Adoremus icon

Adoremus

The Rorate Mass: History and Current Practice
AB Insight
Nov 22, 2025

The Rorate Mass: History and Current Practice

By Jacob Zepp

The Rorate Mass is a Votive Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is celebrated by candlelight before dawn during the Advent season. The Mass is called “Rorate” because the entrance antiphon for the Mass begins with this Latin word: Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum, aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem (“Drop down dew from above, you heavens, and let the clouds rain down the Just One; let the earth be opened and bring forth a Savior” (see Isaiah 45:8)).

Why During Advent?

In the Roman Rite, the season of Advent has a twofold character: preparing for Christmas—the feast of Christ’s First Coming—and awaiting Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time.1 Awaiting the end of time is not characterized liturgically by dread, doom, and destruction; rather, as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come,” it is an object of hope. As the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar state, “Advent is thus a period for devout and joyful expectation.”2

This season of expectation for the coming of Christ can be joined to Mary’s expectation for the birth of her Son. About a decade after the conclusion of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI explained that Advent “should be considered as a time particularly suited to devotion to the Mother of the Lord.”3 He also remarked that “the Advent liturgy, by linking the awaiting of the Messiah and the awaiting of the glorious return of Christ with the admirable commemoration of His Mother, presents a happy balance in worship.”4 This balance in the liturgy is a theological norm that helps emphasize that devotion to the Blessed Virgin cannot be separated from Christ.

The Rorate Mass is a liturgical Marian celebration for the season of Advent. In the Rorate Mass, the faithful join the expectant Virgin Mother as they prepare for Christmas. They join their expectation for Christ’s Second Coming with Mary’s expectation for Christ’s First Coming.

Why Before Sunrise?

The attitude of expectation is well captured by awaiting the rising sun. As the Psalmist says, “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:6). While darkness veils the earth, man can only wait. In the early morning Rorate Mass, the faithful mirror the watchmen in the Psalm, waiting for the light. As the liturgy begins, the faithful are surrounded by a physical darkness, awaiting the coming of the physical and spiritual light.

Light is a symbol of Christ, for Christ is the light of the world (see John 8:12). Christ is also “a light of the revelation of the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). During this Mass, the faithful are physically waiting for the light to dawn and spiritually waiting for the coming of the light of the world. This symbolism beautifully reveals the bond between the physical world and the spiritual world.

When Did This Custom Start?

The Rorate Mass originated in the Middle Ages as one of the many Advent devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This liturgical celebration was very popular among the people, especially in German-speaking areas.5 In some places, it was called the Golden Mass.

The practice of celebrating the Rorate Mass can be dated back to the eighth century in Ordo Romanus XV: “Then, on the Sunday before the feast of the Nativity of the Lord, they begin to sing of the conception [of the Lord in the womb] of holy Mary.”6 This manuscript is a set of liturgical prescriptions preserved in the Saint Gall Collection.7 According to Cyrille Vogel, the collection was written by a Burgundian or Austrian monk in the eighth century to promote unity between the Gallican and the Roman liturgy.8 The Rorate Mass also appears later in the Compiegne Antiphonary (The Antiphonary of Charles the Bald), which was written in 877; the antiphon for the day begins Rorate Caeli.9

Eventually, these Votive Masses were extended and began to be celebrated for nine consecutive days, making a Mass novena in honor of the Blessed Mother. The nine-day celebration of these Votive Masses endured from the Middle Ages until modern times.10

Is Rorate Mass Still Practiced?

Yes, it is still permissible to celebrate a Votive Mass for the Blessed Virgin Mary on most of the days during the Advent season. In the liturgy reformed after the Second Vatican Council, there still exists a Votive Mass for the Blessed Virgin Mary to be used during the Advent season. The opening antiphon for this Mass still begins “Rorate, Caeli.”11 This Mass could be fittingly and beautifully celebrated by candlelight to help the faithful enter into the twofold joyful expectation for the feast of Christ’s nativity and Second Coming. In those places where it is allowed, the Rorate Mass can also be celebrated using the older form of the Roman Rite.

In recent years, this tradition has gained popularity, with celebrations featured on EWTN and at major pilgrimage sites including the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and in Wisconsin at the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse.

Image Source: AB/Lawrence Lew on Flickr.com
Jacob Zepp

Jacob Zepp is the Master of Ceremonies for the Diocese of La Crosse. He graduated from the Catholic University of America with a Master of Arts in Liturgical Studies. He and his wife have two children and live in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Footnotes

  1. General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 39.
  2. GNLYC, 39.
  3. Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, Apostolic Exhortation on the Right Ordering and Development of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (1974), 4.
  4. Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, 4.
  5. Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year: Its History and Its Meaning after the Reform of the Liturgy, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1981), 138.
  6. Les Ordines Romani, vol. III (Louvain 1951), 95 (translation mine).
  7. Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, rev. and trans. William Storey and Niels Rasmussen (Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1986), 153-154, 168.
  8. Vogel, 153-154.
  9. Bibliotheque nationale de France, Graduale et antiphonarium, BnF. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 17436. Gallica. Accessed October 6, 2025. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426787t/f11.item.zoom.
  10. Polycarpus Radó, Enchiridion Liturgicum: Complectens Theologiae Sacramentalis et Dogmata et Leges juxta Novum Codicem Rubricarum vol. II (Rome: Herder), 1110.
  11. Roman Missal, Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, II In Advent.

You might also like