It was the usual for Goadate Sunday at SP. I dusted off all the pink jokes and got some chuckles here and there. I guess they’ve heard them. But I had a chance to check out the confessionals.
After the last few days of digs from everyone about getting the old cathedral boxes cleaned on Friday I blew up at Fr. Tommy. “If it’s so damn important to you, then you get it done!” I shoulda just kept my mouth shut. What does Tommy do but smile and say “If you say so, bishop” and slowly strolled away. Next thing I know, I’m getting a call from McSwiney who says that about a dozen of the young priests were swarming all over the confessionals and with the help of a couple dozen laymen including carpenters and an electritian and women with their stuff and seminarians and the maintinance guys they had taken out old decorations and lost and found stuff that had been in there for only God know how long cleaning stuff the ushers things and the … and the … and the. They had tools and varnishes and lightbulbs and fixtures and polishing goop. It was all nearly over before McS even knew what was going on. All four of them done! He’s furious. He went after Tommy something fierce but – I would have paid money to see this – Tommy dished it back with all the other priests standing by him, glaring. Tommy handed McS his name plate to slide into the slot on the door!!! I’ll bet he turned purple!! McS said Tommy said, “It’s what the bishop ordered. And he wants them used.” I listened to the phone for a while and just told him to make it work. But if he didn’t use them, a lot of people were going to be asking why he fixed them up. At SP this morning there were stacks of people telling McS and me they were so happy to see the confessionals all spiffed up.
After the 10am Tommy and Fr Bill got into the boxes and turned on the lights and right away lines formed. I don’t get it. They make it look so easy. The ushers. I thought they were going to have a fit, but they were elated. They said they had plenty of room in another place and it was worth it etc.
The confessionals really take me back. Gotta hand it to Tommy. Well played. Of course I’m going to catch hell from a few of guys on the priests council and a bunch of the pastors. I can hear it now. “Now people are going to want the same thing.” They’re not going to be happy.
Please remember me when CHRISTMAS shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE These links take you to a generic “catholic” search in Amazon. Amazon remembers that you used my link and I get the credit. WHY? This helps to pay for insurance (massively hiked for next year), utilities, groceries, all the necessities. You get the items you need and, at no extra cost to you, you provide important help for which I am grateful.
From the marvelous presepio at Ss Trinità dei Pelegrini.
WELCOME REGISTRANT:
DPH-Nantes
Meanwhile,… white to move. There’s a mate here if you can find it, a couple ways.
1. Bf4 Rb7 2. Nd4 c6 3. Nxc6 Nd7 4. Bf7#
Use FATHERZ10 at checkout
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Great Christmas present ideas at Chess House! Every home needs a chess set. Every kid needs a chance to learn. It’s a lifelong gift.
The monks of Le Barroux are trying to get a new tractor for their vineyard and they need to sell wine. Since you need wine for yourselves or a gifts to others…. see how well this works out?
In Chessy News, the slate for the Candidates has been announced by FIDE but there are machinations and shenanigans afoot to try to hustle up some ELO (rating points) for a couple players who are not too far behind Wesley So. A tournament was cobbled up in India for Erigaisi and Gukesh. In France the Chess Club of Chartres… yes, Chartres… C’Chartres Echecs – will magically have a tournament so that local boy and club member Alireza Firouzja (2750) can play classical matches against a 2546, a 2506, and a 2439 to farm up some additional ELO points. On Monday, Firouzja won the first game of his match against the 2439 and with a current live-rating of 2751.8 he is now only 5.6 rating points behind Wesley So (live-rating 2757.4). I’m reminded of what happened before the last Candidates in Madrid when Ding Liren played an insane number of games quickly and all inside Chinese against Chinese players to punch up his ELO and get him a spot. This is one reason why FIDE said that a certain number of matches have to be played outside one’s country (or at least I think that’s what the byzantine-crazy qualification rubrics say). I wonder if anyone really understands what is going on and how this all works. That notwithstanding, something is mighty dodgy. Last minute tournaments popping up like mushrooms on grandmaster’s lawns for the sake of garnering a few points and the chance to bump Wesley off the roster.
MEANWHILE…
After growing up in Minnesota and serving in Wisconsin…. A little up north humor donchya know.
Here is the O Antiphon for 19 December: O Radix Jesse
Again Our Lord is presented as the Liberator.
LATIN: O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.
ENGLISH: O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not.
Scripture References:
Isaiah 11:10
Romans 15:12
Revelation 5:5
Relevant verse of Veni, Veni Emmanuel:
O come, O Rod of Jesse free,
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.
What urgency there is in this antiphon.
Our Lewis & Short says that radix is “a root, ground, basis, foundation, origin, source”.
Ironically, roots are underground and invisible, but standards, ensigns are raised high in the air.
Something that lies below the earth (a root) stands high into the heavens like a banner!
Vexilia Regis Prodeunt we sing in Lent. The little root of Advent becomes by Lent grows into the Tree of our salvation.
The one from above takes our mortal clay into an indestructible bond. He raises us to the heavens.
Isaiah 11:10 gives us imagery for our reflection today.
The great prophet of Advent tells us that the kingdom of David would be destroyed, but not entirely destroyed. A root would remain. Jesse is David’s father. David is Jesse’s root. David leads to Christ. Christ is the David King Messiah Priest.
After the destruction there remains a root.
No matter what the exigencies of life present to us or how turbulent the vicissitudes of the passing world may be, when we cling to the root we are sure to be victorious in the end. The root bears up on high to the heavens.
Per aspera ad astra. Succisa virescit.
Life includes patterns of destruction and rebuilding, pruning and regrowth, transplantation and rerooting. So long as we are grafted into the Root, we survive and grow.
Exitus. Conversio. Reditus.
Let’s hear the wonderful community at Le Barroux sing this antiphon with the Magnificat.
Please remember me when CHRISTMAS shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE These links take you to a generic “catholic” search in Amazon. Amazon remembers that you used my link and I get the credit. WHY? This helps to pay for insurance (massively hiked for next year), utilities, groceries, all the necessities. You get the items you need and, at no extra cost to you, you provide important help for which I am grateful.
I think you know me well enough to know what I think about this new document which deals with blessings for those engaged in a sin that “cries to Heaven” (cf. Jude 1:7).
More than ever there is greater need and urgency that we make sure our own “houses are in order”. If you don’t already,…
start making thorough and honest examinations of conscience.
Start making reparation for wrongs and sins.
Undertake sincerely to forgive those who have harmed you.
Do penances.
Seek to purify memories.
Perform corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
Dedicate some time each day to prayer, especially the Rosary.
Attend to the duties of your state in life.
Read Scripture and review your catechism.
Pray for priests and bishops.
Go to confession regularly.
Receive Communion only in the state of grace.
If it takes 5000 words to say:
Blessings can be given to individuals who ask for them with apparent sincerity and right intention.
Blessings cannot be given to couples/”unions” that are not a sacramentally married husband/wife.
The document allows – perhaps encourages – priests to bless a homosexual union saying that they are not treating it like a marriage even though in the eyes of the world they are doing exactly that.
Start the countdown to a case brought against a priest (maybe even within the Church!) because a “couple” was denied a blessing.
A lot of people are pretty upset, and rightly so. However, please be considerate when posting in my combox. To those who do not at all like me, your comments can be weaponized against me. So, please think before posting and leave the rage and name calling out of it.
Today is 18 December, the Feast of the Old Testament Prophet St. Malachi.
Since the beginning of December, Holy Mother Church has been imitating the Lord on the Road to Emmaus.
She has been reminding us of all the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah who would also be incarnate God.
She has done this subtly, through feast days, but feasts that are not generally visible to most of us. Holy Mother Church has used her “album of the saints”, the Roman Martyrology, to teach about the Old Testament Prophets.
Sometimes you hear people – even priests, for shame – use the word “liturgy” when they mean “Mass”. “In today’s ‘liturgy’…”, they say.
No. The Mass is the greatest expression of the Church’s liturgy, but it is not all there is. There are also the canonical hours of the divine Office. The Office also makes use of the liturgical book called the Roman Martyrology.
Paging through the 2005 Martyrology, we find that many Old Testament figures are counted as saints.
If the general calendar of the Church permits, it would even be possible to celebrate them for Mass!
Today, for example, St. Malachi who pointed to the forerunner of Christ, St. John the Baptist who heralded the coming of the Lord. Christ quotes Malachi on this in Matthew 11.
In a few days we have the Winter Solstice and the Feast of St. Micah. Micah said (5:2)
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
About those Old Testament prophets…
Keep in mind that in earlier days, Advent was longer than it is now, from Martinmas. Prophets start popping up in the calendar in the 2005 Martyrology.
19 Nov – Abdia or Obediah. (RomMart 2005, p. 632)
1 Dec – Nahum (p. 652)
2 Dec – Habakkuk (p. 654)
3 Dec – Sophonius or Zephaniah (p. 655)
16 Dec – Haggai (p. 674) and some sources David (others have David on 29 Dec)
18 Dec – Malachi (p. 677)
21 Dec – Micah (p. 680)
24 Dec – “Commemoratio omnium sanctorum avorum Iesu Christi, filii, David, filii Abraham, filii Adam…” (p. 684) Commemoration of all the holy “ancestors” (lit. grandfathers) of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, son of Adam
Just a little public service announcement.
FYI… other prophets
1 May – Jeremiah (p. 263)
9 May – Isaiah (p. 277)
15 June – Amos (p. 338)
20 July – Elijah (p. 401)
21 July – Daniel (1878 MartRom)
23 July – Ezekiel (p. 408)
4 Sept – Moses (1878 MartRom)
6 Sept – Zachariah (1878 MartRom)
21 Sept – Jonah (p. 528)
17 Oct – Hosea (p. 575)
19 Oct – Joel (p. 579)
Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of obligation?
Share the good stuff. Quite a few people are forced to sit through really bad preaching. Even though you can usually find – if you are willing to try – at least one good point in a really bad sermon, that can be a trial. So… SHARE THE GOOD STUFF which you were fortunate enough to receive!
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news? We really need good news.
We have deep holes in which darknesses are harbored, memories which need purification and healing. We have artificial constructs of pride about ourselves, which might manifest in presumption, haughtiness, or false humility. Christ is going to raise those holes and press down those mountains whether we have tried in advance to do so. He offers us the help of actual graces and the sacraments and the examples of saints in the Church. But it is going to happen. One day.
Here’s a poll. Anyone can vote. Only registered and approved participants can comment, and I hope you do. The SHADE of rose would be interesting to know.
LATIN:O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
ENGLISH:O Lord and Ruler the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come, and redeem us with outstretched arms.
Scripture References: Exodus 3
Micah 5:2
Matthew 2:6
Relevant verse of Veni, Veni Emmanuel:
O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty, and awe.
“Adonai” is “LORD.” It was the Hebrew word that the Jews used when they found the four-lettered word for God’s name which they held to be too sacred to pronounce aloud. The four letter word for God’s Name, the Tetragrammaton, is still venerated by us to the point that Holy Church asks us not to use it in liturgical song.
Christ is Lord, Lord of Creation. We sang this yesterday in the antiphon “O Sapientia“. Christ is also Lord of the Covenant with the People He chose.
The Lord made covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Moses. He guided them and all the People. He gave them Law. He protected and feed them. The Lord delivered them from bondage to Pharaoh and unending slavery. He went before them with arm outstretched.
This was all a pre-figuring of the great work of redemption that Christ would work on the Cross. He redeemed us His People from Satan and the eternal damnation of hell.
He once appeared clothed in the burning bush that was not consumed by fire.
He is about to appear again clothed in flesh in our liturgical celebration of Christmas.
He will appear again one day in the future to judge the living and the dead.
He appears to us each day in the person of our neighbor.
What amazing contrasts we find in our Lord! He came in thunder and lightening to give the Law on Mt. Sinai. He comes now in swaddling clothes. He will come again in glory. He comes humbly in the appearance of Bread and Wine.
He still goes before us with outstretched arm and our foes are put to flight at the sight of His banner!
Shall we hear the Benedictines of Le Barroux sing the O Antiphon and Magnificat?
On December 17th we enter into that final stretch of our Advent preparation. In the Church’s solemn prayer of the hours, at Vespers, the great “O Antiphons” are sung. Today we have the first.
Years ago, I made a little webpage for the O Antiphons. It might be useful.
By way of introduction, here are a few points every Catholic should know.
First, the song Veni, veni Emmanuel is a musical presentation of the themes of the O Antiphons.
Second, the first letters of the “addressee” of the Antiphon, arranged backward spell out “Ero cras… I will be (there) tomorrow”. So, there is a clever “count-down” in the antiphons.
Third, each of the “O Antiphons” carries Old Testament biblical figures. At the same time each one carries an element of the New Covenant. These two characteristics are juxtaposed and a third dimension emerges which serves as a point of meditation when considering the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made flesh.
Today’s O Antiphon is O Sapientia.
LATIN: O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.
ENGLISH: O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.
Scripture References:
Proverbs 1:20; 8; 9
I Corinthians 1:30
Relevant verse of Veni, Veni Emmanuel: O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who orders all things mightily,
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
In today’s “O Antiphon” – “O Sapientia” – we are drawn into the Old Testament’s wisdom literature. Wisdom is a divine attribute. The divine Wisdom is personified. Wisdom is the beloved daughter who was before Creation, Wisdom is the breath of God’s power, Wisdom is the shining of God’s (transforming) glory. (See Sirach 24:3 and Wisdom 8:1.)
Wisdom is also something which we deeply desire. It is also a human attribute, not just a divine attribute, though authentic human wisdom is never separated from a relationship with God. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as we learn from the psalms as well as the school of personal hard-knocks. From this convergence of awesome respect for God with the experience of learning through life’s mysterious calendar, we understand (if we are wise) that wisdom is more than mere knowledge. It is something more than love. It is something more than just a special astuteness regarding how to get along in life, a certain kind of savior faire. Rooted as it is in fear of the Lord, true human wisdom is both love and that knowledge of God that seeks to understand, the knowledge that is completed by faith.
The Prologue of John’s Gospel refers to the “Verbum caro factum...the Word made flesh”. He is the divine Logos… the eternal thought/word/reason. Through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing can be. So, the New Testament image in the Prologue of John brings to completion the imagery of Wisdom. He, the Word, is the archetype of the material universe. All things are ordered in and to Him.
Our lives, to be happy, need order. Our individual private lives and our collective lives in larger society must have structure and order. They must be disposed in such a way that the real and genuine good of all is fostered and promoted. Thus, in human governance we struggle to find the proper balance of exercise of power (without which governance and order is not possible) and gentle concern for the individual and community (without which there is mere imposition and tyranny and exploitation for some end material or ideological). Wisdom permits the balance of these.
This first “O Antiphon” shows us the Creator of all that is invisible and visible, the whole of spiritual and material creation. Creation is moving according to an eternally disposed plan of divine Providence toward an inexorable end: that God may be all in all. In this end the blessed elect will participate. We have had the way opened for us toward this end by the Word (divine) made flesh (human). Our humanity now sits in transformed glory at the right hand of the Father in an indestructible bond with the Son’s divinity. The risen Christ is the new Adam…the new Creation. With unspeakable sweetness He orders our salvation. With irresistible power all things exist and move according to His will. Our lives have meaning only in Him, according to His guidance, who handles us “suaviter et fortiter“.
Our Old Testament and New Testament figures and images merge into a new point of reflection for our lives which today’s “O Antiphon” underscores as “prudence” – “Come…Teach us the way of prudence!”
“Prudence” comes from the Latin “to see/look ahead”. It is one of the four “cardinal” virtues, the one upon which the other virtues depend. Prudence is a habit of the intellect that allows us to see in any circumstance what is virtuous and what is not. Prudence helps us to seek what is virtuous and avoid what is not. Prudence perfects the intellect (rather than the will) in practical decisions. It determines which course of action must be taken. It indicates what the golden mean is hic et nunc…here and now. This mean is at the core of every virtue. Without the virtue of prudence courage becomes foolhardiness… rushing in to the wrong danger in the wrong way at the wrong time. Without the governing of prudence mercy devolves into slackness and enervated weakness, spinelessness.
But this is still a kind of prudence which is merely human prudence, not looking beyond the issues of daily life. We must also look beyond this vale of tears. In addition to the prudence which grows out of the school of hard-knocks and which becomes a sound and good habit through repeated acts, there is another prudence, an “infused” prudence. This kind of prudence is a grace given us by God out of His merciful love. This greater prudence, which governs other grace-filled virtues, cannot be separated from the life of grace. It is exercised in the state of grace. Mortal sin is its enemy. This higher kind of prudence helps us to determine the proper things that help us to salvation. It helps us to avoid things that slam the door that Christ opened (mortal sin). Thus, prudence cannot be separated from charity, which is in the soul as a characteristic of sanctifying (habitual) grace.
Today in the opening “O Antiphon” we sing to Emmanuel who is coming. We plead with Him, for He orders all things “sweetly and strongly.” He teaches us how to avoid things that harm us, both in material concerns and in our pursuit of the happiness of heaven. He teaches us true prudence.
Take stock: is there something going on in my life that needs to be examined in prudence? Am I doing something which is going to be an obstacle to the happiness of heaven? Christ is coming, both at Christmas as the infant King and the end of the world as the Judge and King of fearful majesty. This is a cause to rejoice. But it is also cause to prepare prudently and well the way of the Lord and make straight His paths before He comes, as we heard about on “Gaudete” (“Rejoice!) Sunday of Advent.
Listen to the monks at Le Barroux sing this antiphon and the Magnificat with which it is inextricably bound:
Please remember me when CHRISTMAS shopping online. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE These links take you to a generic “catholic” search in Amazon. Amazon remembers that you used my link and I get the credit. WHY? This helps to pay for insurance (massively hiked for next year), utilities, groceries, all the necessities. You get the items you need and, at no extra cost to you, you provide important help for which I am grateful.
Another shot from the beautiful presepio at Ss. Trinità.
Spectacular.
Speaking of spectacular, yesterday Magnus defeated my guy Wesley So to take 1st in the tournament in Toronto. Oh well. However, there was a game that blew my socks off. Wesley got into real trouble. Then he unleashed his inner Kraken at the end and took down an angry and frustrated Magnus. The short video starts a little slow, but – wow – does it pick up, players blitzing their moves at the end with scant seconds on their clocks.
Meanwhile, I had a complaint from a couple readers that I wasn’t posting about food. There’s a good reason for that: I haven’t had anything interesting for a long time. Lot’s of soup. I haven’t been very ambitious. However, the other day I got a grocery store rotisserie chicken – several meals from one of those and then soup – and decided to have stove-top dressing/stuffing with it. I wound up with left over dressing. Yesterday evening I had a craving for a cheeseburger, but I had no bread or buns and I didn’t want to go out to get anything. Adapt – Improvise – Overcome. I used the left-over stuffing as the basis of a “patty melt”.
Really good pickles from a company in Brooklyn, Grillo, not to be confused with the malevolent liturgist.
Building it up with Pommery mustard (which I’ve put back on my wishlist).
And voilà the final product. Munster. Cherry tomatoes. Pepperjack or Havarti dill could have been good with this. I used what I had.
Savory and satisfying.
Let’s have a poll… anyone can vote, but only registered and approved participants can comment.
Meanwhile, white to play and gain material and winning position.
1. Nd4 Nxb3+ 2. Qxb3 Rxb3 3. Bxe7 NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Please remember me when shopping online. Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Thanks in advance.
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
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Your support is important. Thanks in advance.
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GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
Good coffee and tea. Help monks.
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
Don’t rely on popes, bishops and priests.
“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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As for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
Here is the O Antiphon for 19 December: O Radix Jesse
Since the beginning of December, Holy Mother Church has been imitating the Lord on the Road to Emmaus.
The O Antiphons: 18 December – O Adonai
On December 17th we enter into that final stretch of our Advent preparation. In the Church’s solemn prayer of the hours, at Vespers, the great “O Antiphons” are sung. Today we have the first.
