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.On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Rome, the holy virgin Victoria, a martyr, in the persecution of the emperor Decius. She had been promised in marriage to a pagan named Eugene, but because she refused to marry him and to offer sacrifice to idols, and because by working many miracles, she brought many virgins to the service of God, she was, at the request of her betrothed, stabbed in the heart with a sword by the executioner.
At Nicomedia, the birthday of twenty holy martyrs, whom the persecution of Diocletian made martyrs for the faith of Christ, after subjecting them to the most painful torments.
In the same place, the Saints Migdonius and Mardonius, one of whom was burned alive in the same persecution, and the other died in a pit into which he had been thrown. A deacon of St. Anthimus, bishop of Nicomedia, suffered at the same time. He was arrested by Gentiles when carrying letters to the martyrs, and being overwhelmed with stones, went to Our Lord.
In Crete, the holy martyrs Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunician, Zeticus, Cleomenes, Agathopus, Gelasius and Evaristus, who were beheaded, after suffering cruel torments, in the persecution of Decius.
At Rome, blessed Servulus, of whom St. Gregory wrote, that a paralytic from his early years to the end of his life, he remained lying in a porch near St. Clement’s Church, and being invited by the chant of angels, he went to enjoy the glory of Paradise. At his tomb, frequent miracles are wrought by Almighty God.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
