God with us!
O Emmanuel, our King and lawgiver, the expectation of the nations and their Savior: come to save us, O Lord our God.
O come, o come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Good reflections here.
Last O Antiphon! Remember: Erocras – I’ll be there tomorrow!
O King of the gentiles and their desired One, the cornerstone that makes both one: come, and deliver man, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.
O come, Desire of nations, bind,
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of peace.
Good reflections here.
A fitting title for our Messiah for the darkest day of the year.
O dawn of the east, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice: come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer,
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
There are several different translations of this O Antiphon, including Rising Sun, Dayspring, Radiant Dawn, and Morning Star. So I stuck with the Latin for the post title.
Good reflections here.
O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens: come, and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.
O come, thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
As usual, good reflections here.
O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not.
O come, O Rod of Jesse free,
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.
Good reflections here by Father Z, including this great line: ”The little root of Advent becomes by Lent the Tree of our salvation.”
O Lord and Ruler the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come, and redeem us with outstretched arms.
O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty, and awe.
Good reflections here.
We’re eight days out from Christmas, which means today is the first day of the “O Antiphons,” the famous verses in Vespers (evening prayer) that prepare us for the coming of Christ.
Father Z has a great explanation on the O Antiphons, as well as meditations on each day’s antiphon (click here for today’s). As I mentioned, the antiphons are prayed at Vespers, before and after the Magnificat. Vespers, or Evening Prayer, is part of the Divine Office, the prayer of the Church. The Divine Office (or Liturgy of the Hours) is prayed by every priest and consecrated religious throughout the day. It uses the Word of God (specifically, the Psalms) to praise and supplicate our good and gracious God at set times of the day (early morning, evening, nighttime, etc). The beautiful thing about the Divine Office is that, like the Mass, the prayers prayed every day, although they vary daily (based on a four-week cycle) are the same each day across the world – the Morning Prayer prayed by the priest in the underground Church in China is the same collection of Psalms and readings that is prayed by the cloistered nun in Germany a few hours later, and the same prayers that are prayed by the American bishop a few hours after that.
Part of Evening Prayer is the Magnificat, Mary’s canticle of humble praise during her Visitation to Elizabeth. Before and after this canticle, an antiphon is read or sung. For the seven days preceding Christmas Eve, the antiphons begin with “O ….” and then address Christ by one of his Old Testament titles.
If the titles and the prayers that follow the titles sound familiar, it’s because “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is based on the antiphons.
The monks who wrote the prayers were creative guys– if you take the first letter of each of the eight titles (in Latin), and work last (December 23rd) to first (December 17), you get the word EROCRAS, or ”I’ll be there tomorrow.”
O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.
O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who orders all things mightily,
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
