Rorate
14 December 2024. Just before dawn.
Hear it live at 6 am.
Offer a candle for your intentions.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened
and bud forth a Savior.
—Introit: Isa. xlv. 8
Saturday of Our Lady in Advent
Rorate
12.14.2024
Join us for one of the most beautiful Masses of the year. It is offered in honor of Our Lady during Advent – in darkness just before sunrise. Lit entirely by candlelight, it reminds us that we await breathlessly the spiritual dawn: the coming of the uncreated Light into the world through the birth of our beloved Savior.
Mass begins at 6:00 am
Attend in person
If this will be your first visit to the Shrine, check our Schedule page for more information on confession times, parking, and directions.
More informationWatch it live online
We are very pleased to be able to invite you to watch the Mass live on our YouTube channel. If you live farther away or are not able to come in person, plan to join us live that morning and unite your prayers with ours.
Watch Mass liveOffer a candle for your intentions
Donate a candle for the Rorate Mass this year. It will be lit during the wee hours of that morning and will illuminate the church during Mass, burning seven days and seven nights for your intentions. Your intentions will also be placed in a gold box on the first gradine of the altar – and this most beautiful Mass will be offered for them.
Offer a candleSponsor the music for this Mass
We need your help to sustain our new program for sacred music at the Shrine. Music is one of the Church’s oldest and most beautiful traditions – and an essential part of the sacred liturgy. This year’s Mass setting will be Francisco Guerrero’s Missa Beata Mater and a prelude and motets by Biebl, Poulenc, Ola Gjeilo, and Palestrina.
Sponsor the musicFull of Grace...
Alleluia, alleluia. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Alleluia.
Offer a candle
Rorate
It takes days to set up all the candles in the church before Rorate. Hundreds of tiny, flickering flames set the altar and sanctuary aglow. Their light in the darkness is a reminder of the Divine Flame that burns inside our hearts, even in a dark world.
Offer a candle to Our Lady this year for your particular intentions. The Mass will be offered especially for those intentions enrolled. But the candles that burn for them will continue to bear your prayers to Heaven for seven days and nights.
Use the button below to donate a candle and enroll your intentions. You will be redirected to our site to submit your intentions afterwards. May God reward your generosity.
Waiting in darkness
For the Light of the World
Holy Mother Church has given us the tradition of the Rorate Mass in the midst of Advent as an opportunity to contemplate the mystery of darkness and light. Outside, all the world lies in darkness, while inside, the candlelight leaps into the shadows and overpowers them.
The darkness of sin and indifference, like the darkness of the troubles that plague our world, our nation, and our Church, threaten to overwhelm and destroy the Light of Christ. But darkness does not overcome light. The light of just one candle is enough to dispel darkness. Imagine the power of the Light of the World!
The Rorate Mass is a visible, burning reminder to us that, by our prayers and offerings, we are to awake the dawn of Christ in our own lives. By vigilantly tending our own flames of faith, of prayer, and of penance, we burn out all inside of us that is not of Him. The candles on our altar, offered by our faithful, are a reminder to us that these spiritual flames are the only real weapons that have any power over the darkness.
Unite your prayers to our Lady’s at this Rorate Mass by lighting a candle to burn before the Light of the World. Together, let us awake the Dawn, hidden just beyond the horizon.
All of the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
—Saint Francis of Assisi
Watch it live
Rorate Mass
Saturday of Our Lady in Advent
Rorate
14 December 2024
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior.
—Introit: Isa. xlv. 8
Come pray with us for the Light of the world in the darkness just before dawn this Advent. This year’s Mass setting will be Francisco Guerrero’s Missa Beata Mater and a prelude and motets by Biebl, Poulenc, Ola Gjeilo, and Palestrina.
Rorate schedule
6:00 am Traditional Latin Mass (High)
Francisco Guerrero’s
Missa Beata Mater
Sponsor the Music
Music at the Sacred Mass
The music program is an integral aspect of liturgical life at the Shrine. Saint Alphonsus, a hymn-writer himself, is both a model and inspiration for us – his words and his life remind us of the deep connection between beautiful music and reverent worship.
As an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, the Shrine is dedicated to the celebration of the Mass in its Extraordinary Form and, as such, we seek to clothe the Holy Mass with the Church’s extraordinarly rich treasury of sacred music. The long tradition of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony bequeathed to us, like the other traditions we have inherited, is an important aid in ordering our souls toward God.
Help us to meet the cost of the professional octet that will render Francisco Guerrero’s Missa Beata Mater for the glory of God and for sake of the souls who will be blessed by it with abundant spiritual fruit.
Cost: $ 1,760
May God bless our donor’s generosity.
Watch it live
Advent Reflections
Playlist
Advent Reflections
begins 30 November 2024
It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.
—Pope Benedict XVI
Our four-part Reflection series begins on Saturday, 30 November, this Advent. Join us for one or all of these special sermons.
Advent Reflections schedule
9:00 am, 30 November
9:00 am, 7 December
9:00 am, 14 December
9:00 am, 21 December