A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that the “O Antiphons” were coming! As you noticed this morning, I proclaimed that. That’s not something we usually do at our Parish for Daily Mass. It highlights something! We are getting close! They are there to remind us that not only was Jesus the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, which led to that beautiful genealogy in the Gospel for today, but he is the fulfillment of our present hopes as well.
That long genealogy reminds us that Jesus has a right to claim the throne, that He is a descendent of David by legal privilege. That would be important to the first-century Jewish mind, especially one looking for the Messiah. We, too, should be looking for Jesus in our lives, every moment and in every person we encounter.
So when the Church changes the way things go in the liturgy, we should sit up and notice. The Holy Spirit wants us to notice this so much, that when He inspired the liturgical readings for this time of year these are marked with particular days. Normally we would just have whatever readings were for Thursday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time. But today, we find it under December 17th, no matter what day of the week it is. Starting up a week of readings that He wants us to notice, and what the liturgy will be proclaiming should be something very familiar to us. Let’s look again at the one for today: O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love: come to teach us the path of knowledge!
It seems so familiar because we sing it a lot this time of year in the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”: O Come, Thou Wisdom from on high, who orderest all things mightily; To us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in the way to go. I was so very happy that the people gathered chose to sing this verse as the entrance song for Mass today. It tied in so well because most of the verses in that song are derived from the O antiphons that the Church will proclaim over the next seven days.
Seven days. The Bible always uses seven to represent completeness, perfection. Here we have a week, at the end of which we will celebrate the moment that perfection Himself was born into our world so that at the end of our lives, we might be born into His. His is the everlasting Kingdom promised to Judah and to David, made perfect and fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
Let’s take some time this week to meditate on the contents of the O Antiphons. Maybe to sing or spend time listening to the words of “O Come Emmanuel.” Like I said before, these are not just something that people were asking for in the time of Judah or David, nor even only in the time of Christ. They are things we are asking for right now, at this moment.
During the liturgy of the Eucharist, our Priests will stand before us and with the words of consecration, the Holy Spirit will make Jesus present to us in the Eucharist. That is the fulfillment of each of those cries we echo in the Mass this week where we say “O Come” followed by one of the titles for Messiah. Each of these titles point to the title that matters most, that Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is the family we belong to, the family tree of the Messiah, these are our Ancestors through our baptism into the Body of Christ. This is what Jesus Christ offers to us in the Eucharist, all of this and more; let’s make the most of Advent and realize what God gives us in this Sacred Host.
A homily for Thursday of the 3rd Week in Advent: December 17th, 2020