Et incarnatus est

The Word became flesh. I wonder, Is that a reversible process? Once God committed self to humanity so completely, is it possible to become God again?


Christmas season always makes me think thoughts like that. Who created whom? It’s not a startlingly original thought that it was humanity that created God, and not the other way around, but I have to think it’s fairly startling to think that if we created this God, the God who did not deem equality with God something to be clutched, but poured himself out, then we have really reached beyond ourselves as a race. We’re all about accumulating, self-preservation, and survival of the fittest; it’s etched into our DNA. And yet, somehow, we have conjured a God who is precisely the opposite of that: kenotic, self-emptying, so utterly other-oriented that we cannot imagine this God except as a community of love, a Trinity. This, to me, is a strong argument for revelation and the truth at the heart of the Scriptures: the God who is revealed in its pages is different than the one we ought to have made, were we to create one in our own image and likeness.


I don’t have much more to say about this. There is a beautiful prayer from the Roman liturgy that is rarely spoken aloud in the Sunday celebration, usually covered by the assembly’s singing. But at the moment when the priest pours a drop of water into the chalice during the preparation rite, he says the words, “By the mingling of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” Every time we celebrate the mass! What an awesome thought and daring prayer. And yet, it is doxology - it’s the Church’s faith expressed in its most decisive ritual. God, irreversibly poured into humanity, becomes human so that human people might become God. There’s not another explanation for John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.” Eternal life is an attribute of God, not of creation. The Catechism says, undilutedly, in paragraph 460: "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." (St. Irenaeus) "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." (St. Athanasius) "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." (St. Thomas Aquinas).


I guess as long as the “baby Jesus” hoopla of religious Christmas keeps us focused unromantically on the fact that this God became this child who became this man, it’s all to the good. Remembering who Jesus actually became, and what God (of Exodus, creation, and liberation) became human, ought to serve as a corrective to our desire to make the man Jesus back into a God on earth with apocryphal stories of clay birds becoming alive or conquering emperors coming on clouds. Let’s grapple with the reality of the Word taking flesh, becoming one of us. Maybe it takes a God to be willing to set divinity aside, and not lust after its apparent power the way people do. Finally, maybe Christmas ought to  give us the courage to become human. If it’s good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for me.

Still, Still, Still

I made this little montage of images to accompany the new recording of my arrangement and text of the venerable German Christmas song, Still, Still, Still. It is one of six Christmas songs we recorded this year, including a Christmas Gloria based on "Angels We Have Heard on High," a new text and arrangement of "In the Bleak Midwinter," and a set of "Four European Carols for Small Choirs," of which one is this version of "Still, Still, Still." How all this plays out as a published recording will be negotiated over the next couple of months, but the project itself, thirteen songs in all, is finally done, with a working title of, To You Who Bow. More on that as it develops.

For today, though, we have to admit that it has been a tough couple of months for the world, and it's good not to forget that as we celebrate this feast. May the words and sounds of this season not just narcotize us against the pain around us and within us, but give us hope to "stand in the wind and walk in the reign" of God with Jesus. That's my new mantra, borrowed from the writing of the great John Dominic Crossan: "We can't do it without God, and God won't do it without us." Salvation—the health and good life of humanity—is a work of participatory justice.

So I send you love and hope from the three of us, and from Gary Daigle, who produced the recording with patience and skill. Blessings of the season to all, and blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Christmas 2014

Today, we just want to share our video "Christmas Card" with you, and say Thank you for reading this blog through the year, and commenting here, and on Facebook, or wherever. Terry, Desi and I wish you the very best through the holidays and the new year. "God bless us, every one!"

Next time you're online during the holidays, look for a brief music video of one of the songs we've recorded this past fall, "Still, Still, Still," one of four "European Carols for Small Choirs" that I arranged and wrote new texts for. I'll post it here on Christmas Day.

Gratefully,

SongStories 38: Forever I Will Sing (Psalm 89, from Cries of the Spirit, NALR, 1991)

There are some songs that you know aren't great, but you hold onto them anyway because they're good enough, and they come from a place of joy and meaning in your life. "Foreve I Will Sing" is one of those. It was the responsorial psalm this past Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of advent in year B, which made me think I could write one of these little SongStories posts, since I hadn't done one in a while.

It struck me as I was teaching it to the high school age cantor last night that I was not much older than he is when I wrote it. I remember quite well that I wrote it in summer school while I was in the seminary, probably for the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time in Year A, which would mean it was 1972, here in Chicago, at DePaul University. I was 20. The verses for Advent 4 year B were added later. We had mass that summer many times in a common room of the dormitory where we were living, and used the instruments we had available, mostly guitars and small percussion.

"Forever I Will Sing" has a simple chord structure. I wrote it in the key of E, but we generally played it in the key of C, capoing the guitar at the 4th fret. It has the dreaded boy-key tessitura for the cantor, and was published that way, probably not a smart marketing move. In real life these days, we've been singing it in the key of D, even with male cantors. You can hear that my recording of it, made with Tom Kendzia in his Rhode Island studio, sounds anything but relaxed at the beginning of those phrases that start on the high E. What I did for love.


And I really did do it for love: this psalm, with it's barely restrained jubilance, was my theme song for many years, at least in my heart. When my friends and I recorded on an old reel-to-reel tape in the early 70s the songs I'd written (and a few others), we called the recording "Forever I Will Sing," because the words of the refrain really articulate what we all felt about our lives, but especially about the privilege of making music together, especially music for our prayer and the liturgy. We didn't know any better, and it was good that way at the time, expressing ourselves, what we were discovering about prayer, church, and God in new music that suited us and helped us pray, we thought, authentically.

Written for guitar, it still sounds best with that simple accompaniment. The song never had a descant, any harmony parts, or instrumental parts other than the keyboard accompaniment that is de rigueur for publishing. It's just that simple melody over that simple E / F#m7/E / Emaj7 / F#m7/E progression, broken up by the accented 2/4 measure before the transition into the refrain. Maybe it's the "hook"-y hold of "forever" across the bar and chord change before the expanding intervals as we sing "I will sing of the goodness of the Lord" that enamored me of the tune, or maybe I'm just nostalgic for the simplicity and chutzpah of my younger self, just beginning my "Cat Stevens - Neil Young" period. I think, as someone old enough now to be the grandfather of the boy who wrote it, that the music fits the text. It certainly fits the songwriter and his vision of the text, which I hope makes it acceptable to the One from whom all music flows, and to whom its hungry, joyful longing is directed.

Playing it makes me smile; your smileage may vary. ☺

Forever I Will Sing, publisher's page at www.ocp.org.

Fiat (B4A)

There is a pattern to the gospels of the four Advent Sundays that is followed in all three cycles. The first Sunday is generally focused on an apocalyptic proclamation from late in the ministry of Jesus, a way of making clear at the outset of Advent that things aren’t finished yet, in spite of our conviction that somehow Jesus is the once-and-for-all savior, the unique incarnate Son of God. The first Sunday of Advent seems to caution us each year not to think that Christmas is a feast for waiting for the birth of a Messiah who is, in fact, already present. It’s more like a warning not to miss that presence this time around, as the outcome of our heedlessness will be bad news for everyone concerned. This will not be a divine punishment, but the natural consequence of idolatry: wrong god = negative outcome. The second and third Sundays introduce the character of John the Baptizer, who is at the margin of civilization, that energy that is a force for order by means of threat, hire, violence, trickle-down economics and, rarely, altruism. John is the “voice in the wilderness,” telling us to pay attention to what’s happening to us, to turn away from our idols and wash off the old empire in the holy river, and to start acting with justice and integrity.

The fourth Sunday introduces the main characters in the events of the “first” incarnation - notably Mary in years B and C, and Joseph in year A. In this year, year B, we hear the story of the Annunciation in Luke, which we heard two weeks ago on the feast of the Immaculate Conception (footnote: the annunciation, contrary to what was actually preached at an all school mass at St. Anne once upon a time, is not the immaculate conception, which is not a scriptural event. But that’s neither here nor there. The immaculate conception refers to the conception of the Blessed Mother being without original sin; the feast is on December 8, 9 months before her birthday, September 8. The annunciation is about the conception of Jesus; its feast is March 25, nine months before the feast of Christmas. Isn’t it nice how all the math works out?)



Mary’s response to Gabriel in the Vulgate, preserved in Christian prayer in the Angelus, has become a synonym for any top-down decision in business or government. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum: let it be done to me according to your word, has been shortened to “fiat”, let it be done, in our jargon. “Make it so,” as Jean-Luc Picard would say. But this “fiat” is anything but an expression of power and strength in the way we ordinarily think of power and strength. It is an act of surrender. It is an act of divinity, an alignment with the will of an invisible God who is leaping from heaven in order to be one with humanity. It can thus be seen as an act of power, but one has to redefine power as whatever God does, including this kenosis, this love that is so perfect and intense that it pours itself out for the life of the other. 



This is the same covenant love expressed to Moses when God reveals the divine name, represented in the Hebrew Scriptures by the tetragram YHWH and never said aloud. But the rabbis taught that the name might be God’s way of saying “who I am, I am for you,” an expression of the covenant, still revealing its meaning to us after three and half millennia, by which God shows solidarity with us who are not God.

Coming out the mouth of an unmarried young woman in a patriarchal society, in a country that has been at best a vassal state to Egypt, Greece, and Rome for three centuries, and a strategic outpost for every major power in the Middle East for six hundred years before that, Mary’s “fiat” is a word of faith in the exodus that explodes into the Magnificat, in which she celebrates a God who “casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly to high places,” who “fills up the poor with good things, and sends the rich away empty.” It is a word of alignment with the empire that is not like that of this world, but is nevertheless a word of sedition and heresy, rejecting an emperor and a corrupt temple, and already forming the conscience of the man about to take shape in her womb.
 


So it’s little wonder that the first reading recounts the story of the covenant with David, the first great king of Israel, and that the psalm continues that thread. The whole Davidic king thing didn’t work out so well, either for Israel or for God, but it showed both God and Israel what is really important: solidarity, community, hope. The emergence of Jesus amid all that God and Israel learned together from centuries of dominance by Persia, Babylon, Greece, Egypt, the Hasmoneans, and now Rome, becomes the story for the rest of the Bible, and is the story for us. There is a different empire now. Whoever wants to be the king has to serve everyone else. Being God means being the greatest servant of all, the one who is poured out completely. That looks, to us who are enamored of power, our kind of life, and wealth, for all the world like death. But its incarnation, right before our eyes, is a pregnant woman about to undertake an arduous journey that will fill up songbooks as long as people sing. 
Here’s our lineup of music for Advent 4 at St. Anne’s:

Gathering: O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Psalm 89: Forever I Will Sing (Cooney, OCP)

Preparation Rite: Say the Word (Cooney, GIA) or No Wind at the Window
Communion: I Say Yes, My Lord

Closing: Canticle of the Turning

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.


May it be done to me according to your word.”


Gaudete in Tenebris - Advent in 2012

I uncovered a few notes from Gaudete Sunday in 2012. In that year, you may recall, a young man named Adam Lanza shot over two dozen people to death, including twenty children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was a Friday morning. That Sunday would be the third Sunday of Advent, "Rejoice" Sunday. This year, Gaudete Sunday marks the 2nd anniversary of that tragedy.

I'm posting these notes and bringing all this up again because nothing really changes. Life is hard and people are dying senselessly in 2014, and to voters in this country it's almost as though nothing happened. To Christians in this country, it seems to be more guns, and more people having access to guns, that will save us, and not Christ and the Sermon on the Mount instructions to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and the whole trajectory of non-violence that is in the gospels.

But life was hard in biblical times, too. The advent texts in Isaiah and the prophets that we love so much were conceived in times of treacherous leadership in Israel and Judah, in the crucible of siege and war, and in the disconnected horror that was the Babylonian exile. Life was violent and unpredictable then, too, and yet out of those days and times arose these texts we love and pray and sing two and a half millennia later, words about lions and lambs playing together, people beating swords into plow blades, and never again learning the art of killing each other.

Anyway, my pastor asked me, between the morning of the tragedy and Sunday, to write down any thoughts I had to see if any of it would help our homilists that weekend, so I did, and I uncovered those notes. I read them in the context of the violence in Africa, the kidnappings by Boko Naram in Nigeria, the torture report in the Senate, the beheadings of western charity workers, teachers, and journalists by Islamists in and around Syria, and the violence on the streets of the United States visited upon people of color by police agencies, and the resulting explosion of senseless violence, looting, and the destruction of property that has ensued.

I don't want to pretend I know anything more than anyone else, so I'm not going to edit my comments from 2012. I would probably nuance language here and there and it might make me sound more "together" or some other artificial thing, but instead, this is just what I wrote to him. Mostly, it's still what I think, and it seems really just as fitting today as it was in 2012, mutatis mutandis.

Here are a few random thoughts I've had, if any of it helps. I need to start by saying what I'll end by saying - I don't see any meaning in this tragedy. But it's not an isolated event. People aren't helpless against this. We all have choices to make about violence and the way we live. The gospel and liturgy are all about this. We can't have it both ways, though, choosing violence AND "merry Christmas." At least we in the church can't.  

1. Advent - the central question, the heart of advent, it seems to me, is always the unfinished business down here. If Jesus came to bring the reign of God, why isn't it here yet? If God is God, why the inequality and suffering? In all the scriptures today, the world was a mess, especially for the people doing the writing. We need to keep that in mind. It wasn't better for any of them - it was worse. And yet our hope derives from their hope. Look at the words of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" - they express lamentation, exile, disunity, and yet the refrain repeats "rejoice, rejoice" - because hope -meaning- will come. We just can't predict when or how. We can just be faithful. 

2. The Christmas story is the Easter story - the paschal mystery - as prelude to the rest of the gospel. To me, it's dealing with the fundamental choice between the reign of God and the reign of "this world," of emperors and kings and constitutions. This world organizes itself by violence and threats of violence. The reign of God is organized by the Holy Spirit, by addressing needs with gifts, the sharing of life. The gospel never says that Augustus or Tiberias or Pilate or Herod don't have power. It challenges who they say they are - god, son of god, prince of peace, by offering Jesus as a different king not like the kings of this world. In the nativity story, the power of the empire to do violence is seen in the story of the holy innocents, and the power of God to save in the story of the flight into Egypt. Modern people eventually have to choose between the empires, too. For instance, between the power of the constitution to protect them and give them real life, and the power of God to give them real life. It's always about real death and real life. Can we have real life by violence and threats of violence? Or is it only by peace, self-gift, and vulnerability that fullness of life for everyone can be attained? 

3. So the liturgy is already about meaning, death, and resurrection. The eucharist is about solidarity and life-sharing around the table that is a sign of solidarity and life-sharing in the world. It's a sign that people are at least making the effort to turn away from sin (the kingdoms of "this world") and believe in the good news (the reign of God, in this world.) My sense is that, if the liturgy fails to be about this for people and for us, it's because we've trivialized and spiritualized it for so long that it doesn't have the power it should have.  

4. After all is said and done, we're left with this meaningless slaughter and mired in grief and bewilderment on a Sunday called Gaudete. But no believer ever had it easy. Belief for the prophets, apostles, and faithful of Israel and the apostolic community was never a party. It was always about hope in the midst of darkness and the possibility of despair. Zephaniah, Paul, and the Luke community all had to deal with God's absence, persecution, rejection, and danger. But their hope was in either the God of the exodus or the God who raised Jesus from the dead that being a people ultimately was stronger and more meaningful than the persecutor or occupying empire. 

5. I don't think we can make sense of this now. Those murdered children aren't "angels" that God needed (ugh), but we trust that God somehow surrounds them and has a plan for them and for us that he will attain not by revenge and violence but through peace and invitation. The mantra in the gospel today is "what can we do (to prepare for the Messiah)?" The answer is always to act with patience, charity, and God's justice. Be our best selves, look out for the other person. Meaning will start to emerge from the chaos as we do these things. But society/empire will always fight back, as it did against Jesus. We have to be aware of that. That's what "take up your cross" means. 

I will write a better, longer (but not long) concluding prayer for the intercessions. I'm not going to do it now, I want to have the OCF as a resource. I think you should mention the children and teachers who were murdered in the eucharistic prayer when the dead are mentioned. It will also give me the morning to consult with a few colleagues and see if any of them have better insight about this than I do. I hope they do.
I wish I could do better for you and for everyone at St Anne's. I don't think I can serve them better by not telling them the truth. Since I don't know the truth beyond my experience and modest faith, I feel fewer words are better, avoiding platitudes, false comfort, scapegoating, and all the strategies of false religion.

Here's the introduction I wrote to the mass for Gaudete Sunday that year, or to the penitential rite:

How difficult it is today to hear Paul’s words: Rejoice in the Lord, always, I say it again, Rejoice! What joy can come to us on this day, so near the tragedy in Newtown? Yet, rejoice we must, because hope insists on the advent message: the Lord is near. What puts the “good” in “good news” is the presence of God, especially with those most in need of God’s appearance. Let us be grateful for this good news on this “Gaudete” Sunday, and rejoice in the Lord’s mercy, which is ever near.  

Here is a prayer for the end of the intercessions (prayer of the faithful), based on 399:1 and 398:43 in the Order of Christian Funerals.

Father of mercies and God of all consolation,
You dispel the shadow of death with the bright dawn of life.
Comfort your people in our loss and sorrow,
lift us from our grief into the peace and light of your presence.
So many this week were taken quickly and violently from us, young and unguarded,
they are suddenly gone from our sight, and from their homes and families.
Come swiftly to their aid, bring them to you,
and flood their families with comfort and signs of your presence.
By dying, Jesus destroyed our death,
by rising, he restored our life.
Enable us to press on toward the celebration of his birth in joyful hope,
that one day we may gather with all whom you love,
where every tear will be wiped away, and death will be no more.
May your kingdom come.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

I guess there's no end to this post. It's just a question. Where do we get the heart to rejoice in the face of such horror, day in and day out?

The liturgy seems to say, Rejoice because God is doing it. God is making something happen. "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it," says St. Paul. Isaiah rejoices in the mission God gives to bring joy where there is none, because "as the earth brings forth its plants, and a garden makes its growth spring up, so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise spring up before all the nations." It's not us, it's God's work, and we need to figure out a way to get with it. As Dominic Crossan says, and I love to remember this, "We can't do it without God, and God won't do it without us." Salvation, whatever that means, is by participation. That's the meaning of Matthew 25: 31-48 too.

Pete Seeger had a similar insight, and being a performing musician, that was the metaphor he keyed in on: "I've never sung anywhere without giving the people listening to me a chance to join in. As a kid, as a lefty, as a man touring the U.S.A. and the world, as an oldster. I guess it's kind of a religion with me. Participation. That's what's going to save the human race."

Living on the edge (B3A)

Much is made of the role of “the wilderness” in writing about the gospel of Mark, the preaching of John, and the origin of Jesus in Galilee. It’s sort of like the parish where I live ... at the outward western edge of the Archdiocese of Chicago, we’re somewhat sequestered from the politics and watchful eye of the powers that be. We like it that way.  The tendrils of power have influence that is related to distance, and there is benefit and woe to living in the wilderness. But the danger of being in a wilderness region of a wilderness colony is also very real. You might be overlooked on this or that nitpicking piece of legislation, the tax collector might come through less frequently, but also you’re more vulnerable to hostile forces, and your home is likely to be the first battleground if a clash in coming, so that the treasures of the populated city are less likely to be torched. 



Jerusalem was, of course, the center of the Roman occupation force; there were garrisons in the outlying areas as well, particularly near the larger economic centers like Capernaum and Caesarea on the Sea of Galilee. It is in Jerusalem that the foreign occupying power has its center, where the Roman governor resides in his fortress. It is there that the Jewish hierarchy and landed elite live as well, carefully managing their status through compromise and collaboration with Rome. In this relationship of exploitation that is both political and economic, the big losers are the ordinary people, artisans, farmers, fishermen, who make up the people of God. The Pax Romana is not for them, it is for Rome. It will not crush them as long as they cooperate with the regime, pay their taxes, and keep their mouths shut.



For John, though, the axe is already laid to the root of the tree. He sees that Israel, born in the Exodus, was meant for freedom, not for subjugation. His baptism of repentance was a way of allowing people to wash off the fouling influence of emperor worship and be cleansed in the waters of the promised land, God’s land of milk and honey. It is in the wilderness, significantly away from the influence of the city, that he does his ministry. The emissaries of the power elite have to come out to him to find out what he’s up to. He cryptically informs them that he’s just the scout; there is one coming after him who will turn his cleansing bath into a smelter. It’s not clear that even John knows what is coming; later, from prison, he sends emissaries to his cousin Jesus to ask if he’s the one, and Jesus tells them to report back what they’ve seen for themselves. He refers them to healing and restoration, signs of the advent of God’s dominion, the defeat of sin and the clear alternative to the dominion of the murderous Pax Romana. This is not to say that Jesus was an advocate for a violent revolution, but, violent or not, turning away from the emperor would bring upon his followers the wrath of Caesar’s empire in years to come.



John reminds me that it’s my job to live on the edge. Human boundaries of church and state tend to want to tighten because the power of the institution is the sphere of its influence. But the reign of Jesus, the reign of God, is not like the kingdoms of this world. I always have to be on guard against the creeping influence both of nationalistic and ecclesial triumphalism. Ultimately, I don’t belong to the USA nor to Catholic Rome, I belong to Christ. My book is neither the catechism nor the constitution; it is the word of God, and by that, I don’t even necessarily mean Scripture, I mean Christ. What could go wrong?

Obviously, I’m not the sole or best interpreter of what that means. I need to be in dialogue with both the Church and the nation. What I've learned this year, or at least have been able to articulate and start to interiorize better than anything else, are these two things, about which I've written in earlier posts: 1) doing our best is not the same as doing good; and 2) not achieving my ideal is not the same as doing badly. In the first case, we should not excuse violence, war, making money hand-over-fist in the markets as doing good just because we don't see another path that will work. When people are hurt, impoverished, marginalized, and killed because of what we do, it should be a clear indication that we're doing evil, not good, however necessary our deeds might be. Only God is good, and our activity is only good in that it is like God, that is, more concerned with the other than with the self. This should change how we worship, I think, and how we think about repentance. In the latter case, as a Catholic lifer, I need to overcome my need to be right all the time, and stop putting down steps forward that aren't in what I perceive to be the right direction. "Being right" is a communal reality, and rarely what any of us thinks it is. Sometimes communal missteps can lead to major corrections that benefit everyone. I need to pay attention to both of these realities in my life.

But my baptismal ties to Christ are more real and stronger than all the other ties that bind me; in fact, they bind me more closely to both church and state than any creed or pledge of allegiance could, but only insofar as the demands of either do not countermand the command of the gospel to love the other as I love myself. It is a precarious place for a liturgist to live, because the liturgy upholds Christ who is both icon and iconoclast. Christ is a person, not an idea, nor a creed. Whenever Christ begins to look too much like a god, a general, an emperor, a legislator, I find him bending down to wash my feet and the feet of the world. May it be so with me and you, and all who seek him this advent season.



Music for this “Gaudete” Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Gathering: On Jordan’s Bank
Psalm: Canticle of Mary (Magnificat) Luke 2. "Mary's Song," by Michael Joncas, lyrics by Huub Oosterhuis.
Gifts: Come to Us, O Emmanuel (Gift of God) (Haugen) We've used this to gather the first two Sundays of Lent. Doing it during the preparation of the gifts should give us the opportunity to sing all the verses and really sit with it.
Communion: Walk in the Reign (Cooney) If you've sung this song, you know that I tried to write the verses to reflect the language and imagery of each of the four Sundays. We sing it during ordinary time in the summer with "parable" verses to help pull the liturgical year together, and even since it isn't in Gather any longer I use it once or twice during Advent because it continues to be a favorite at our place, and a refrain people can sing without looking at their worship aid, making it a good seasonal communion song.
Recessional: O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I try to save this for the last two Sundays of Advent, simply because the origin of the text is from the vespers Magnificat antiphons for the last seven evenings before Christmas. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the antiphons for those nights are called the “O” antiphons, referring to the names of the Messiah used at the beginning of each one. These are the verses of the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” except that their order has been reversed, the song beginning with Emmanuel, rather than ending, as the antiphons do with “Emmanuel” on December 24. The names are (in Latin, in order from December 24 backwards to the 18th) Emmanuel, Rex Gentium (King of all nations), Oriens (rising sun), Clavis David (key of David), Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse), Adonai (Lord - the word used by Scripture in place of the divine name), Sapientia (Wisdom.) The first letter of each, read backwards from December 24, spells out “ERO CRAS” which means “Tomorrow I will be (there)”. Some medieval monk went to a lot of trouble, wouldn’t you say?

So they said to him,
“Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?


What do you have to say for yourself?”


He said:
“I am the voice of one crying out in the desert,


‘make straight the way of the Lord.’”