Fourth Sunday in Advent

Today was the Last Sunday in Advent as next Sunday marks the Christ Mass - or as more commonly called, "Christmas."  With Christmas falling on a Sunday this year that also makes this the longest possible Advent Season!  Advent ends with the First Mass of Christmas, often a Midnight Mass.

Readings for the Extraordinary Rite (Traditional Latin Rite)
From:  http://tridentine-mass.blogspot.com/2016/12/fourth-sunday-of-advent-expectation-of.html

EXPECTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
DOUBLE, FIRST CLASS / PURPLE
There is urgency in the readings and prayers of today. We ask the Father to "drop" and to "rain" the Savior upon us, the human race, in order that we may "speedily" be delivered. "Come and tarry not!" is our cry. "Prepare the way of the Lord" for an immediate coming is the Gospel thought. And Mary we hail as the mediatrix of our pressing desire. Great indeed is our need for grace.
But the Savior we seek to possess and love is also our Judge. Not men but God alone can judge our preparedness for grace and for eternity. And God judges us by our love for our neighbors and our impartial zeal for their welfare.

INTROIT Isa. 45:8
Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just one. Let the earth be opened and bud forth a savior.
Ps. 18:2. The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork.
V. Glory be . . .

COLLECT
O Lord, show yourself an all-powerful God and come to us. Aid us with Your powerful assistance so that, through Your grace and merciful forgiveness, we may attain salvation, which now is hindered by our sins; who lives and rules with God the Father . . .

Commemoration of the EXPECTATION OF OUR LADY 
O God, Who didst will that at the message of an angel Thy word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary: grant that we, Thy suppliants, who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her intercession with Thee. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

R.Amen.  

EPISTLE I Cor. 4:1-5
Brethren: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among the dispensers that a man be found faithful. But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by man's day. But neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of anything. Yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore, judge not before the time: until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts. And then shall every man have praise from God.

GRADUAL Ps. 144:18, 21
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.
V. My lips shall speak the praise of the Lord; let all men bless His holy name.

Alleluia, alleluia! V.
Come, O Lord; do not delay. Forgive the sins of Israel, Your people.
Alleluia!

GOSPEL Luke 3:1-6
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina: Under the high priests Anna and Caiphas: the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins. As it was written in the book of the sayings of Isaias the prophet: "A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.