The Advent Antiphons: O Emmanuel

'O Emmanuel' Antiphon for Magnificat during Advent Vespers, Antiphonal (Dominican Archive, Krakow, 16th c.)

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,

expectratio gentium, et Salvator earum:

veni ad salvandum nos,

Domines, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our King and our lawgiver,

the hope of the nations and their Savior:

Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23

Jesus the Messiah, born of your mother Mary from the Holy Spirit, you are Emmanuel, God with us (Mt 1:18, 23).  As God you are always with us in the sense that “we live and move and have our being” in you—where can we go and not be with you?  (Ac 17:28; cf. Ps 139:6)  At the same time, as the Creator you are far from creation in that you are life itself and we, your creatures, have life from you, not in ourselves. And we go far from you when we wander from you in sin.  O Lord my God, you are interior intimo meo et superior summo meo (“more inward than my innermost and higher than my highest"). [1]

As God become man you are with us because you “became flesh and lived among us” (Jn 1:14).  Without changing your nature, you took on our nature when you humbled yourself (Phil 2:7).  You who were from the beginning, and are, were “made man” so that we, who were not, but are, might hear you and see you and touch you, that is, that we might have fellowship with you and with your Father and the Holy Spirit. [2]  The fellowship of a bridegroom and bride is like the fellowship we now have with you, because in your mother’s “virginal womb two things were joined, a bridegroom and a bride, the bridegroom being the Word and the bride being the flesh” and they are no longer two “but one flesh, for ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us’.” [3]  In that fellowship, we "have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10).

Come, Lord Jesus, that we might call you, “My husband” (Hos 2:16).  Hasten the day when your holy city will appear “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” when the loud voice will say,

     See, the home of God is among mortals.

     He will dwell with them;

     they will be his peoples,

     and God himself will be with them; 

     he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

     Death will be no more;

     mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

     for the first things have passed away. (Rev 21:2–4)

[Here is a setting of O Emmanuel, sung by Peter Morton (tenor) and the Choir of St John's College Cambridge, conducted by David Hill.]

* English translation from the Church of England’s Advent seasonal resource.

[1] Augustine, Conf. 3.6.11.

[2] Cf. Augustine, Io. ep. tr. 1.5; 1 Jn 1:1–3.

[3] Augustine, Io. ep. tr. 1.2.