O Rex Gentium - The Kings of the Earth are as nothing

The 'O Antiphons' are sung according to tradition, during the evening liturgy on the last days of Advent. Each one is a named attribute of The Christ, to whose coming the church looks forward with eager and in these latter days, heightened expectation

O Rex Gentium
Sung by the Dominican student brothers of Blackfriars, Oxford

I think it was the Marquis de Sade of all people, who came up with what, I guess to him sounded like a novel political philosophy, suggesting that people were much happier if the weak were ruled by the powerful and we all lived in the human equivalent of a pecking order. You might say 'well he would say that wouldn't he'.  

Of course if this is true, then we as human beings ought to be happy for this is precisely how human society has ordered itself down through the ages. There is no age in which in the end 'The Will to Power' has not been writ large, and all who rule do so by force, even if it is 'only' the force of argument (always, let us not forget backed up by the threat of violence if some don't like the arguments which 'wins the day'). Democratically elected governments show no particular antipathy towards prosecuting war to protect the system that keep them in power. Democracy may or may not be 'the least worst form of Government', but it is none the less as idolatrous in its pretensions as all that has gone before it and those which no doubt in the fullness of time will follow it. 

Indeed it may be argued that there is much to be said for hereditary monarchy in this regard. There's always at least a chance of a reluctant King or Queen, made so by an accident of birth rather than by laying hold on power by power, in however 'civilised' a manner.

When we hear O King of the Nations, it is Almost impossible to hear that phrase without hearing it through such a filter - as if we are finally waiting for the one who will WIN by argument or Overwhelming physical strength or both, depending upon your particular version of the Parousia. 

But that is to completely misunderstand the relationship between God and humankind, that He created something other than himself when we were spoken into being, that were it not for Jesus Christ, there would be no correspondence whatsoever between the creator and the Created and that Only in Christ may we begin to understand that elusive phrase 'Image of God', used so loosely by many today to justify the human before God. God is not man to the raised to the nth degree, even if n = infinity. There is just No correspondence apart from Christ and thus we need to realise that in our hoping for the King of the Nations, we are not meant to be looking for the human system and way of doing things perfected, that we might find our eternal happiness if the strong rule over the weak.

This is the King whose Kingship is revealed when there is nothing in him that we might desire him and hides when he looks as if he is the sort of King we desire. At that Very Point where we would acclaim him King, when he enacts the supreme act of a Good King and  feeds the hungry 5000, in the very moment when he does what We would have a King do, when they would 'make him King by force' - he hides from them, he hides from us. He is the strangest of Kings in that when to our eyes he seems to put things right, to be King on our terms he disappears from view, as if this isn't the point, as if oddly this is not what Kings should do. And then when Politically he is spent, when there is nothing left when his enemies have won the day and arguments as good as most employed though the ages in pursuit of power have been made and 'won' , when he is empty and in our eyes a hopeless case, THEN he is declared King.

We await a King

King of Kings and Lord of Lords

the one who reveals the utter vacuity of all our agendas

the one who reveals that if only someone would feed us we'd be 'happy'

and in so doing reveals that in our striving to be More -

we have become far far less than we were created to be

He is the King who in His Glory, reveals our true Glory

but it doesn't look like any Thing

We cry out for our King to come

but would we secretly be happier if he didn't and the powerful people made sure that there was bread on the table

Whom will we have to rule over us?

Will we have him for Our King? 

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay. 
O Come, O Come Emmanuel

 

O Oriens - The Rising Sun

The 'O Antiphons' are sung according to tradition, during the evening liturgy on the last days of Advent. Each one is a named attribute of The Christ, to whose coming the church looks forward with eager and in these latter days, heightened expectation

O Oriens

Sung by the Dominican student brothers of Blackfriars, Oxford

It is perhaps no co-incidence that we celebrate O Oriens, O Rising Sun on this day, the 21st of December - Solstice wherever we are - the day the sun stands still. Whether as here in the Southern hemisphere it stands as high in the sky as it will all year, or as in the Northern its height at midday marks the turn towards longer days, the sun's appearing is significant

One of the features of living nearer to the equator as I now do, is the relatively short length of both dawn and dusk. It is not long light here before sunrise and not long after sunset that darkness covers the earth. I know from short experience and wider reading that at or reasonably near the equator this experience is far sharper, the sun plunging close to vertically unto the Horizon and rising perpendicularly with dramatic effect, like the brightest light being switched on in the depths of darkness. And it is this Suddenness of the appearing that is hinted at in the other familiar name for this Antiphon, O Dayspring, remembering the words of Isaiah 

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. 

Listening this morning to some Advent reflections by the Fransican Priest, Richard Rohr, I was reminded of a word that seems to have slipped from popular Christian discourse. Perhaps it never was that popular but I am sure it once was more commonly used than in these days. Rohr was talking about how the increasingly and now staggeringly affluent church in the West had got Scripture back to front. We went to the Scriptures he said, for comfort. But that was the last thing we find there - not that it isn';t to be found,. but it is discovered last - the comfort is for those who are first Challenged by the Word, then (and here is the 'old-fashioned' word . . .) Converted by the Word. Those whose only hope is now in Him may find True comfort their, and only they.

Conversion is a word which we use less and less the more and more comfortable we become - we now talk much more readily about faith in terms we might employ of a holiday, or a retirement cruise - it ha become 'a journey of faith' and a very gradualist one at that. If we hear the word Conversion at all it is invariably prefaced by such words as 'Sudden!' or 'Dramatic!'. It is not Usual, or Normal.

Of course the church in the West situated as it is away from the equator is not a place of 'sudden light' and also it is a place where we tend to have insulated ourselves against the reality of the world. Central heating and Air conditioning mean we are never Hot or Cold, Electric light means we little heed the rising sun, or its setting - conditions are neither one thing nor the other. So comfortable are we with the lights we have made for ourselves, we may say that we are not at all far from the Kingdom of God and forget that those are words which we cannot say, for we cannot See - for in reality it is dark, very dark.

In Advent we await the coming of a Saviour, not a therapist

If we will for a moment cease from our remorseless talk, in the Silence we may hear voices from behind a large stone which up until that point we had not regarded. 

We may perhaps extinguish the lights we have made for ourselves to discover how dark things are. After a while it becomes obvious that our eyes will not adapt to this Pitch darkness. 

The voices behind the stone become louder, there is the sound of astonishment.

A voice of command

The Stone begins to move

A Light brighter than the Sun at noonday pours blindingly into our 'place of comfort', 

which is revealed for what it is . . .

A voice is heard, like the sound of many waters

Lazarus, Come Out!

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o'er the shades of night;
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee;
Joyless is the day's return,
Till thy mercy's beams I see;
Till they inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine;
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, Radiancy divine,
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.


O Dayspring,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. 
O Come, O Come Emmanuel

 

 

O Clavis David - The One who holds the keys

The 'O Antiphons' are sung according to tradition, during the evening liturgy on the last days of Advent. Each one is a named attribute of The Christ, to whose coming the church looks forward with eager and in these latter days, heightened expectation






O Clavis David
Sung by the Dominican student brothers of Blackfriars, Oxford

His kingdom cannot fail;
he rules o'er earth and heaven;
the keys of death and hell
are to our Jesus given.

Lift up your heart!
lift up your voice!
Rejoice! again I say, rejoice!




I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Matthew Chapter 16 verse 19

Perhaps the gravest verse in Scripture
Do we know who we are?
Do we realise what we have been given?

O Key of David and Sceptre of the House of Israel;

you open and no one can shut;

you shut and no one can open:

Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,

those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel!