SEVENTH GREATER ANTIPHON
O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Expectation and Saviour of the nations! come and save us, O Lord our God!Dom Prosper Guéranger:
O Emmanuel! King of Peace! You enter today the city of your predilection, the city in which you have placed your Temple, Jerusalem. A few years hence, and the same city will give you your Cross and your Sepulchre: Nay, the day will come on which you will set up your Judgement seat within sight of her walls. But today you enter the city of David and Solomon unnoticed and unknown. It lies on your road to Bethlehem. Your Blessed Mother and Joseph, her Spouse, would not lose the opportunity of visiting the Temple, there to offer to the Lord their prayers and adoration. They enter, and then, for the first time, is accomplished the prophecy of Aggeus, that great will be the glory of this last House more them of the first (Aggeus ii. 10), for this second Temple has now standing within it an Ark of the Covenant more precious than was that which Moses built. And within this Ark, which is Mary, there is contained the God whose presence makes her the holiest of sanctuaries. The Lawgiver Himself is in this blessed Ark, and not merely, as in that of old, the tablet of stone on which the Law was graven. The visit paid, our living Ark descends the steps of the Temple and sets out once more for Bethlehem where other prophecies are to be fulfilled. We adore you, Emmanuel, in this your journey, and we reverence the fidelity with which you fulfil all that the prophets have written of you, for you would give to your people the certainty of your being the Messiah by showing them that all the marks by which He he was to be known, are to be found in you. And now, the hour is near. All is ready for your birth. Come, then, and save us. Come that you may not only be called our Emmanuel, but our Jesus, that is, He that saves us.THE GREAT ANTIPHON TO JERUSALEM
O Jerusalem! City of the great God! Lift up your eyes round about, and see your Lord, for He is coming to loose you from your chains.
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