Day 8 of the Novena of Aguinaldos...
Seventh of the O Antiphons: O Emmanuel
We reach the culmination of the O Antiphons today. Today is the Seventh O Antiphon, O Emmanuel (O God Is With Us). In previous antiphons our cry was directed to the Messiah as He manifested Himself to the Chosen People, to the Gentiles, and in nature; now He is addressed in person and asked to remain with us as Emmanuel.1
"O Emmanuel (God with us), our King and Lawgiver, Thou expected one of the nations and their Redeemer, come and save us, O Lord our God."
Now we are about to receive the Savior, Emmanuel, God with us. God's only-begotten Son, born of the Father before all time, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, one being with the Father, is about to be born in time. For the salvation of men, He has come down upon earth and is conceived by the Holy Ghost in a virgin. He shall be called God with us, and yet He will be one in nature with us. He is to be like to us in all things except sin. He wills to share our poverty and to pray and suffer with us; He assumes our guilt. He is God with us in every phase of our life; He even takes our place on the cross, He remains with us in Holy Communion, in our daily Mass, and in our tabernacles. At some time in the future He will still be God with us in His beautiful heaven. All this He has done for us even though we have repeatedly turned our back on Him.
"Come and save us." The great God is with us. He has come, not to destroy the sinful world, as He once destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, but to redeem it from its sins. This redemption is to be accomplished at the cost of great personal sacrifice to Him. As if this did not satisfy the burning ardor of His love, He wills to remain with us in our tabernacles. He incorporates us into Himself and shares His very life with us. We are engrafted in Him as a branch might be grafted to a new tree. "I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15:5). God with us! We are united to Christ as a limb is united to a body, as a branch is united to a vine. We now belong to Christ and no longer to ourselves. We are one with Him. What a grace, what greatness, what nobility have been conferred upon us! God looking upon us no longer sees miserable specimens of mankind, but members of Christ. When He looks upon Christ, He sees Christ and us as united in one body, as a tree united to its branches. Even the smallest leaf fluttering on the farthest branch belongs to that tree and lives by the sap of that tree. Could He have redeemed us in a more perfect manner than by thus implanting in us and infusing in us His divine life? Let us reflect upon this seriously.
God with us! It was that He might be with us that He came that first Christmas at Bethlehem. He came that He might lift me up from the dust, and that I might share in His life. He will return this Christmas that He may continue and complete that work. It is for the same purpose that He comes in every Holy Mass and Communion, and in each inspiration and grace He gives us. His final coming will be for the same purpose, and will have the further aim of sharing with us His glorified life in heaven. We shall then enjoy the perfect vision of God, perfect love, and the fulfillment of all our desires for all eternity. For all eternity!2
—Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.
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
Day 8: December 23
Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem, seeking a place at the inns, but nothing was to be found as all were full, and they were rejected because of their poverty. However, nothing can disturb the inner peace of those who are steadfast in the Lord. If Joseph felt any sadness in the rejection from inn to inn thinking of the discomfort of Mary and the Child, then his sadness was relieved with holy peace when he fixed his eyes upon his chaste wife. The Child, although yet unborn, delighted in these rejections which were a prelude of His future humiliations. The sound of every slammed door shut before them was a sweet melody to His ears. This is what He came to look for. The desire of those humiliations was what made Him want to take human form. Oh Divine Child of Bethlehem! These days in which so many of us have spent in parties or other entertainments, or relaxing comfortably in luxurious and rich mansions, have been for your parents days of fatigue and discomfort of all kinds. Ah! The spirit of Bethlehem is that of a world that has forgotten God. How many times has it also been our spirit! The sun sets on December 24th behind the rooftops of Bethlehem and its final rays gild the tops of steep cliffs that surround them. Rude men roughly elbow the Lord in the streets of the eastern village, and close their doors when they see His mother. The heavens appear purplish above the hills frequented by the shepherds. The stars appear one after the other. In a few more hours, the Eternal Word will appear.
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
Emmanuel3
Come to save us, O Lord our God.
Traditional Antiphon: O Emmanuel, God with us, our King and Lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: Come to save us, O Lord our God.
O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, expectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.
The manger reminds us of the simplicity and poverty surrounding the birth of Jesus and is representative of His life of humility.4
Isaias 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
December 23
O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Expectation and Saviour of the nations! come and save us, O Lord our God!
O Emmanuel! King of Peace! thou enterest to-day the city of thy predilection, the city in which thou hast placed thy Temple, - Jerusalem. A few years hence, and the same city will give thee thy Cross and thy Sepulchre: nay, the day will come, on which thou wilt set up thy Judgment-seat within sight of her walls. But, to-day, thou enterest the city of David and Solomon unnoticed and unknown. It lies on thy road to Bethlehem. Thy Blessed Mother and Joseph, her Spouse, would not lose the opportunity of visiting the Temple, there to offer to the Lord their prayers and adoration. They enter; and then, for the first time, is accomplished the prophecy of Aggeus, that great shall be the glory of this last House more than of the first [Agg. ii. 10.] ; for this second Temple has now standing within it an Ark of the Covenant more precious than was that which Moses built; and within this Ark, which is Mary, there is contained the God, whose presence makes her the holiest of sanctuaries. The Lawgiver himself is in this blessed Ark, and not merely, as in that of old, the tablet of stone on which the Law was graven. The visit paid, our living Ark descends the steps of the Temple, and sets out once more for Bethlehem, where other prophecies are to be fulfilled. We adore thee, O Emmanuel! in this thy journey, and we reverence the fidelity wherewith thou fulfillest all that the prophets have written of thee, for thou wouldst give to thy people the certainty of thy being the Messias, by showing them, that all the marks, whereby he was to be known, are to be found in thee. And now, the hour is near; all is ready for thy Birth; come, then, and save us; come, that thou mayest not only be called our Emmanuel, but our Jesus, that is, He that saves us.
— Dom Prosper Gueranger
The Liturgical Year
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2024-12-23
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2024-12-23
https://fisheaters.com/customsadvent10.html
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2024-12-23