Tomorrow is December the 17, beginning the eight days before Christmas. And one of our favourite Advent hymns or carols comes into its own. According the the tradition of the Church, the most important of the Hours of the Divine Office, Evening Prayer (aka. Vespers), has carefully arranged antiphons for the Magnificat (the great psalm of Mary, Gospel of S. Luke, 1: 46-55) for the days from December the 17th to December the 23rd. These short prayers are related to ancient and scriptural titles for Christ, arranged as below to form the words 'ero cras' ('tomorrow, I shall be') with their first letters:
- O Emmanuel - December the 23rd - O God with us (Isaias, 7:14)
- O Rex gentium - December the 22nd - O King of the Gentiles (Aggaeus/Haggai, 2; Ephesians, 2: 14, 20)
- O Oriens - December the 21st - O Rising in the East (Zecharias, 6: 12)
- O Clavis - December the 20th - O Key of David (Isaias, 22: 22; Apocalypse/Revelation, 3: 7)
- O Radix Iesse - December the 19th - O Root of Jesse (Isaias, 11: 10)
- O Adonai - December the 18th - O Lord God (Exodus, 3: 2)
- O Sapientia - December the 17th - O Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, 24: 5)
Tomorrow, I shall be. That could be said to have been carried down nine months from the 25th of March, when Christ became in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, after which she first sang her Magnificat. Before this He was one of three Persons of the most Blessed Trinity. After that, he was both God and man, a new Being indeed. And all of these antiphons are presented as verses in our hymn, O come, O come, Emmanuel (video above).
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