Advent Ember Days

   While the traditional reckoning of the Advent Ember Days is in the Third Week of Advent (nearest St. Lucy’s day), the Ordinariate was given permission to shift them to the First Week of Advent. This was done to safeguard the full observation of the O Antiphons (Sapientiatide), from 17-24 December (this week) in the Ordinariate calendar.                                        
    Sapientiatide, is so named after the first of the seven traditional O Antiphons -  O Sapientia -  which are part of Vespers, in the Roman Divine Office. To these seven, the Sarum tradition adds O Virgo virginum on Christmas Eve, forming an octave of preparation leading to Christmas day. The O Antiphons are, perhaps, most widely known from the verses of O Come. O Come, Emmanuel; however, they have been the inspiration for many pieces of Advent poetry and prose over the centuries.                                                                     
     These anthems were appropriately assigned to the Vesper Hour because the Savior came in the evening hour of the world and that they were attached to the Magnificat to honor her through whom He came. Each Antiphon addresses Jesus with a messianic title derived from the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah, and whose initial letters, when read backwards (i.e. - from the perspective of Christmas Day), form a Latin acrostic “Ero cras” which means “Tomorrow I will be.” After the Scriptural invocation, we beseech the Lord to come and free us from sin, death, and darkness. As one commentator put it: As we take the words and images of the prophets in our mouths, we join their cry for the coming of the babe of Bethlehem.

     Together with Guadete Sunday, Sapientiatide marks a shift in the Advent season, (which I mentioned in last week’s letter). We continue to prepare ourselves for the second coming of Christ, when he will come to judge the quick and the dead, and the world by fire: yet, even as our preparations intensify in this second half of Advent (and even as our earthly preparations for the holidays ahead intensify into a frenzy!) Holy Mother Church, in the prayers and biblical readings of Sapientiatide, reinvigorates her children and renews our zeal as she reminds us of the hope, the mercy, and the promise that accompanied Our Lord’s first coming at Midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. The Great Advent antiphons or Great Os, sung at Vespers on the last seven days of Advent (O Wisdom on December 17, O Lord on December 18, O Root of Jesse on December 19, O key of David on December 20, O Dayspring on December 21, O King of the Nations on December 22, and O With Us is God on December 23)

    Families can make up their own ceremonies using the O Antiphons and Scripture by singing or listening to “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”, or creating a variation of the Advent calendar. To pray the O Antiphons as they are prayed in the Divine Office, begin with the Antiphon, then pray the Magnificat, then repeat the Antiphon.
 
   A good reflection and explanation of the history of the O Antiphons can be found here: 
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/12/reading-o-antiphons-forward.html 
                                         
Faithfully, Your Friend and Pastor,
Fr. Christopher C. Stainbrook, KHS