Dec 22nd AND Dec 23rd, 2012

Happy 4th Sunday of Advent!!

Such a short 4th week this year...just one day long!

My apologies...A Christmas party and a very busy day caused me to miss posting yesterday's Antiphon! So today you get two. :) Praise the Lord!

Dec 22 - O King of the gentiles and their desired One, the cornerstone that makes both one: come, and deliver man, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth. (No reflection today, but you can find the chant music/Latin HERE!)

Dec 23 - O Emmanuel, God with us, our King and lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: come to save us, O Lord our God. (No reflection today, but you can find the chant music/Latin HERE!)

A few things going on in yesterday's antiphon...O King of the gentiles....Jesus was is typically called the King of the Jews, as He is the King, Lord/Messiah they have been waiting for. Here we see Him referred to as the King of the gentiles, no non-Jews, as well! He is the cornerstone, or foundation of all the nations on Earth, and indeed, everyone's savior.  We cry to Him, who formed us all in the first place, to come and save us from this mess of sin and darkness that we have gotten ourselves into.

For today's, the last of the O Antiphons...O Emmanuel.  Emmanuel means "God with us", so the first part is simply a repeating of the phrase. Jesus, our King and lawgiver...He came to save ALL the nations! We know we need help from sin and death, although many might not know that what, or who, they are hoping for is actually Jesus. The Savior. He comes to save us...Rejoice! :)

The O Antiphons, while great prayers to meditate on before Christmas, also contain a hidden message! The picture above contains the 7 names of Christ found in the antiphons, in the original Latin, the official language of the Catholic Church. In order, they are Sapientia (Wisdom), Adonai (Lord), Radix (Root), Clavis (Key), Oriens (Dawn), Rex (King), and Emmanuel (Emmanuel).  If you take the first letters of each of those names, and work back words, you get EROCRAS, or "ero cras,"... which is a Latin phrase meaning "I will be (there) tomorrow."  And tomorrow...Christmas Eve night, is when we celebrate the Birth of Christ...Beautiful!

I love being Catholic. :)

Be Catholic.
Be Holy!