Day 3 of the Novena of Aguinaldos...
O Adonai, and the beginning of Advent Embertide
Today is the traditional Ember Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Advent Embertide. The Ember days represent an ancient and cherished tradition of the Roman Church. Four times a year, at the change of seasons, three days of the week, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, were devoted to prayer and fasting to call down God's blessing on the new season and on the ordinations which took place during the vigil held on the Saturday-Sunday night…
Advent, which is of more recent institution in the development of the Liturgical Year, has endowed the December Ember days with their special character of expectation and preparation for Christmas, thus reducing the idea of fasting and penance to a secondary position.
Advent Embertide marked four different themes:
Thanksgiving for the Harvest: Traditionally the Advent Ember Days marked thanksgiving for the olive harvest. Olive oil is used for the Holy Oils in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Anointing of the Sick, and also for special consecrations and blessings, such as for a new church or altar stone. The thanksgiving emphasis was expressed on Ember Wednesday, with offering of first fruits and distribution of blessed food baskets for the needy.
Days of Spiritual Renewal: Holy Mother Church provides us so many opportunities to redirect, refresh and renew. Our human frailty needs reminders to resolve to start anew. These three days are opportunities to add extra prayer and penance for ourselves and others.
Praying for Priests: For centuries this Ember Saturday was the only day in the Church's year for conferring the sacrament of Holy Orders. The Church no longer regularly ordains priests during the times of the Quarterly Ember Days, but this is a special time, particularly Ember Saturday, to pray for priests, particularly the ones who are about to be ordained within the year.
Reflecting the Spirit of the Season: Each set of Ember Days reflect the season of the Liturgical Year in which they occur. The Advent Ember Days fall near the end of Advent, and the traditional liturgy summarizes the weeks of longing for the Messiah. The Masses include the Messianic prophecies regarding Christ’s Birth and Epiphany in order to prepare for Christmas. The 1962 liturgy had Ember Wednesday’s Gospel focused on the Incarnation, Ember Friday presented St. Elizabeth and the Visitation of Mary, and Ember Saturday featured St. John the Baptist.
Of particular note is the ancient liturgy of Missa Aurea or “Golden Mass” on Ember Wednesday. On this day the Church celebrated the “golden mystery” of our Faith, the moment the Word became flesh, the Incarnation of Christ in Mary’s womb. In the current Roman Missal, the Golden Mass is not lost but celebrated in the liturgy on December 20, the O Antiphon day “O Key of David.”
The Stational churches were part of the Ember Days, with Ember Wednesdays always being with Mary, Station with Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major).
—adapted from Saint Andrew Daily Missal, Pius Parsch, OSB, The Church's Year of Grace and Benedict Baur, The Light of the World1
We continue with the Novena of Aguinaldos (aguinaldos means "bonuses" or "benefits").
The Novena of Aguinaldos
Make the sign of the Cross.
Prayer for Every Day
O Most Gracious God of infinite love, You loved humankind so much, You gave us in Your Son the best pledge of Your love, so that Jesus, made human in the womb of a Virgin and born in a manger, would be our health and remedy. I, on behalf of all humanity, give You infinite thanks for such a sovereign benefit. In return for this great gift, I offer You the poverty, simplicity, humility and other virtues of Your Incarnate Son. I implore You by His divine merits, the discomforts He suffered when He was born, and sweet tears He shed in the manger, that You prepare our hearts with profound humility, a burning love and with total disdain of all that is material and earthly, so that the newborn Jesus will find in our hearts His crib and abode forever. Amen.
Pray three Glory Bes
Daily Consideration
Day 3: December 18
Thus began the Incarnate life of the Child Jesus. Let us consider the glorious soul and the Holy Body he had taken, adoring them profoundly. Admiring in the first place the soul of the Divine Child, let us consider in it the plenitude of His Omniscience, by which from the first moment of His life He saw the Divine Essence more clearly than all of the angels and read the past and the future with all His mysteries and knowledge. From the soul of the Child Jesus let us now turn to His body, which was a world of wonders, a masterpiece of God's hand. He desired that it be small and weak like that of all children, and subject to all the hardships of infancy to resemble us more and to partake in our humiliations. The beauty of that body of the Divine Child was superior to anything imagined ever before, and the Divine Blood that began to flow through His veins from the moment of his Incarnation, is the same blood that washed away all stains of the guilty world. Let us ask Him to wash our stains in the Sacrament of Penance, so that the joyous day of Christmas finds us purified, forgiven and prepared to receive Him with love and spiritual advancement
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin
O Heavenly Queen, by your great virtues and especially for your humility, you merited God’s favor to choose you for His mother. I beg you to prepare my soul and the souls of all those who at this time are praying this Novena for the spiritual birth of your beloved Son. Oh, sweet Mother! Instill in me something of that profound contemplation and great tenderness you felt while you awaited His coming, so that you make us less unworthy to see Him, love Him, and adore Him for all eternity. Amen.
Pray three Hail Marys
Prayer to Saint Joseph
O great St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus! I give infinite thanks to God for having chosen you for such a great ministry and for having bestowed upon you all the gifts proportionate to such greatness. I beseech you, for the love you had for the Divine Child, that you embrace my earnest desires to see Him and receive Him sacramentally, while we wait to see Him and enjoy Him in His Divine Essence in heaven. Amen.
Pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory Be
The Memorare to the Child Jesus
Remember, O Sweet Holy Child Jesus, that You have said to Venerable Sister Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, and to all of Your devotees, these words so full of consolation for our poor, burdened and suffering humanity: “Draw from this Divine Heart. Ask all that you desire through the merits of My Holy Childhood. Nothing will be refused to you." Full of confidence in Thee, O Jesus, Who are Truth itself, we come to make known all our misery to you. Help us to lead a Holy life in order to attain a Blessed Eternity. Grant us through the infinite Merits of Your Incarnation and of Your Childhood, the graces of which we are most in need. No, we shall not be deceived in our hope. We abandon ourselves to Thee, O Omnipotent Child, in virtue of Your Divine Promise, You will favorably receive and deign to grant our prayer. Amen.
The seven "O Antiphons" (also called the "Greater Antiphons" or "Major Antiphons") are prayers that come from the Breviary's Vespers during the Octave before Christmas Eve, a time which is called the "Golden Nights."
Each Antiphon begins with "O" and addresses Jesus with a unique title which comes from the prophecies of Isaias (Isaiah) and Micheas (Micah), and whose initial letters, when read backwards, form an acrostic for the Latin "Ero Cras" which means "Tomorrow I come." Those titles for Christ are:
Sapientia
Adonai
Radix Jesse
Clavis David
Oriens
Rex Gentium
Emmanuel2
Come and redeem us with outstretched arm.
O Lord and Ruler of 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 arm.
O Adonai, et dux domus Israel, qui Moyse in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
The tablets of stone are a picture of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. They may be used to represent the whole of God's law, the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, the Torah), or the entire Old Testament.3
Isaias 11:4-5
But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity the meek of the earth: and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins.
Isaias 33:22
For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king: he will save us.
December 18
O Adonaï, and leader of the house of Israel! who appearedst to Moses in the fire of the flaming bush, and gavest him the law on Sinai; come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm.
O Sovereign Lord! O Adonaï! come and redeem us, not by thy power, but by thy humility. Heretofore, thou didst show thyself to Moses thy servant in the midst of a mysterious flame; thou didst give thy law to thy people amidst thunder and lightning; now, on the contrary, thou comest not to terrify, but to save us. Thy chaste Mother having heard the Emperor's edict, which obliges her and Joseph her Spouse to repair to Bethlehem, she prepares everything needed for thy divine Birth. She prepares for thee, O Sun of Justice! the humble swathing-bands, wherewith to cover thy nakedness, and protect thee, the Creator of the world, from the cold of that mid-night hour of thy Nativity! Thus it is that thou willest to deliver us from the slavery of our pride, and show man that thy divine arm is never stronger than when he thinks it powerless and still. Everything is prepared, then, dear Jesus! thy swathing-bands are ready for thy infant limbs! Come to Bethlehem, and redeem us from the hands of our enemies.
— Dom Prosper Gueranger
The Liturgical Year
CUSTOMS
For celebration of the O Antiphons from December 17-24, your family could prepare an O Antiphon House, a little cardboard house with eight hinged windows, each hiding the appropriate symbol for the O Antiphon of the day. There is also a ninth window depicting the Nativity scene for Christmas Day. The windows are opened one by one each day at the singing of the antiphon, or incorporated during the December 16-24 Christmas Novena. The house can be drawn on flat cardstock, or later shaped into a Tower, by bending the cardstock into a circle.
These instructions are based on ideas taken from Family Advent Customs by Helen McLoughlin, Twelve Days of Christmas by Elsa Chaney…4
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2024-12-18
https://fisheaters.com/customsadvent10.html
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2024-12-18
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=957