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 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!"

O Adonai! A meditation on the second of the Great O Antiphons of Advent

O Adonai!
We cry to you across the endless ages!
We call you by the name for the Name,
that only the One beyond all names may bear, O Hashem!
We seek from you our own exodus
from the cold and hard world
we have built within ourselves,
and hurt so many others by.

O Adonai!
We yearn for your deliverance!
Free us from the slavery to that false self
that is but a shadow of our souls
Let us put off the sandals that insulate us
from the deep throbbing heart of Mother Earth
and step into your Holy Presence
which is everywhere,
and there,
bow down before
the wonder of it all.
O Adonai!
Send to us the Angel of the Burning Bush!
May he call out to us,
so lost in our own thoughts
and worries
and dreams
that we may
at last
remember
the holiness of the ground
we stand on in every place
and at every time
for our where and when
rests always in
your divine
Now.
O Adonai!
Draw us to yourself, O Holy One!
Lead us on that pilgrim path
from the depths of our selfishness
to the heights of the mountain of compassion
and emptiness.
Bid us enter into the cloud,
that dissembles thought
and pierces the proud heart
so to open the soul to the
truest of loves.
O Adonai!
Let us hear the thunder in the void!
There at the summit and centre of our souls
inscribe your new Law of Love
upon the tablets of our hearts
in letters of divine fire!
O Adonai!
At hour of sunset
and star rise we call to you!
Hear the chant of your Church,
echoing the long and faithful love
of Abraham, and Isaac and their storied
generations.
Listen to these ancient invocations!
Look not on us,
nor on our readiness,
Look instead on she who is,
the Lady of Israel,
the Daughter of Zion,
the Queen of Heaven!
She who is
our burning bush ,
always aflame
but ever unconsumed,
who holds within her
sacred womb the mystery
of the Name made flesh!
Hear us sing her new song of deliverance
Hear the mystery magnified in woman
who in that holiest of births
brings about
our deliverer,
and invites
our exodus
home.
O Adonai!
"Magnificat anima mea Dominum!"
We cry with her,
and in her holy
burning words
we hear the song of her people,
our ancestors of spirit,
echoed anew:
"Ashira L’Adonai ki ga’oh ga’ah!"
And so we sing
with all the generations
this Advent night!
"O Adonai,
and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses
in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us
with an outstretched arm!"

An Icon of the Franciscan Contemplative Journey

I love this image of the Christ of the Cross of San Damiano surrounded by our Capuchin saints and martyrs. It was created to celebrate the recent beatification of the many brothers who were martyred during the Spanish persecution of the Church and the Civil War. Sadly I don't have the name of the artist..but if anyone out there knows then please let me know and I will duly credit them.

It is a profoundly theological image which, though modern, uses medieval imagery to depict our sainted brothers in the act of contemplating the Christ of the Cross of San Damiano. This is the Cross before which St. Francis had the vision of the Crucified who told him to, "Go and Rebuild my Church, which as you see is falling into ruin!", thus beginning the Franciscan Movement. 

Depiction of the moment of the Vision of the Christ of San Damiano

The Cross of San Damiano is unusal as it represents not a a suffering or dying Christ but one who is the Eternal Logos (The Word of God) and the Crucified and Risen Christ in the One Eternal Now as depicted by the Divine Mandorla. (The Full Divine Halo that surrounds Christ and indicates the fullness of His Divinity and the point of contact between the Divine annd Creation.) His place within the Trinity is seen in the trifold knot of His Robe and His vivifying of all creation is seen in the concave abdomen which shows Him breathing life into all creation.

Modern version of the Full San Damiano Crucifix

As for the friars who surround Him they rest within the light of the Mandorla (the Divine Uncreated Light) to show they have completed the Spiritual journey of their vocation to Franciscan brotherhood in the living of the Gospel. The four stars illustrate the four Gospels by which the fullness of the Revelation of the Christ is received and meditated upon by the brothers. A perfect meditation on the Franciscan Contemplative journey in iconographic symbolism!

Relics of some of the Capuchin Saints of the Spanish Persecution