Advent Invite...
I'm pulling this back up to the top of the blog as a reminder: it all starts tomorrow... or late tonight, if you work 3rd shift.
OR Several years now I've posted a series of Meditations on the "Great O Antiphons" that were used in the western Church during Advent. There are enough of them to cover the entire season of the Nativity Fast (new calendar), if they are broken up into short periods of time and we use the odd 8th antiphon used in the Sarum Use:
XI.15 O Sapientia
XI.20 O Adonai
XI.25 O Radix
XI.30 O Clavis
XII.5 O Oriens
XII.10 O Rex
XII.15 O Emmanuel
XII.20 O Virgo
(The full text of the Antiphons, in English and Latin, along with a hymn based on them is here. Many thanks to Clifton.)
So the invite is this - anyone want to join me in writing the meditations on their own blog? One blog on each of 8 days spaced far enough apart, I think. Just write your own meditation based on the Antiphon - poetry (even one haiku) or maybe only an icon or a picture with a text from the fathers or the scriptures. What ever you'd like. It will give visitors to your site a chance to slow down in anticipation of the holiday as well as a chance to join us on the fast, even if only visually.
COMMENTS
Sounds good. I will post the Antiphons in English with the plainsong melodies.
I'll join in.
Though being on the Old Calendar (soon), I'll have an extra couple weeks to figure out what to say...
You may count me in. I'll even try to locate a Polish translation.
I love that you do this every year. It wouldn't be autumn without the O antipons.
Matt, thank you for that very kind compliment!
Not sure what O antiphons are, but it sounds Christmasy:
O antiphons, O antiphons;
Your branches green delight us...
OMG! Howdy, Silouan! The "Great O Antiphons" are the source for the Christmas Carol "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel". There are links in the post above to the text.
In some of the Western Rites they are used at vespers on the last few days before Christmas. We're hijacking them for these purposes, but I'm following the tradition of my last Episcopal Parish: St Gregory Nyssa Church uses them as sort of the Prokemeinon on the 7 weeks before Christmas.
Okay, I now I ended up flaking out last year. But I *will* join in this year.