A Seven Week Advent? Yes! There was a time when liturgical churches used seven weeks of preparation for Christmas to match the seven weeks in Lent leading to Easter.
This tradition remained in the Orthodox churches–Russian, Greek, etc.
Nest Sunday, November 11, is the first day of this year’s Seven Week Advent and begins with this collect:
Eternal God, your Word of wisdom goes forth and does not return empty: Grant us such knowledge and love of you that we may perceive your presence in all creation and every creature; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and forever. Amen.
Frank and I created a booklet for a nightly service for a Seven Week Advent, which can be found here if you are interested: Seven Week Advent
It is Advent, and the time when we sing one of my favorite hymns as Christmas approaches. But O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is not just one of my favorite Christmas hymns (O Holy Night and What Child Is This? are high on the list as well), but it is also the song from which I picked the titles of the three books in the Hallowed Treasures Saga.
Here is a video my husband, Frank, made of O Come, O Come Emanuel:
The song came first. The first two books had several working titles before I decided on The Path to Misery for the first book in the trilogy. But the song appeared early in the first book when the Princess Eluned, Jabberwock, and Bonpo finally make it through the snowstorm in the Mountains of Misericord, and Eluned sings: O come, Thou Key of David, come and open wide our heav’nly home; make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.
Once I decided on The Path to Misery for the first book, it made it easy to incorporate lyrics from other verses into the next two books and to choose In Lonely Exile and Death’s Dark Shadows at their titles.
The hymn is a translation of a Latin hymn, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which is a metrical paraphrase of the O Antiphons, a series of plainchant antiphons attached to the Magnificat at Vespers over the final days before Christmas. The 1861 translation, which I used to choose the titles, is from Hymns Ancient and Modern, and is the most used, by far, in the English-speaking world. Because the original song is in Latin, though, you will find many versions with different lyrics by artists who wished to copyright their version.
Each antiphon is a name of Christ, relating one of his attributes mentioned in Scripture. They are:
December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
December 18: O Adonai (O Lord)
December 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
December 21: O Oriens (O Dayspring)
December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations)
December 23: O Emmanuel (O With Us is God)
According to Fr. William P. Saunders, “The exact origin of the O Antiphons is not known. Boethius (480–524) made a slight reference to them, thereby suggesting their presence at that time [the sixth century]. At the [Benedictine Abbey of Fleury] these antiphons were recited by the abbot and other abbey leaders in descending rank, and then a gift was given to each member of the community. By the eighth century, they are in use in the liturgical celebrations in Rome. The usage of the O Antiphons was so prevalent in monasteries that the phrases, Keep your O and The Great O Antiphons were common parlance. One may thereby conclude that in some fashion the O Antiphons have been part of our liturgical tradition since the very early Church.”
While the hymn is often linked with the 12th century, the earliest surviving evidence of the hymn’s text is in the seventh edition of Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, which was published in Cologne in 1710. The familiar tune called Veni Emmanuel was first linked to this hymn in 1851, when it appeared in the Hymnal Noted, paired with an early revision of the English translation of the text. In 1966, British musicologist Mary Berry (also an Augustinian canoness and noted choral conductor) discovered a 15th-century French manuscript containing the melody. Most versions are sung to this tune today.
Here is the version from:
Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861)
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou 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.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heav’nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Adonai, Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son
to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be
born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being regenerate,
and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily
be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our
Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee
and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Prior to the beginning of the new year, I received two emails—one from Simran Singh suggesting I pick a word or words to live into in the coming year, and one from Lissa Rankin suggesting I pick a word or theme for the year—and to do this as opposed to making resolutions.
Had I received only one email, I might not have given it a second thought. But when the universe speaks in stereo, I take it seriously. So, while I was musing on this, and wondering what word or words or theme I might choose, the new year arrived.
And on New Year’s Day, I received this from Rob Breszny’s Free Will horoscope: “I think we humans need some new emotions. It’s true that old standards like sadness, anger, jealousy, and fear are as popular as ever. But I would personally love to be able to choose from a greater variety, especially if at least 51 percent of the new crop of emotions were positive or inspiring. Now it so happens that in 2014 you Pisceans will be primed to be pioneers. Your emotional intelligence should be operating at peak levels. Your imagination will be even more fertile than usual. So how about it? Are you ready to generate revolutionary innovations in the art of feeling unique and interesting feelings? To get started, consider these: 1. amused reverence; 2. poignant excitement; 3. tricky sincerity; 4. boisterous empathy.”
That’s it, I thought. Amused reverence. I had no doubt I could work on feeling that particular emotion as I already feel that God has an awe-some sense of humor. I’ve said or thought “very funny, God” countless times in my life like the time I was angry with Him and was seriously considering taking a break from Morning Prayer and church, etc., and found myself being called off the bench, or in this case, pew, to read for a lay reader who hadn’t shown up for church that day. Very funny, God. I was not even a lay reader in that church. Or, the time I found a penny (pennies from heaven. I find a lot of them—293 this past year.), and was musing on the saying “I don’t even have two pennies to rub together” and one step later there was a penny at my feet. Very funny, God. Because, as long as you have two pennies to rub together, everything will turn out just fine, right?
Then, as I was about to pack away my grandmother’s Hummel Nativity set this morning (the 12 days of Christmas end tomorrow), I realized that I already have amused reverence down pat. After all, it was with amused reverence that I placed the miniature dinosaur (though I no longer remember where he came from) at the nativity scene to begin with. And that’s because, if there had been dinosaurs around at the birth of Christ, they would have made the trek to the manger. At least, I think they would have.
So. Poignant excitement. That is an emotion that definitely bears looking into. And boisterous empathy. That intrigues me as well. Tricky sincerity, though, I’m not so sure about.
O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
You can also find more resources here: The Advent Project
