CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2025 / 06:00 am
Advent is a season filled with rich Catholic traditions, but a slightly lesser-known one is growing in popularity among younger Catholics.
The ancient liturgy of the Rorate Caeli Advent Mass honors the Blessed Virgin Mary through a Mass celebrated at dawn, in complete darkness, and lit only by candles, which symbolizes Christ, the Light of the World, entering into the world with Mary as the vessel.
Emerging in the Middle Ages, the Rorate Caeli Mass gets its name from the prophecy of Isaiah. Rorate Caeli is Latin for “drop down, ye heavens.” These are the opening words of this liturgy’s Introit, which is used as an opening psalm or entrance antiphon and comes from Isaiah 45:8.
Father Tony Stephens, rector at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wisconsin, calls this Mass “a teachable moment.”
“As all of us are gathered in the church, only lit with the candles, slowly the light begins coming in through the windows and it’s like the light of Christ,” he told CNA. The process symbolizes “the light of Christ coming into our lives, slowly but surely and progressively as we go through life.”
“And just like that light begins to come in through the windows, as the physical sun rises, so in our journey as Catholics, the closer we get to Christ, the more his light shines in our life,” he said.
Stephens has been rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion for two years but was scheduled to celebrate the Rorate Caeli Mass there for the first time on Dec. 13. The shrine is the first and only approved Marian apparition site in the United States. It was here that the Blessed Mother is believed to have appeared to Adele Brise in 1859.
When speaking about the Blessed Mother’s role in Advent, Stephens described it as “a season of anticipating Our Lord, but when you look at the subtext of Advent, things about Mary are everywhere — in the readings and her role in salvation history is so important. And so that’s, again, part of the reason you have these special Marian Masses honoring her during this Advent season.”
He also highlighted the fact that this ancient Mass is seeing a resurgence in popularity and credited Pope Benedict XVI, in part, for reintroducing Catholics to older, traditional practices and his “desire of the hermeneutic of continuity.”
“He in his pontificate really emphasized a desire to have that continuity between the earlier traditions of the Church, even prior to the [Vatican II] council … looking at all of the rich liturgical heritage that we have as Catholics,” he added.
The priest pointed out that young people are also searching for more traditional practices.
“There is a great love, especially amongst young people, for things that are traditional,” he said, adding that the Mass also “appeals to the senses in a way that technology and phones don’t.”
“The real light of a candle is way different than the electronic light put off by a cellphone screen,” he said. “A burning, living candle, the way it flickers, and you can’t recharge a candle — it gives everything it has like Jesus did on the cross. A candle burns with all its might to put off that light. And so there is a selflessness about that light of that candle that’s different than technology, and young people desire that kind of self-gift and authenticity.”
Stephens said he hopes those who attend a Rorate Caeli Mass will leave with “an eager anticipation of Jesus coming at Christmastime.”
“A Rorate Caeli Mass is one of those times that we can have a little consolation and we’re reminded of the author of all consolation and his mother,” he said.
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