23 December 2007

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!

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.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fr. Weedon,

The acrostic from "Veni, Emmanuel" to "Sapientia", as I read it would be ER CRS, from which if you put in the "o" and "a" you would get ero cras. But what about the "V" from "Veni Emmanuel?" It only works if you leave that out. Unless, it is supposed to read, "vero cras" which means "tomorrow, in truth" which I suppose could also work. Where am I going wrong?

William Weedon said...

Christopher,

The acrostic works with the the word following the O in each instance:

E(mmanuel) R(ex Gentium) O(riens) C(laves David) R(adix Jesse) A(donai) S(apientia).

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Fr. Weedon. I guess I overlooked a few. Typical.

Blessed Nativity to you and yours, Fr.

William Weedon said...

Thanks, Christopher, and also to you and yours! "Christ is born! Glorify Him!"