bells are rung at Mass, is during the epiclesis, when the priest calls down the Holy Spirit over the gifts, just like that first line of the Angelus taken from our Gospel today, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the Blessed Mother. The second and the third time they ring, they call our attention to the fact that the Word who took flesh in womb of the Blessed Virgin, is now present in our midst, when bread and wine are really and truly transformed into the body and blood of Jesus.
So, the ringing of the bells during mass, is not just for aesthetical reasons or that we want mass to be noiser or more musical. Rather, they are part of the rich tapestry of our faith, that helps us to respond to what God has done for our salvation, and what God continues to do, for us.
And that’s what Advent is all about, no? What Christmas is all about: being mindful and grateful and celebrating what God has done, and what he continues to do, and responding accordingly.
Pope Benedict reflected upon this sentiment, wroting, “Though it is God who takes the initiative of coming to dwell in the midst of men, and he is always the main architect of this plan, it is also true that he does not will to carry it out without our active cooperation. Therefore, to prepare for Christmas means to commit oneself to build 'God's dwelling with men.'
That’s why the Christian people takes such pride in building such beautiful churches with church bells and bell towers, to signal God’s dwelling with humanity.
Every Sunday, at noon, the Pope gives a short little Angelus lesson. And last year, on this 4th Sunday of Advent, Pope Francis urged us to emulate Mary in this task and mission of cooperating with God’s plan and ask her help. Pope Francis said, “we admire our Mother for her response to God’s call to mission, we ask her to help each of us to welcome God’s plan into our lives with sincere humility and brave generosity.”
Every Christian essentially has the vocation of Mary—how we see Mary responding to God in the Gospel today—to respond to God with total faith, total surrender, that we may become a dwelling place for God.
I can’t recommend strongly enough to pray the Angelus, at least once a day, if not thrice a day. If you don’t live within earshot of a church, you might consider setting alarms on your phone to remind you to pray at 6 noon and 6. For it will certainly help your life to be more deeply infused with grace. Who of us couldn’t use a little bit more mindfulness of the angels, our lady, and the Holy Trinity?
There’s the famous movie line that “every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings”. It’s really not theologically accurate. There isn’t a room of wingless angels waiting on us to ring our church bells. Rather, every time a bell rings, we are being reminded in a beautiful, angelic manner, to respond to God with the surrender and trust and faith of Blessed Virgin, the Queen of Angels, and Mother of Our Lord. We are being reminded to become, like her, Arks for God, tabernacles for God, dwelling places for God—to stop whatever we’re doing for a moment to make sure that we are building God’s dwelling and following God’s plan.
May the final days of Advent take on the profound characteristics of the Angelus—openness to visitation from the angels, profound trust and humility and surrender to the will of God, and for greater openness to the Lord Jesus taking flesh in our lives for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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