O Emmanuel

Come, O God with us

Friends,

The final O Antiphon of Advent is below—in its Latin and English forms. Subscribers can keep reading below the image for a short reflection and another response poem by the brilliant Fr. Malcolm Guite.

I hope these brief moments of reading and reflection have helped you capture the heart of Advent in this busy final week before Christmas.

O Emmanuel

Latin Text
Veni, veni Emmanuel, 
Captivum solve Israel, 
Qui gemit in exilio 
Privatus Dei Filio.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel Adaptation
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.

A Poetic Response, by Fr. Malcolm Guite

Tomorrow, I will come.

In this final O Antiphon response, Malcolm Guite looks back at the previous six titles for Christ, but he also looks forward, “… beyond Christmas, to the new birth for humanity and for the whole cosmos, which is promised in the birth of God in our midst.”

As a special treat this Christmas Eve, click here to listen to Malcolm read his poem.

O Emmanuel

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.