Patrick Comerford
There is just a week to go to Christmas Eve. At noon each day this Advent, I am offering an image as part of my own ‘Advent Calendar’ for 2025, and an Advent or Christmas carol, hymn or song.
My image for my Advent Calendar today is of the Christmas trees at our flat in Stony Stratford: one a small tree high on the wall facing down onto the High Street, the other in the flat, waiting to be full decorated and waiting in anticipation of Christmas. I know Christmas trees are a relatively recent innovation in England and Ireland, but to me they also hint at the Jesse Tree, the genealogy of the expected, promised and long-awaited Jesus, which I was discussing in my prayer diary this morning.
Today (17 December) marks the start of the week before the celebration of Christmas, the birth of Christ. At evensong, the great Song of Mary, the canticle Magnificat, has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God throughout the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the forthcoming and eagerly-anticipated Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God.
The Advent carol O come, O come, Emmanuel (New English Hymnal, No 11; Irish Church Hymnal, No 135) is a popular reworking of the seven ‘O Antiphons’, and is the opening carol at the Carol Service in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford next Sunday afternoon (4 pm, 21 December 2025).
O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, followed tomorrow (18 December) by O Adonai, then by O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of the Nations, and, finally on 23 December, O Emmanuel.
In the old Sarum rite, these were sung one day earlier, beginning on 16 December, requiring another ascription for 23 December, this being O Virgin of Virgins. Since this was clearly apposite to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and not a ‘title’ of God, it was not adopted much beyond Sarum and, with the revision of the Calendar, Anglicans have adopted the more widely-used formulæ and dating.
The seven majestic Messianic titles for Christ are based on Biblical prophecies, and they help the Church to recall the variety of the ills of humanity before the coming of the Redeemer as each antiphon in turn pleads with mounting impatience for Christ to save his people.
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 Wisdom from above,
who ord’rest all things through thy love;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go:
O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
who to thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
in ancient times didst give the law
in cloud and majesty and awe:
O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
from depths of hell thy people save,
and give them vict’ry o’er the grave:
O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery:
O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death’s dark shadows put to flight:
O come, Desire of Nations, bring
all peoples to their Saviour King;
thou Corner-stone, who makest one,
complete in us thy work begun:
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
