The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

The Holy Family - Flight into Egypt

The Holy Family of Nazareth, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are put before us by the Church today as a model for our families.  We call them “The Holy Family” but that does not mean that they did not have problems.  Just as every family has to face problems and overcome them, or to put it another way, has to carry a cross, so also The Holy Family had to carry crosses.  Their many crosses come to mind as we read the Scriptures.

• We can easily imagine how misunderstood both Mary and Joseph must have been when Mary conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Their story would never be believed. 
  
  
• Even Mary herself had it very rough early in the pregnancy when Joseph was planning to divorce her before the angel intervened in a dream.
  
  
• When the time for Jesus’ delivery came it took place in an animals’ shelter since Bethlehem was already so crowded.
  
  
• Then the family had to flee to Egypt as refugees because Jesus’ life was in danger due to Herod, in much the same way as refugees from war-torn countries are now entering many western countries.
  
  
• Mary and Joseph suffered the awful experience of losing Jesus for three days when He was twelve years old and the only satisfaction they got from Him was that He had to be about His Father’s business.
  
  
• We do not hear of Joseph any more so we presume that before Jesus began His public ministry in Galilee Joseph had died - The Holy Family suffering the greatest pain of all families, the pain of bereavement and separation through death.

  

  The Death of Saint Joseph

  
  
• Jesus’ public ministry must have taken its toll on Mary.  Simeon had predicted in the Temple that a sword of sorrow would pierce Mary’s soul.  We can imagine one such occasion as we read in Mark 3:21 that when Jesus returned to Nazareth one day His relatives came to take Him by force convinced that He was out of his mind.  Not a very pleasant experience for any family, no matter how holy.
  
  
• There was also the pain caused by the rhyme made up about Jesus: “Behold a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34).
  
  
• And there was the growing hostility to Jesus by the Jewish authorities that must have caused huge pain to both Mary and Jesus, especially as it became increasingly obvious that Jesus would have to pay for His mission by dying.
  
  
• The saddest moment of all came when Mary watched her Son die on the cross.

What kept The Holy Family together and sane throughout all of these trials and crosses?  The answer is ‘Love for each other and God’.  Jesus’ love for Mary and Mary’s love for Jesus, and the love of both of them for God the Father.  We can see Jesus’ love for His mother when He was dying on the cross and was worried about leaving her behind so he asked his close friend and disciple John to look after her, saying to Mary, ‘Woman behold your son’, and to John ‘behold your mother’ (John 19:26-27).  What holds our families together also in times of difficulty is love and forgiveness.  It is love which triumphs in the end, even if for a while love may have to take the form of some honest talking.  When discipline needs to be given, if it is not given in love it is reduced to abuse.  If ever our families fail in any way, it is because of a lack of love on someone’s part.  Whenever our families are successful, it is because they are places of love.

I believe that the greatest threat facing families now is simply that we don’t spend enough time together.  We are so busy working, or socializing, or watching TV that we have less and less time for each other.  What a pity.  There is a story about a solicitor who lived a considerable distance from her elderly father.  Months had passed since they had been together and when her father called to ask when she might visit, the daughter detailed a list of reasons that prevented her from taking the time to see him, e.g., court schedule, meetings, new clients, research, etc., etc.  At the end of the recitation, the father asked, “When I die, do you intend to come to my funeral?”  The daughter’s response was immediate, “Dad, I can’t believe you’d ask that!  Of course, I’ll come!”  To which the father replied, “Good.  Forget the funeral and come; I need you more now than I will then.” 

As I said, I believe one of the greatest threats facing families now is simply that we do not spend enough time together.  Spending time together with the family is a way of showing our family that we love them.  When we love our family we want to sacrifice ourselves by spending time with them, and all the more so when we realize that by not spending time with them we are depriving them of our love and hurting them.

Just as the Holy Family survived all its crises through love for each other and faith in God, so our families can survive every crisis - if their lives on rooted in a love for one another - and for God. 

(Taken from a homily by Fr. Tommy Lane - professor at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, Emmittsburg, MD)

Feast of the Holy Innocents

The days following the Solemnity of the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ are filled with commemorations of saints.  This is the Church’s way of saying that the birth of Jesus has brought not only joy to the world but an opportunity to be united with God in heaven.  The birth of Jesus signals the beginning of the fruition of God’s salvation in Jesus.

Today, the Church remembers the massacre of the infants in Bethlehem.  In the New Testament, Matthew gives us a narrative of this event that happened a few days after Mary’s giving birth to Jesus.  It is said that Herod “the Great,” king of Judea at that time, was so unpopular with his people because of his ties with the Romans and his indifference to Judaism.  He was insecure and fearful of any threat to dethrone him.  He was capable of extreme brutality – he killed his wife, his brother, and his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few.

The story of the massacre in Matthew’s Gospel (2:1-18) begins with the arrival of the astrologers from the east asking about the whereabouts of “the newborn King of the Jews,” whose star they had seen.  They were told that the Jewish Scriptures had named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born.  Herod was greatly troubled.  He told them to report back to him so that he could also “do Him homage.”  They found Jesus, offered Him their gifts, and after being warned by an angel, avoided Herod on their way back to their own places.

Herod became anxious and “ordered the massacre of all the infants in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.”  The horror of the massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led the evangelist Matthew to borrow the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children…” (Matthew 2:18).  Rachel was the wife of Jacob who later was named Israel.  Jesus was spared because the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream to bring Mary and Jesus to Egypt.

 

Today, we remember the innocent victims of the massacre of the infants in Bethlehem and in neighboring places as we also vow to stop all forms of inhumanity today.  May this feast remind us of the value of human life.  In our world today, because of the greed of many, modern forms of “massacre” are taking place.  Life is God’s gift and we must treasure it and uphold its dignity at all times.

Saint John the Evangelist

St. John, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry.  He became the "beloved disciple" and the only one of the Twelve Apostles who did not forsake Jesus in the hour of His Passion.  He stood faithfully at the cross and it was there that the Lord, from the cross, made him the guardian of His Mother ("Woman, behold your son.  Behold, your mother.").  cf John 19:26-27.  

John spent most of his later life in Jerusalem and at Ephesus.  He founded many churches in Asia Minor.  He wrote the fourth Gospel, and three Epistles, and the Book of Revelation is also attributed to him.  Brought to Rome, tradition relates that, at the order of the Emperor Dometian, he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil but came out unhurt and was banished to the island of Pathmos for a year.  He lived to an extreme old age, surviving all his fellow apostles, and died at the age of 99, traditionally in Ephesus about the year 100.
 

Witness to St. John in the Scriptures:

The Scriptures attest that John was originally a fishermen and fished with his father in the Lake of Genesareth.  He was first a disciple of John the Baptist and later one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus.

John held a prominent position in the Apostolic body.  He is frequently mentioned with his brother, James.  Jesus referred to the pair collectively as the "sons of thunder."  John survived James by more than half a century after James became the first apostle to die a martyr's death.  Peter, James and John were the only witnesses of the raising of Jairus' daughter,^[Mk. 5:37] of the Transfiguration^[Mt. 17:1] and of the Agony in Gethsemane.^[Mt 26:37]  John and his brother wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan town, but were rebuked by Jesus. ^[Lk 9:51-6]  Only he and Peter were sent into the city to make the preparation for the final Passover meal (the Last Supper).^[Lk 22:8]  At the Last Supper, his place may have been next to Jesus on whose chest he leaned if he is indeed the "disciple whom Jesus loved."  However, this can not be concluded with certainty.^{[Jn 13:23-25]} According to the general interpretation, John was also that "other disciple" who with Peter followed Jesus after the arrest into the palace of the high-priest.^[Jn 18:15]  John alone remained near Jesus at the foot of the cross on Calvary with Jesus’ mother, Mary, and the pious women and took Mary into his care as the last legacy of Jesus.^{[Jn 19:25-27]}

Russian Orthodox icon of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, 18th century (Iconostasis of Transfiguration Church, Kizhi Monastery, Karelia, Russia).

After Jesus’ Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, John, together with Peter, took a prominent part in the founding and guidance of the Church.  He is with Peter at the healing of the lame man in the Temple.^{[Ac 3:1 et seq.]}  With Peter he is also thrown into prison.^[Acts 4:3] He is also with Peter visiting the newly converted in Samaria.^[Acts 8:14]

There is no positive information in the Bible (or elsewhere) concerning the duration of this activity in Judea.  Apparently, together with the other Apostles, John remained some 12 years in this first field of labor, until the persecution of Herod Agrippa I led to the scattering of the Apostles through the various provinces of the Roman Empire. ^{[cf. Ac 12:1-17]}  It does not appear improbable that John then went for the first time into Asia Minor.  In any case a messianic community was already in existence at Ephesus before Paul's first labors there.   Such a journey by John in Asia in this first period was neither long nor uninterrupted.  He returned with the other disciples to Jerusalem for the Apostolic Council (about AD 51).  Paul, in opposing his enemies in Galatia, recalls that John explicitly along with Peter and James the Just were referred to as "pillars of the church" and refers to the recognition that his Apostolic preaching of a gospel free from Jewish Law received from these three, the most prominent men of the messianic community at Jerusalem.

Of the other New Testament writings, it is only from the three Letters of John and the Book of Revelation that we can learn anything else about John.  From them we can suppose that John belonged to the multitude of personal eyewitnesses of the life and work of Jesus (cf. especially 1 Jn 1:1-5; 4:14), that he had lived for a long time in Asia Minor, was thoroughly acquainted with the conditions existing in the various messianic communities there, and that he had a position of authority recognized by all messianic communities as leader of this part of the church. 

Extrabiblical traditions

Byzantine illumination depicting John dictating to his disciple, Prochorus (c. 1100).

Catholic tradition states that after the Assumption, John went to Ephesus and from there wrote the three epistles traditionally attributed to him.  John was allegedly banished by the Roman authorities to the Greek island of Patmos, where some believe that he wrote the Book of Revelation.  According to Tertullian (in The Prescription of Heretics) John was banished (presumably to Patmos) after being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it.  It is said that all in the entire Colosseum audience were converted to Christianity upon witnessing this miracle.  This event would have occurred during the reign of Domitian, a Roman emperor who was known for his persecution of Christians in the late 1st century.

When John was aged, he trained Polycarp who later became Bishop of Smyrna.  This was important because Polycarp was able to carry John's message to future generations. Polycarp taught Irenaeus, and passed on to him stories about John.  In Against Heresies, Irenaeus relates how Polycarp told a story of how he heard John speak of his experience with the Risen Christ - and important witness to the Resurrection.

It is traditionally believed that John survived his contemporary apostles and lived to an extreme old age, dying of natural causes at Ephesus in about AD 100.   John's traditional tomb is thought to be located at Selçuk, a small town in the vicinity of Ephesus.

In art, John as the presumed author of the Gospel is often depicted with an eagle, which symbolizes the height he rose to in the first chapter of his gospel.  In Orthodox icons, he is often depicted looking up into heaven and dictating his Gospel (or the Book of Revelation) to his disciple, traditionally named Prochorus.  He normally holds a cup (referring to his presence at the Last Supper) with a serpent coming out of it (this is attributed to a story where he was told to drink a cup of poison which, after blessing it, he did and survived unharmed).

St. Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem about the year 35.  He is consider both the first Christian martyr (the protomartyr) and one of the first deacons of the Christian Church.

All that we know of the life, trial, and death of St. Stephen, is found in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapters 6 & 7.  In the long chronicle of Christian martyrs, the story of Stephen stands out as one of the most moving and memorable.

Although his name is Greek (from Stephanos, meaning crown), Stephen was a Jew, probably among those who had been born or who had lived beyond the borders of Palestine, and therefore had come under the influence of the prevailing Hellenistic culture.  The New Testament does not give us the circumstances of his conversion. It would seem, however, that soon after the death of the Messiah he rose to a position of prominence among the Christians of Jerusalem and used his talents especially to win over the Greek-speaking residents of the city.

The earliest mention of Stephen is when he is listed among the seven men chosen to supervise the public tables.  We recall that these first Christians held their property in common, the well-to-do sharing what they possessed with the poor; and at this time, as always in the wake of war, there were many "displaced persons" in need of charity.  We read in Acts that the Hellenists, as the Greek-speaking Christians were called, thought that they, particularly the widows among them, were being discriminated against at the public tables.  The Apostles were informed of these complaints, but they were too busy to deal with the problem.  Therefore seven good and prudent men were selected to administer and supervise the tables.  The seven, on being presented to the Apostles, were prayed over and ordained by the imposition of hands.  Associated in these charitable tasks with Stephen, whose name heads the list as "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit," were Philip, known as "the Evangelist," Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas-all Greek names.  The title of deacon, which came to be linked with their function, derives from the Greek verb meaning "to minister."  These men served the Christian community in temporal and charitable affairs; later on they were to assume minor religious offices.

Stephen, already a leader, now began to speak in public with more vigor and, "full of grace and power, was working great wonders and signs among the people."  By this time a number of Jewish priests had been converted to the new faith, but they still held to the old traditions and rules as laid down in Mosaic law.  Stephen was prepared to engage in controversy with them, eager to point out that, according to the Master, the old law had been superseded.  He was continually quoting Jesus and the prophets to the effect that external usages and all the ancient holy rites were of less importance than the spirit; that even the Temple might be destroyed, as it had been in the past, without damage to the true and eternal religion.  It was talk of this sort, carried by hearsay and rumor about the city, and often misquoted, intentionally or not, that was to draw down upon Stephen the wrath of the Jewish priestly class.

It was in a certain synagogue of Jews "called that of the Freedmen, and of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and the province of Asia" that Stephen chiefly disputed.  Perhaps they did not understand him; at all events, they could not make effective answer, and so fell to abusing him.  They bribed men to say that Stephen was speaking blasphemous words against Moses and against God.  The elders and the scribes were stirred up and brought him before the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish tribunal, which had authority in both civil and religious matters.  False witnesses made their accusations; Stephen defended himself ably, reviewing the long spiritual history of his people; finally his defense turned into a bitter accusation. He concluded thus:

"Yet not in houses made by hands does the Most High dwell, even as the prophet says.... Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ear, you always oppose the Holy Spirit; as your father did, so do you also.  Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?  And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you have now been the betrayers and murderers, you who received the Law as an ordinance of angels and did not keep it."

Thus castigated, the account is that the crowd could contain their anger no longer.  They rushed upon Stephen, drove him outside the city to the place appointed, and stoned him.  At this time Jewish law permitted the death penalty by stoning for blasphemy.  Stephen, full of "grace and fortitude" to the very end, met the great test without flinching, praying the Lord to receive his spirit and not to lay this sin against the people.  So perished the first martyr, his dying breath spent in prayer for those who killed him.  Among those present at the scene and approving of the penalty meted out to Stephen was a young Jew named Saul, the future Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles: his own conversion to Christianity was to take place within a few short months.

The celebration of the Feast Day of St. Stephen is TODAY, December 26, the day after Christmas.

[Taken from "Lives of Saints", Published by John J. Crawley & Co., Inc.]

Other Notes on St. Stephen:   In the one of the earliest documented uses of irony in Western Europe, St. Stephen was designated by the Medieval Church as the patron saint of stonemasons and, for a period of time, also as the patron saint of headaches.

This painting comes from the church of St. Wenceslaus in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  It shows "Good King Wenceslaus" carrying supplies to the poor on the Feast of Stephen.

The Feast of St. Stephen, being the day after Christmas, is celebrated in the traditional English Christmas carol, "Good King Wenceslaus" (circa 1850):

"Good King Wenceslaus went out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even."

Note that the music for this carol is much older than the words, and with its original verse was first sung on the feast days for St. Stephen and other martyred saints.  Try this original verse instead using the same "Good King Wenceslaus" tune:

"Christian friends, your voices raise.

Wake the day with gladness.

God Himself to joy and praise

turns our human sadness:

Joy that martyrs won their crown,

opened heaven's bright portal,

when they laid the mortal down

for the life immortal."

[Words: Saint Joseph the Hymnographer, 9th Century, translated from the Greek.

Music: "Tempus Adest Floridum" ("Spring has unwrapped her flowers"), a 13th Century spring carol; first published in the Swedish Piae Cantiones, 1582.]
 

Back to Wenceslaus, who ruled the region of Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) for a time in the early 10th Century as its duke.  The carol refers to his supposed caring works for the poor.   St. Wenceslaus became the patron saint of Bohemia and the crown of Wenceslaus is regarded as a symbol of Czech nationalism.  His religious feast day is September 28.   Wenceslaus Square is in the center of Prague, and in 1989 became the site of mass demonstrations that helped end the Communist dictatorship.

The feast of St. Stephen on December 26 is celebrated as "Boxing Day" in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and in other commonwealth countries and is a national holiday there.   The name refers to the practice, as legend has it, of nobles and other wealthy Britons "boxing up" and distributing food and other gifts to their servants and to the poor on the day after Christmas.   Boxing Day was traditionally when the alms box at every English church was opened and the contents distributed to the poor.   Servants by custom were also given the day off to celebrate Christmas with their families.

St. Stephen the Protomartyr (or "first" martyr) should be distinguished from St. Stephen of Hungary (or King St. Stephen), a Magyar who founded the free nation of Hungary in about 1000 AD as its first Christian king.  That St. Stephen was canonized by Pope Gregory VII in 1083 as the patron saint of Hungary, and continues to be venerated by the Hungarian people as a powerful symbol of national freedom.  His religious Feast Day is on September 2, but a national festival for King St. Stephen is traditionally celebrated in Hungary each year on August 20, analogous to that held in Ireland on St. Patrick's Day.

Christmas Message from Bishop McFadden

O Antiphons - December 23 - O Emmanuel

We reach the culmination of the O Antiphons today.  In previous antiphons our cry was directed to the Messiah as He manifested Himself to the Chosen People, to the Gentiles, and in nature; now He is addressed in person and asked to remain with us as Emmanuel. 

Reading this final antiphon gives the feeling that a climax has indeed come.  The very term Emmanuel, God with us, reveals the kindly, human heart of Jesus — He wants to be one of us, a Child of man, with all our human weakness and suffering; He wants to experience how hard it is to be man.  He wants to remain with us to the end of time, He wants to dwell within us, He wants to make us share His nature.

 

O Emmanuel

 

Now we are about to receive the Savior, Emmanuel, God with us.  God's only-begotten Son, born of the Father before all time, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, one being with the Father, is about to be born in time.  For the salvation of men, He has come down upon earth and is conceived by the Holy Ghost in a virgin.  He shall be called God with us, and yet He will be one in nature with us.  He is to be like to us in all things except sin.  He wills to share our poverty and to pray and suffer with us; He assumes our guilt.  He is God with us in every phase of our life; He even takes our place on the cross, He remains with us in Holy Communion, in our daily Mass, and in our tabernacles.  At some time in the future He will still be God with us in His beautiful heaven.  All this He has done for us even though we have repeatedly turned our back on Him.

"Come and save us."  The great God is with us.  He has come, not to destroy the sinful world, as He once destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, but to redeem it from its sins.  This redemption is to be accomplished at the cost of great personal sacrifice to Him.  As if this did not satisfy the burning ardor of His love, He wills to remain with us in our tabernacles.  He incorporates us into Himself and shares His very life with us.  We are engrafted in Him as a branch might be grafted to a new tree.  "I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15:5).  God with us!  We are united to Christ as a limb is united to a body, as a branch is united to a vine.  We now belong to Christ and no longer to ourselves.  We are one with Him.  What a grace, what greatness, what nobility have been conferred upon us!  God looking upon us no longer sees miserable specimens of mankind, but members of Christ.  When He looks upon Christ, He sees Christ and us as united in one body, as a tree united to its branches.  Even the smallest leaf fluttering on the farthest branch belongs to that tree and lives by the sap of that tree.  Could He have redeemed us in a more perfect manner than by thus implanting in us and infusing in us His divine life? Let us reflect upon this seriously.

God with us!  It was that He might be with us that He came that first Christmas at Bethlehem.  He came that He might lift me up from the dust, and that I might share in His life.  He will return this Christmas that He may continue and complete that work.  It is for the same purpose that He comes in every Holy Mass and Communion, and in each inspiration and grace He gives us.  His final coming will be for the same purpose, and will have the further aim of sharing with us His glorified life in heaven.  We shall then enjoy the perfect vision of God, perfect love, and the fulfillment of all our desires for all eternity. For all eternity!

Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

  

7th O Antiphon:

Our King and law-giver, the awaited of the peoples, and their Savior, COME to save us, O Lord our God.

O Antiphons - December 22 - O King of the Nations (Gentiles)

"A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return" (Luke 19:12).  This nobleman is Christ, the Son of God, King of all nations.  His kingdom is over all men and over all things, both material and spiritual.  He has everything in His hand as God and man.  But another, Satan, has broken into His kingdom and has made himself master of many of Christ's subjects.  In the old dispensation only a small part of humanity, the chosen people, remained faithful to the almighty King.

Christ, the Son of God, came into this "far country" in order to become man and, by means of humility, obedience, and poverty, to cast out the usurper who had taken His subjects.  He came to reassert His dominion over all those who had left Him, both Jews and Gentiles 

O King of the Gentiles
 

"Come and save man, whom Thou hast made out of dust."  What is man?  He is but a particle of dust, an insignificant creature who has further separated himself from God through sin.  He has been cut off from the fountain of truth and banished from God to darkness and misery.  Still in the ruins there dwells a spirit that possesses a capacity for truth.  In these ashes there is yet a spark that may be fanned to life to burn with the brilliance of divine life.  But only God can revive this flame.  For this reason the Church cries out, "Come and save man, whom Thou hast made out of dust."  Save him who is so weak, so miserable and helpless.  Remember his nothingness.  Consider the many enemies who lay snares to rob him of divine life and to entice him into sin.  Think of his obscured knowledge and his proneness to evil, of his tendency to error, and his weakness in the face of temptation.  Guard him from the enticements of the world; shelter him from the poison of erroneous teaching; deliver him from the devil and his angels.

During these days before Christmas, the Church contemplates the overwhelming misery of unregenerated mankind.   She cries out, "Come and save man, whom Thou hast made out of dust."

Jesus is King of all nations.  "The kings of the earth stood up and the princes met together against the Lord and against His Christ.  Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us.  He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them.  Then shall He speak to them in His anger and trouble them in His rage.  But I am appointed king by Him over Sion, His holy mountain. ... The Lord hath said to Me; Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee.  Ask of Me and I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Ps. 2:2-8).  Well may Herod seek the life of the newborn king.  Indeed, many kings and tribes and nations in the course of time shall deprecate the divine King, Christ.  But to Him has been given all power in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28: i8).  Before Him every knee shall bend, and every tongue shall confess that He is the Lord (Phil. 2:10f.).

The more the mighty condemn the kingship of Christ, the more shall He be exalted by the Father.

Now He comes to us in the form of a lovely child.  One day in the presence of the Roman governor He will assert His right to kingship.  But after this one public confession of His royal origin He withdraws again into the obscurity which He had freely chosen.  For the present He is satisfied with this manifestation of His royal dignity.  The day will come, however, when He will manifest it with power and majesty as He comes again on the clouds of heaven.  Before all nations God will declare: "I have anointed Him King of Sion.  My holy mountain."  All men shall pay Him homage as king; all nations shall acclaim Him the King of Glory.

Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

   

6th O Antiphon:

And their desired one, cornerstone, who makest two into one, COME save man, whom thou didst fashion out of slime.