23 December 2012

December 23: O Emmanuel!


O Emmanuel, our King and our Lord, the anointed for the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God!

You can hear Pr. Daenzer sing it here.

And so we come to the last Vespers of Advent. Tonight the great O antiphon will be "O Emmanuel" for tomorrow we will celebrate that the Child of Mary is none other than God Himself with His people. If you read the titles for the great O Antiphons backwards from this day, you have ERO CRAS: "I will be (here) tomorrow." Advent is nearly over, and the joys of the Nativity are about to begin.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Who translated this Antiphon? Someone's Latin is rally quite poor. I would offer my services to the Synod but I'm afraid I'm too occupied and too expensive. But here's a freebie.

O Emmanuel,
Rex et legifer noster,
expectatio gentium,
et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos,
Domine, Deus noster.

What you have:

O Emmanuel,
our King and our Lord,
the anointed for the nations
and their Savior:
Come and save us,
O Lord our God.

What I would have done different:

O Emmanuel,
Our King and Lawgiver (legifer is NOT Lord)
The expectation (anointed is not a synonym of expectation) of nations,
and their Saviour:
Come to save us (ad salvandum expresses purpose it is not used as a conjunction)
O Lord our God

Unknown said...

Sorry,

Meant "really" instead of rally.

--Chris