Introit for Third Sunday in Advent

 Introit:

St. Fulgentius on the Epiclesis

 

St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe (+533), in North Africa, in his Epistle to Monimus, speaks concerning the question of the Epiclesis then present in the variant of the Orthodox Western Liturgy in the North African rite at the time:

"Now that question has come around to us concerning the mission of the Holy Spirit: If a Sacrifice is Offered to the Holy Trinity, why is the sending of the Holy Spirit only asked for, for the sanctifying of the gift of our oblation, as if (so to speak) God the Father Himself, from Whom the Holy Spirit Proceeds, could not Sanctify the Sacrifice Offered to Him; or the Son Himself was unable to Sanctify the Sacrifice of His Body which we Offer, since He Sanctified His Body Which He Offered to Redeem us; or that the Holy Spirit was to be sent to Consecrate the Sacrifice of the Church, as if the Father or the Son was missing from the Sacrifices?"

What is important to note here is that in North Africa at the time an invocation of the Holy Ghost upon the oblation during the Anaphora was considered a normative thing. 

1870 Russian Holy Synod Decision on the Epiclesis inclusion in the Roman Canon

Although not followed by all Western Orthodox today, the original decision of the 1870 Holy Governing Synod decision in Moscow was that an explicit Epiclesis was to be inserted between "Supplices Te rogamus Omnipotens Deus" and "Jube haec perferri". Of course, we all have an Epiclesis, but, later scruples were somewhat against inserting it in an already existing prayer in the Canon, as opposed to it being an additional prayer [like an additional Memento], as it now stands [for example, immediately before "Unde et memores" or immediately before "Supplices Te.." like I am familiar with].

However, let me explain that the original decision of the Holy Governing Synod, with Dr. Overbeck's consultation, was not based upon some faulty reasoning, nor was it as bad as some imagine.