Monthly Archives: December 2020

Advent Antiphons—December 23, 2020

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From The Book of Common Worship’s Times and Seasons (p.58).

These antiphons, or refrains, all beginning ‘O …’, were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom). The Common Worship Calendar has adopted the more widely used form. It is not known when and by whom the antiphons were composed, but they were already in use by the eighth century.

23 December – O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

—cf Isaiah 7.14

Advent Antiphons—December 22, 2020

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From The Book of Common Worship’s Times and Seasons (p.58).

These antiphons, or refrains, all beginning ‘O …’, were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom). The Common Worship Calendar has adopted the more widely used form. It is not known when and by whom the antiphons were composed, but they were already in use by the eighth century.

22 December – O Rex Gentium

O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.

—cf Isaiah 28.16; Ephesians 2.14

Advent Antiphons—December 21, 2020

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From The Book of Common Worship’s Times and Seasons (p.58).

These antiphons, or refrains, all beginning ‘O …’, were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom). The Common Worship Calendar has adopted the more widely used form. It is not known when and by whom the antiphons were composed, but they were already in use by the eighth century.

21 December – O Oriens

O Morning Star, splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

—cf Malachi 4.2

Advent Antiphons—December 20, 2020

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From The Book of Common Worship’s Times and Seasons (p.58).

These antiphons, or refrains, all beginning ‘O …’, were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom). The Common Worship Calendar has adopted the more widely used form. It is not known when and by whom the antiphons were composed, but they were already in use by the eighth century. 

20 December – O Clavis David

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

—cf Isaiah 22.22; 42.7

Advent Antiphons—December 19, 2020

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From The Book of Common Worship’s Times and Seasons (p.58).

These antiphons, or refrains, all beginning ‘O …’, were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom). The Common Worship Calendar has adopted the more widely used form. It is not known when and by whom the antiphons were composed, but they were already in use by the eighth century.

19 December – O  Radix Jesse

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

—cf Isaiah 11.10; 45.14; 52.15; Romans 15.12 

Advent Antiphons—December 18, 2020

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From The Book of Common Worship’s Times and Seasons (p.58).

These antiphons, or refrains, all beginning ‘O …’, were sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reflected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom). The Common Worship Calendar has adopted the more widely used form. It is not known when and by whom the antiphons were composed, but they were already in use by the eighth century.

December 18 — O Adonai

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the ?re of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

—cf Exodus 3.2; 24.12

Advent Antiphons—December 17, 2020

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An antiphon is (in traditional Western Christian liturgy) a short sentence sung or recited before or after a psalm or canticle. Today begins the Advent Antiphons. But what are the “O Antiphons”? Below is an excerpt from the Catholic Education Resource Center by Father William Saunders. I wholeheartedly commend their use each of these seven days.

The “O Antiphons” refer to the seven antiphons that are recited (or chanted) preceding the Magnificat [Song of Mary] during O-Antiphons_02Vespers [Evening Prayer] of the [Roman Catholic] Liturgy of the Hours. They cover the special period of Advent preparation known as the Octave before Christmas, Dec. 17-23, with Dec. 24 being Christmas Eve and Vespers for that evening being for the Christmas Vigil.

The exact origin of the “O Antiphons” is not known. Boethius (c. 480-524) made a slight reference to them, thereby suggesting their presence at that time. At the Benedictine abbey of Fleury (now Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire), these antiphons were recited by the abbot and other abbey leaders in descending rank, and then a gift was given to each member of the community. By the eighth century, they are in use in the liturgical celebrations in Rome. The usage of the “O Antiphons” was so prevalent in monasteries that the phrases, “Keep your O” and “The Great O Antiphons” were common parlance. One may thereby conclude that in some fashion the “O Antiphons” have been part of our liturgical tradition since the very early Church.

The importance of “O Antiphons” is twofold: Each one highlights a title for the Messiah: O SAPIENTIA (O Wisdom), O ADONAI (O Lord), O RADIX JESSE (O Root of Jesse), O CLAVIS DAVID (O Key of David), O ORIENS (O Rising Sun), O REX GENTIUM (O King of the Nations), and O EMMANUEL. Also, each one refers to the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah.

Read the whole article.

December 17 — O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

—cf Ecclesiasticus 24.3; Wisdom 8.1 

Father Ric Bowser: Slow Down, Listen

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Sermon delivered on Advent 3B, Sunday, December 13, 2020 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon—and you’d better because Father Bowser never provides a manuscript for his sermon—click here. The first couple minutes of the sermon are lost.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28.

2020: Remember, Remember the 7th of December

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Today is the 79th anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor (how is that possible???) that drew the United States into the great conflagration known as World War II. Ask anyone who was living that day and they can tell you exactly where they were. It was an act of treachery and it proved to be foolishly short-sighted and ultimately fatal for the Japanese militarists. It was that generation’s 9/11.

Sadly the generation of Pearl Harbor is almost gone. But its lessons remain and remind us that we must constantly be on guard as a nation because there are those out there who hate us and want to destroy us and end our way of life.

From the History Channel:

At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious assault. The surprise attack struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the United States irrevocably into World War II.

Read it all.

December 7, 2020: Pearl Harbor Survivor: What I Saw Aboard the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941

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Wow. Just wow.

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President Roosevelt was right to call it “a date that will live in infamy.” But for my fellow survivors and me, it also is alive in memory, like shrapnel left embedded in our brains because the surgeon thought it too dangerous to operate.

Those images remain with us survivors seventy-five years later. Sometimes they intrude into our day, a moment spontaneously combusting, and suddenly we are back in the flames that engulfed our ship or in the oil-slick waters that surrounded it.

Sometimes they come to us in the night, a haunt of images that troubles our sleep. Or perhaps the phone rings, and we flinch. Or a car backfires, and instinctively we duck.

These memories lie within me, forever still and silent, like the men entombed in the Arizona. Others, like the oil that seeps from its wreckage, slip around inside me until they find a way out and make their way to the surface, where they pool and sometimes catch fire.

Over the years, many of us made the pilgrimage back to that harbor, where we have experienced both the soothing of those wounds, and, at the same time, a reopening of them.

Have some been healed? Yes. Year by merciful year. But all? No. And that is true for so many who have survived trauma, not just those who have survived the horror of war.

Read it all and buy the book.

Comfort in These Dark Days

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Sermon delivered on Advent 2B, Sunday, December 6, 2020 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary text: Isaiah 40.1-11; Psalm 85.1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1.1-8.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

This morning we observe the second Sunday of Advent, a season of watchful waiting and anticipation. If you are like me, the prophet Isaiah’s message was like balm to your soul when you heard it. Who among us couldn’t use a little comfort these days? But how can Advent provide us with any comfort? This is what I want us to look at this morning.

Advent begins in the dark, literally and metaphorically. We are rapidly approaching the shortest day of the year and the extended darkness wears us down. Advent is the season for Christians to take stock of the world in which we live, a world filled with the beauty of God’s creation but also blighted by the darkness of Evil, Sin, and Death. Advent asks the hard but real questions about God’s justice and care for his world and us. Its hope is rooted in the power of God, not human window dressing, and this requires sober thinking on our part about our past, present, and future. Advent is based on the promise of God contained in the overarching narrative of Scripture to put all things right in this desperately wrong world of his, a good and beautiful world marred by human sin and the Evil our sin ushered in, Death being the ultimate evil. This is why observing Advent isn’t for the faint of heart and often takes folks by surprise who come from traditions that don’t observe Advent because we don’t play the Christmas game the way our culture does. While the secular world rushes about throwing up lights and decorations, hoping that all things shiny and bright will make it all better in the morning (it won’t), the Church spends its time during Advent reflecting on the promises and power of God. Don’t misunderstand. I love the lights and decorations and sounds of Christmas. Our house is a veritable Christmas wonderland. But much as I enjoy the light and beauty of Christmas decorations, they do not address the darkness of our world and therefore cannot provide any real comfort to those who need it most. No, if we want to find real comfort, a comfort based on the love and power of God rather than ourselves, we will find it here as the gathered people of God—even if we are gathered in exile on the virtual island of Patmos (Zoom).

The prophet sets the tone for us today. On behalf of God, Isaiah speaks these beautiful words to God’s people. 

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned”.…Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart (Isaiah 40.1-2a, 10-11a, NLT).

The prophet spoke to God’s people who were in desperate trouble and did they ever need to hear these words! Their ongoing sin had left them alienated and hostile to God and each other as sin always does. Their stubborn refusal to abandon their idols and their rebellion against God would end in their exile from both God and their homeland. We can relate, at least to the former. We are a fearful people these days. We are preparing for that “most wonderful time of the year” when we gather with family and friends to celebrate Christmas, but it won’t be the same this year because we live in the darkness of COVID with its attendant anxieties. Some in our parish family are very sick. Some of us live in virtual isolation with all its deleterious effects. All of us have had our lives and routines disrupted in significant ways. Some of us have lost family/friends to the virus. We aren’t even worshiping together in person and it all results in a great burden on us. The effects of COVID are not unlike the effects of sin that make us live in darkness and fear and isolation. This is on top of all the other stuff in our world that we must endure: aging, ill health, economic uncertainty, political divisions, rancor, accidents, anger, hatred, malice, injustice, and all the rest. We may not be living in ancient Israel be we too desperately long to hear words of comfort from God our Father. Like our spiritual forebears, we too wonder sometimes where God is in all this mess and what God is doing about it. Does he hear our cries for help? Does he hear us in our loneliness and fear and isolation? Does he care that we are anxious about our lives and the world in which we live? Does he have the power to save?

Yes, proclaims the prophet! Yes to all of these kinds of questions! And here is precisely why it is for our good to observe the season of Advent with its anticipation and promises in the midst of the darkness that swirls around us. As God promised through his prophets, God himself will come to our rescue to shine his light of goodness, love, justice, mercy, peace, and power on our darkness. He reminds us that we are mortal and are therefore limited in our ability to see the cosmic Big Picture God sees. We, like the grass, wither and fade away, but our God is eternal and is the only One capable of overcoming the darkness of our world and lives. God the Father demonstrated his power, of course, by becoming human (or in NT language, by sending God the Son) to address the problem of our sin and all the evil that flows from it. But God did this in the most unusual way. God came not as a conquering and invincible warrior but as a carpenter’s son, born of a virgin, born in an ancient and obscure village in Israel to suffer and die for us so that our alienation from God and each other could be ended forever. We know this is true because we know God the Father raised Christ from the dead to usher in his promised new age, an age completely devoid of Sin, Evil, Death, and all that beats us down and dehumanizes us. Advent therefore is a time when we anticipate the promised first coming of Christ to set us free from our bondage to Sin and Death. We anticipate Christmas during Advent only because Christmas points us to Easter. Christ literally was born to die for us (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.3), God be praised!

But we all know that Christ’s saving work on the cross and the promises of God to rescue us from all that darkens God’s good world—our sins and stains on the world included—have not been fully consummated. We all know that we still live in a world full of darkness. But there is more to God’s promises in Christ than the cross and the resurrection. The NT writers speak of the day when God renews all things and makes all things right so that there will be no more suffering or sorrow or fear or alienation or brokenness or Evil or Death. St. Peter speaks of this in our epistle lesson today when he talks about the new heavens and earth, God’s new creation. It would be easy for us to focus on the burning up part of God’s current creation, thereby dismissing it as unimportant to God, but that would be unfaithful to the text. St. Peter speaks of God’s perfect justice and judgment coming when all things are disclosed, a justice and judgment that addresses all the evil and wrong in this world. Who among us doesn’t desire real justice to flow like life-giving water? This is part of God putting all the wrongs to rights. Evil and those who commit it must be dealt with so that the righteous—those of us made clean by the blood of the Lamb shed for us—can live in a world no longer marred by Evil, Sin, and Death. No mortal has the power to overcome the superior powers of Evil and Sin. None are immune to Death. Left to our own devices we will be defeated every time we try to overcome our sins and failures and shortcomings. Only God the Father has the power to overcome Evil, Sin, and Death on our behalf because only God has the power to create out of nothing and raise the dead back to life as God demonstrated most powerfully in the resurrection of our Lord. If God can do these things, God can certainly bring about his promised new world that will finally fulfill God’s creative purposes. We believe this will happen when our Lord Jesus appears in great power and glory to finish the saving work he started in his death and resurrection. This is the primary focus of Advent: waiting for our Lord to return to consummate his promise to us to rescue us from all the darkness of this world and our lives, especially from the darkness of Death. We don’t know when that will happen but we believe it will and this is where we need to pay attention to both St. Peter and St. Mark. The latter puts it to us very simply: “The beginning of the gospel (or Good News) of Jesus Christ.” St. Mark in effect tells us to pay attention to this Jesus because here is God himself making good on his promise to save us from all that is wrong in our lives and this world. Here is God himself working on our behalf because of God’s great love for us despite our unloveliness.

St. Peter addresses the elephant in the room that was apparently an issue in his own generation: When is the Lord going to make good on his promise and return to us? For them it had been almost 30 years and he hadn’t returned! Oh my…

Looking back on on this short timeline almost 2000 years later, we can relate because we are still waiting for the Lord to return to make good on his promise to renew all things, including raising the dead. But if we focus on chronology we miss the point underlying the promise. God is faithful and has the power to act. When God speaks, things happen, even if it isn’t on our timeline or according to our expectations (and who among us doesn’t long for the Lord’s quick return these days?). No, says St. Peter, God is not delaying and he has the power to make good on his promise. After all, he raised Jesus from the dead didn’t he? God is working on a much larger picture than we can ever hope to have. We should therefore consider this “delay” (at least as it appears to us) as God’s desire to save as many as possible because God loves everyone, even the most wicked among us (insert your favorite villain here) and desires their salvation along with ours. Is there ever a more compelling reason for us to be bold in our proclamation and living of the gospel than this?? The NT writers didn’t worry about the promises of God being unfulfilled because as we have just seen, they knew the power of God made known to them in Christ’s resurrection. After all, the NT ends with a plea for our Lord to return, not a lament about why he hadn’t, and assuring us of Christ’s presence among his people in the power of the Spirit (Revelation 22.20-21). We should take our cue from these eyewitnesses and consider this time as a gift from God, an opportunity to get our own house in order and to work at being God’s people in Christ.

But if God is going to come to make all things new, shouldn’t we just sit back and wait for him to do so? Not at all! St. Peter tells us in our epistle that we are to use this time to repent of our sins and hone our skills as God’s image-bearers to bring God’s love, justice, goodness, mercy, and grace to a hurting and sin-sick world. Doing so honors God and God’s good creation. In God’s new world we will be restored to the fully human image-bearers of God that God created us to be. We can therefore rest assured that God will use our efforts in this world, puny, incomplete, and imperfect as they might be, to help bring his kingdom on earth as in heaven. Advent is thus a time for us to ponder the goodness of God’s creation and our role as fully human beings in it. The Christian faith is the real humanist movement because unlike the false humanists who elevate creatures over Creator, the Christian faith places God and humans in proper relationship to each other and celebrates humans as the image-bearers of God the Father with our attendant holy and elevated duties. 

When we work at obeying our call to be God’s fully human beings—always in anticipation of our Lord’s return to consummate his saving and healing work—we will find that the darkness of this age will wear on us but not overcome or defeat us. That is why Advent is the perfect time for us to devote ourselves to prayer and a careful reading of the Scriptures so that we know fully what are the promises of God made known in Jesus Christ and his people. We should attend to confession and receiving forgiveness because we remember we are part of the problem of sin that God must address, and to the breaking of bread together and to our fellowship because they reveal Christ powerfully present among us. Yes we are stranded on Patmos at the moment but that does not stop us from doing any of these things. We can pick up the phone or write a note of encouragement or get together on a smaller scale. We can still pray together, worship together, commune with Christ together, study Scripture together, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help the poor. We can still support our favorite projects and encourage each other by reminding ourselves that Jesus Christ is crucified, risen, and ascended, and has promised to return to consummate his initial saving work, i.e., that darkness will not have the final say. We can remind ourselves that God is faithful and we can depend on his promises, irrespective of what the world thinks or our fallen nature sometimes doubts, by reminding ourselves regularly that Christ is risen and present to us in the power of the Spirit. We will be mocked as naive and ignorant and reviled as haters—and that’s just for starters. But we will embrace the scorn, praising God for the privilege of suffering shame and derision for our Lord’s Name. We can do all this because we believe our Lord’s Advent promise to us to make all things new. There’s great comfort in that, my beloved. Let none of us feed our pearls to the swine. This Advent, let us resolve as the family of God at St. Augustine’s to demonstrate to the world and each other that we believe the promises and power of God to be true by renewed acts of service, humility, mercy, love—especially to our enemies, justice, patience, and being of good cheer, the kind that comes from having real hope. As we do so, remember St. Paul’s admonition to us about the power of God because that is the key to our success in all our glorious messiness as wounded but rescued human beings: Glory to him whose power working in you is infinitely more than you can ask or imagine. Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus forever and ever.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.