O Emmanuel: A meditation on the seventh of the Great O Antiphons of Advent.

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!”

O King of the Nations, O Rex Gentium: A meditation on the sixth of the Great O Antiphons of Advent

O King of the Nations!

Long desired one we call to you!

Come from

your Royal Throne

and reign over us!

You who are the beginning

and the end of all;

the first principle

and the fount of all that is!

Come, we pray,

and restore the

divine order of this cosmos,

long thrown into chaos

by the discordant note

of our sin.

O King of the Nations!

Of old known by so many names

and in so many places sought!

Desired in the hearts

of all peoples, of all times

and

templed in the souls 

of all those ancient elders,

men and women of

justice,

peace,

and truth.

Tear down, then

the veils of separation

and reveal your holy name

to all,

as you did to Moses,

that from the many nations

there may be formed

one peaceful people,

one flock,

beneath the loving gaze of

the Good Shepherd.

O King of the Nations!

Come and be our cornerstone!

Take our lost

and tumbling efforts

and re-found, re-form,

our crumbling clay

in your divine matrix

that humbled,

we may stand tall again

and find our place

within your temple

as living stones

once more!

O King of the Nations!

Hear our sacred invocation

as we sing the royal hymn of the Lady,

she who is your Queen and Mother both!

Let us follow her 

in magnifying your power

in its paradox of grace!

For you,

O Conquering Messiah,

in your stabled birth

will teach us the true path

of kingship,

and bestow upon our nature

a royal dignity

never to be taken away!

So then,

may we become, again,

as once we were,

the highest gift

and twice blessed

in our being

by following your

descending

path to the lowest point

of emptiness

and there,

between the

breathing of the beasts

and the beating of a Mother’s

heart,

beneath the star-stilled sky,

and

only there,

come at last

to hear the

Angels

exult

in true royalty

revealed

as Love.

“O King of the Nationsand their desire,

the cornerstone making both one:

Come and save the human race,

which you fashioned from clay.”

O Rising Sun, O Oriens: A meditation on the fifth of the Great O Antiphons of Advent

O Rising Sun!

On the day of the deepest dark

we call you!

Come to us O promised light!

Gazing upon the eastern edge

of the world

we thrill,

as from our long benighted being

the first dayspring spark is cast,

and a red dawn heralds

a conqueror’s coming!

O Rising Sun!

You who are light from light,

scatter upon us

the uncreated light by which our dull eyes

may even now behold

the dawn of your presence!

Illume us as lanterns,

kindle us as fires,

breathe your flame upon us as beacons

in a world so cold

and a winter of the heart so dark

we oft forget the dawn that has come,

is come,

will come again,

needing our annual remembering

to rekindle our rebirth in you

O Son!

O Rising Sun!

We long for your dawn

down the dark and ancient ways of ancestry

Feeling in our old yearning

the gathering of ghostly generations

who followed their deepest knowing,

that map,

long inscribed upon the centre

of our being

but written in a sacred script

unknown to eyes lost to Eden’s light.

For they,

So desperate for the

warming of a presence

they remembered

but did not know

wrought stone,

and marked ways,

and offered song,

and told story,

and gathered green,

and even spent

blood,

to charm back an earthly sun

while truly seeking

for the Divine Son

who would warm

the winter of our heart

and make of Himself

the sacrifice that brings the light back

for an eternal day  

O Rising Sun!

We call you by our evening invocation!

Kindling our vesper candles and vigil lights,

wrapping the wreath of time

in flames of rose and purple,

we sing now the soul song of

the Lady of the Light.

She whose heart blessed beacon

shone so bright in love,

it drew you from

the realms of everlasting day

to that sealed chamber in which,

with quickening touch,

you, the dayspring and the morning star

both

bestowed your spark of glory

and found your home,

issuing forth

as Word and Light

to bestow the blessing

of a dawn from our Midwinter night,

that re-orients us to righteousness,

and reveals the Light beyond all night

Bethlehem born and blazing

as the true and victorious

Son.

"O Rising Sun!

Splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death!"