Improvisation on “Rorate Caeli” (2025, Sunday III)

Improvisation on
“Rorate Caeli”

Afsnee/Gent 🇧🇪
13.12.2025, Third weekend in the Advent
🎹: Jan F.M. Van Impe
Organ Lovaert (1842)
🎵: Choir Church Saint-John-the-Baptist
📷: Romanesque Church Afsnee (XII, XIII)
📷: Sint-Pieters-Buiten, Gent
📷: Sint-Baafskathedraal, Gent


oOo

“Rorate caeli desuper
et nubes pluant iustum.
Aperiatur terra
et germinet salvatorem.”

“Drop down, ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness:
let the earth open,
and let it bring forth a Saviour.”

oOo

"Rorate caeli" or "Rorate coeli" (“Drop down, ye heavens”) are the opening words of Isaiah 45:8 in the Vulgate. The text appears at several points in the Christian liturgy during Advent.

The text is frequently sung to plainsong at Mass and in the Divine Office during Advent where it gives expression to the longings of Patriarchs and Prophets, and symbolically of the Church, for the coming of the Messiah. Throughout Advent it occurs daily as the versicle and response after the hymn at Vespers.

oOo

Rorate caeli desuper et nubes pluant justum

Ne irascaris, Domine,
ne ultra memineris iniquitatis
Ecce civitas sancti facta est deserta, Sion deserta facta est,
Jerusalem desolata est
Domus sanctificationis tuae et gloriae tuae,
ubi laudaverunt te patres nostri

Peccavimus, et facti sumus tamquam immundus nos
Et cecidimus quasi folium universi
Et iniquitates nostrae quasi ventus abstulerunt nos
Abscondisti faciem tuam a nobis, et allisisti nos
in manu iniquitatis nostrae

Vide Domine afflictionem populi tui
Et mitte quem missurus es
Emitte Agnum dominatorem terrae de Petra deserti
ad montem filiae Sion
Ut auferat ipse jugum captivitatis nostrae

Consolamini, consolamini, popule meus
Cito veniet salus tua
Quare maerore consumeris, quia innovavit te dolor?
Salvabo te, noli timere
Ego enim sum Dominus Deus tuus,
Sanctus Israel, Redemptor tuus