O Emmanuel!
You who are God
with us,
Come and deliver
your people!
All holy one
who dwells higher
than the Cherubim,
adored by the living
fire of the
Seraphim in love
so exultant it
enflames all
it touches,
you who hide behind
the cloud and
thunder of Sinai,
lest we would die
in awe,
descend now
and reveal at last
your face to us
our Saviour!
O Emmanuel!
Name by which
we would never
have named you,
so awesome is your
mystery;
and yet, this name
you choose
and place upon your
prophet who speaks
it as sign
through lips of
flame.
Descending into our
nature
so to raise it on
high;
our God above,
beyond,
before
you are,
yet now revealed as
with us
in our every moment,
as in your incarnation
eternity weds time
and heals the long
broken
human heart
consecrating the cosmic
temple anew.
O Emmanuel!
Love incarnate
and light from
light!
You fill all
things,
and all things
have
their being in you,
yet you choose us
for your family
and come to dwell
in us
through the mystery
of a mother’s love!
For nine moons
at play in that
sacred pool,
ever unrippled
and
undisturbed,
you hallow
the waters of the
womb
again
and in its sacred
darkness
dance,
making of the one who builds you
from her own blood
and feeds you on
her own milk
the first
tabernacle from
which all of us
will feed!
O Emmanuel!
Hear us on this
seventh
and most sacred
night,
as we complete
the circle of
our
sacred invocations,
closing at last the wreath
of evergreen time,
and gather once
again
at star-rise to
call you
from the heavens
and down the
winding roads
of our long hoping
to be born in us
again!
O hear our song
sung from the heart
of humbled humanity
that we, who have
in you
our very God with
us,
may learn the
wisdom from
your prophet promised
and thrice holy
mother,
to bow our heads
and enter Bethlehem’s barn
and there be with
the One
who in love’s
divine mystery
is always and ever
with us.
“O Emmanuel, our
king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the
nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O
Lord our God!”
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