December 23
O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, Rex et Legifer noster, expectatio gentium and
salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus
Noster!
O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, expectation of the
nations and their savior: come to save us, Lord our
God!
Is 7:14
To see Him in the Crib Who is my King, my lawgiver and my God. That I may truly
and from my heart adore Him Who is my God, obey my Lawgiver and follow my King.
I. “Emmanuel!” The last title that we give Him in the antiphons seems to embrace most
of all. Noster [our] coming after King and Lawgiver makes it an especially close tie.
Emmanuel noster … our God with us. First because He is not against us. His
coming has broken down the partition that divided God and us since Adam sinned.
God is with us and opens His arms to us in forgiveness and reconciliation. With us
also as companion, with us as food, with us as the pledge of everlasting glory in the
Sacred Heart.
II. The word “noster” speaks to me, bringing the thought of the reign of Christ. A King
making Himself the companion of His own soldiers and calling them to fight for
Him, but by His side, to hunger and thirst and labor with Him and then to share in
His glory and reward. “Legifer” speaks of Him as Leader and Ruler as well as King.
So far as I am concerned His will is to be absolute and the only law not to be
questioned, but to be loved and honored whenever I can find it, and in whatever form
He gives it to me. “Obedience is the Sacrament of the Will of God.”
I. God with us: when this is said, all is said; the desires of 4000 years and of all the ages
to come are accomplished, for the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath it
entered into the human heart what there is laid up in this truth, that God is with us
and that God is one of us.
II. “Expectatio et Salvator”. All your work then is to prepare the ways of Our Lord by
expectation and desire of the coming salvation.
III. The keynote of religious life: Domine Deus noster and God with us. Veni, Domine
Jesu, jam noli tardare! [Come Lord Jesus and do not delay!]