WDTPRS The O Antiphons: 19 December – O Radix Iesse

Posted on 19 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is the O Antiphon for 19 December: O Radix Jesse

Again Our Lord is presented as the Liberator.

LATIN: O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.

ENGLISH: O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not.

Scripture References:

Isaiah 11:10
Romans 15:12
Revelation 5:5

Relevant verse of Veni, Veni Emmanuel:

O come, O Rod of Jesse free,
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.

What urgency there is in this antiphon.

Our Lewis & Short says that radix is “a root, ground, basis, foundation, origin, source”.

Ironically, roots are underground and invisible, but standards, ensigns are raised high in the air.

Something that lies below the earth (a root) stands high into the heavens like a banner!

Vexilia Regis Prodeunt we sing in Lent. The little root of Advent becomes by Lent grows into the Tree of our salvation.

The one from above takes our mortal clay into an indestructible bond. He raises us to the heavens.

Isaiah 11:10 gives us imagery for our reflection today.

The great prophet of Advent tells us that the kingdom of David would be destroyed, but not entirely destroyed. A root would remain. Jesse is David’s father. David is Jesse’s root. David leads to Christ.  Christ is the David King Messiah Priest.

After the destruction there remains a root.

No matter what the exigencies of life present to us or how turbulent the vicissitudes of the passing world may be, when we cling to the root we are sure to be victorious in the end.  The root bears up on high to the heavens.

Per aspera ad astra.  Succisa virescit.

Life includes patterns of destruction and rebuilding, pruning and regrowth, transplantation and rerooting.  So long as we are grafted into the Root, we survive and grow.

Exitus.  Conversio.  Reditus.

Let’s hear the wonderful community at Le Barroux sing this antiphon with the Magnificat.

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Daily Rome Shot 1509

Posted on 19 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Welcome registrant:

glselden
Liam

 

White to move and mate in 2.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

And

May be an image of text that says 'I am the Ghost of Christmas Future Imperfect Conditional. said the Spirit. I bring news of what would have been going to happen. if you were not to have been going to change your ways.'

And… Merry Christmas!

And… Happy Birthday again Marines!

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ADVENTCAzT 2025: 20 – Ember Friday 3rd Week of Advent – “A breath of fresh air”

Posted on 19 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A 5 minute daily podcast to help you in your Advent preparation.

Joseph Ratzinger zooms to the heights he can reach about faith and reason and emotion and then he gets quite concrete and practical.

Connect that to a note from Fulton Sheen.

Yesterday’s podcast HERE.

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A Christmasy Emmaus! Old Testament Prophets are SAINTS in the Church’s calendar.

Posted on 18 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is 18 December, the Feast of the Old Testament Prophet St. Malachi.

Since the beginning of December, Holy Mother Church has been imitating the Lord on the Road to Emmaus.

She has been reminding us of all the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah who would also be incarnate God.

She has done this subtly, through feast days, but feasts that are not generally visible to most of us.  Holy Mother Church has used her “album of the saints”, the Roman Martyrology, to teach about the Old Testament Prophets.

Sometimes you hear people – even priests, for shame – use the word “liturgy” when they mean “Mass”.  “In today’s ‘liturgy’…”, they say.

No.  The Mass is the greatest expression of the Church’s liturgy, but it is not all there is.  There are also the canonical hours of the divine Office.  The Office also makes use of the liturgical book called the Roman Martyrology.

Paging through the 2005 Martyrology, we find that many Old Testament figures are counted as saints.

If the general calendar of the Church permits, it would even be possible to celebrate them for Mass!

Today, for example, St. Malachi who pointed to the forerunner of Christ, St. John the Baptist who heralded the coming of the Lord.  Christ quotes Malachi on this in Matthew 11.

In a few days we have the Winter Solstice and the Feast of St. Micah.  Micah said (5:2)

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    who are little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
    from ancient days.

About those Old Testament prophets…

Keep in mind that in earlier days, Advent was longer than it is now, from Martinmas.  Prophets start popping up in the calendar in the 2005 Martyrology.

19 Nov – Abdia or Obediah. (RomMart 2005, p. 632)
1 Dec – Nahum (p. 652)
2 Dec – Habakkuk (p. 654)
3 Dec – Sophonius or Zephaniah (p. 655)
16 Dec – Haggai (p. 674) and some sources David (others have David on 29 Dec)
18 Dec – Malachi (p. 677)
21 Dec – Micah (p. 680)
24 Dec – “Commemoratio omnium sanctorum avorum Iesu Christi, filii, David, filii Abraham, filii Adam…” (p. 684)  Commemoration of all the holy “ancestors” (lit. grandfathers) of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, son of Adam

Just a little public service announcement.

FYI… other prophets

1 May – Jeremiah (p. 263)
9 May – Isaiah (p. 277)
15 June – Amos (p. 338)
20 July – Elijah (p. 401)
21 July – Daniel (1878 MartRom)
23 July – Ezekiel (p. 408)
4 Sept – Moses (1878 MartRom)
6 Sept – Zachariah (1878 MartRom)
21 Sept – Jonah (p. 528)
17 Oct – Hosea (p. 575)
19 Oct – Joel (p. 579)

 

 

 

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WDTPRS: O Antiphons – 18 December – O Adonai

Posted on 18 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The O Antiphons: 18 December – O Adonai

LATIN: O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

ENGLISH: O Lord and Ruler the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come, and redeem us with outstretched arms.

Scripture References:
Exodus 3
Micah 5:2
Matthew 2:6

Relevant verse of Veni, Veni Emmanuel:

O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty, and awe.

“Adonai” is “LORD.” It was the Hebrew word that the Jews used when they found the four-lettered word for God’s name which they held to be too sacred to pronounce aloud. The four letter word for God’s Name, the Tetragrammaton, is still venerated by us to the point that Holy Church asks us not to use it in liturgical song.

Christ is Lord, Lord of Creation. We sang this yesterday in the antiphon “O Sapientia“. Christ is also Lord of the Covenant with the People He chose.

The Lord made covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Moses. He guided them and all the People. He gave them Law. He protected and feed them. The Lord delivered them from bondage to Pharaoh and unending slavery. He went before them with arm outstretched.

This was all a pre-figuring of the great work of redemption that Christ would work on the Cross. He redeemed us His People from Satan and the eternal damnation of hell.

He once appeared clothed in the burning bush that was not consumed by fire.

He is about to appear again clothed in flesh in our liturgical celebration of Christmas.

He will appear again one day in the future to judge the living and the dead.

He appears to us each day in the person of our neighbor.

What amazing contrasts we find in our Lord! He came in thunder and lightening to give the Law on Mt. Sinai. He comes now in swaddling clothes. He will come again in glory. He comes humbly in the appearance of Bread and Wine.

He still goes before us with outstretched arm and our foes are put to flight at the sight of His banner!

Shall we hear the Benedictines of Le Barroux sing the O Antiphon and Magnificat?

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Daily Rome Shot 1508

Posted on 18 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please remember me when CHRISTMAS shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

And… good or bad it was a big deal.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

White to move and mate in 4.  Tricky.

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ADVENTCAzT 2025: 19 – Thursday 3rd Week of Advent – True love

Posted on 18 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A 5 minute daily podcast to help you in your Advent preparation.

Today a reminder from Fulton Sheen.

It’s not a fanciful tale, it’s true.

If we do not love Jesus, whom else are we capable of loving?

Yesterday’s podcast HERE.

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Daily Rome Shot 1507

Posted on 17 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please remember me when CHRISTMAS shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, etc..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

 

Some chessy history….

As I write, there are 43K+ game being played live on lichess.  Chess.com averages over 20 million games per day.  One report said over 30 million.

A friend sent me an piece about the first “online” chess game.

The first online chess game happened in December 1844 by Efosa Udinmwen

On 26 November 1844, two chess teams faced off while separated by 60 kilometers, as the Washington Chess Club played a team in Baltimore using the newly built electrical telegraph.

Three consulting members played on each side, transmitting moves over the wire. Washington opened with a pawn to the center, and Baltimore mirrored it.

This method allowed a full game without either team being physically present, marking what is considered the first online chess game.

Alfred Vail and Henry Rogers developed a system to assign numbers to each of the 64 squares, converting traditional descriptive notation into numeric codes.

Moves such as “pawn to queen’s bishop’s four” became “11 to 27,” simplifying transmission across the telegraph.

The system logged each play meticulously, including corrections in real time.

Although records of all games are incomplete, some sources report that 686 moves were transmitted without interruption.

Spectators occasionally observed the process, and operators recorded the number of people present.

The telegraph itself was simple, consisting of a battery, a switch, and a magnet.

Despite its apparent simplicity, signals weakened over distance, wires broke, and early equipment often failed, so there was a need for consistent monitoring of the line to ensure accurate reception.

The Baltimore–Washington telegraph ran alongside railroad tracks, and overhead insulated copper wire replaced failed underground attempts.

Despite Congress funding the initial line, practical daily use remained minimal, and most activity consisted of demonstrations and curiosity-driven experiments.

Telegraph chess inspired similar experiments abroad, including matches between London and Gosport in 1845.

White mates in 2
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Later, US grandmaster Bobby Fischer transmitted moves from New York to Havana in 1965 via teletype.

In a promotional game in 1999, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov played an online game against “the world.”

Today, the internet has taken telecom chess to fabulous new heights, with one site alone, chess.com, hosting up to 20 million games daily, sometimes pushing server capacities.

Chess is particularly compatible with telecommunications because it can be transmitted as concise, precise information.

Why have technologists taken the opportunity to play chess using so many generations of telecommunications?

This is likely because Chess is popular and inherently suitable for long-distance play.

“There are similarities in thinking processes [between] engineering design, and the sort of puzzle solving that a chess game involves,” says Kazdan of Case Western Reserve.

However, this connection may be one-sided. “Many engineers like chess. I’m not sure many chess players like engineering.”

Here is an article about playing chess using CW (Morse Code) via amateur radio: HAMCHESS.  HERE

Meanwhile…

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SUPPORT CHAPLAINS!

And… yes, it can happen…

And…

If you want to do something nice to promote authentic “walking together” for your parish priest you should get him a case of beer from the wonderful traditional Benedictine monks of Norcia, Italy. They make three kinds of beer and they are all exceptionally good.

And… BTW… Wordle in 4 today.

UPDATE:

In Mumbai right now, there is a team tournament the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League Day 4 at the Royal Opera House. All games are played with 20 minutes for the entire game, with a 2-second increment starting from move 41. Each team as six players, including women and a “junior” born 2003 or after. Total prize fund of $1,000,000.

I just saw my guy Wesley So (2nd board for the upGrad Mumba Masters) defeat the dangerous Arjun Erigasi of the PBG Alaskan Knights. The Mumba Masters are leading so far.

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WDTPRS: O Antiphons – 17 December – O Sapientia – The Way of Prudence

Posted on 17 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On December 17th we enter into that final stretch of our Advent preparation. In the Church’s solemn prayer of the hours, at Vespers, the great “O Antiphons” are sung. Today we have the first.

Years ago, I made a little webpage for the O Antiphons.  It might be useful.

By way of introduction, here are a few points every Catholic should know.

First, the song Veni, veni Emmanuel is a musical presentation of the themes of the O Antiphons.

Second, the first letters of the “addressee” of the Antiphon, arranged backward spell out “Ero cras… I will be (there) tomorrow”.  So, there is a clever “count-down” in the antiphons.

Third, each of the “O Antiphons” carries Old Testament biblical figures. At the same time each one carries an element of the New Covenant. These two characteristics are juxtaposed and a third dimension emerges which serves as a point of meditation when considering the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made flesh.

Today’s O Antiphon is O Sapientia.

LATIN: O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

ENGLISH: O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.

Scripture References:
Proverbs 1:20; 8; 9
I Corinthians 1:30

Relevant verse of  Veni, Veni Emmanuel:
O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who orders all things mightily,
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.

In today’s “O Antiphon” – “O Sapientia” – we are drawn into the Old Testament’s wisdom literature. Wisdom is a divine attribute. The divine Wisdom is personified. Wisdom is the beloved daughter who was before Creation, Wisdom is the breath of God’s power, Wisdom is the shining of God’s (transforming) glory. (See Sirach 24:3 and Wisdom 8:1.)

Wisdom is also something which we deeply desire. It is also a human attribute, not just a divine attribute, though authentic human wisdom is never separated from a relationship with God. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as we learn from the psalms as well as the school of personal hard-knocks. From this convergence of awesome respect for God with the experience of learning through life’s mysterious calendar, we understand (if we are wise) that wisdom is more than mere knowledge. It is something more than love.  It is something more than just a special astuteness regarding how to get along in life, a certain kind of savior faire. Rooted as it is in fear of the Lord, true human wisdom is both love and that knowledge of God that seeks to understand, the knowledge that is completed by faith.

The Prologue of John’s Gospel refers to the “Verbum caro factum...the Word made flesh”. He is the divine Logos… the eternal thought/word/reason. Through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing can be. So, the New Testament image in the Prologue of John brings to completion the imagery of Wisdom. He, the Word, is the archetype of the material universe. All things are ordered in and to Him.

Our lives, to be happy, need order. Our individual private lives and our collective lives in larger society must have structure and order. They must be disposed in such a way that the real and genuine good of all is fostered and promoted. Thus, in human governance we struggle to find the proper balance of exercise of power (without which governance and order is not possible) and gentle concern for the individual and community (without which there is mere imposition and tyranny and exploitation for some end material or ideological). Wisdom permits the balance of these.

This first “O Antiphon” shows us the Creator of all that is invisible and visible, the whole of  spiritual and material creation.  Creation is moving according to an eternally disposed plan of divine Providence toward an inexorable end: that God may be all in all. In this end the blessed elect will participate. We have had the way opened for us toward this end by the Word (divine) made flesh (human). Our humanity now sits in transformed glory at the right hand of the Father in an indestructible bond with the Son’s divinity. The risen Christ is the new Adam…the new Creation. With unspeakable sweetness He orders our salvation. With irresistible power all things exist and move according to His will. Our lives have meaning only in Him, according to His guidance, who handles us “suaviter et fortiter“.

Our Old Testament and New Testament figures and images merge into a new point of reflection for our lives which today’s “O Antiphon” underscores as “prudence” – “Come…Teach us the way of prudence!”

“Prudence” comes from the Latin “to see/look ahead”. It is one of the four “cardinal” virtues, the one upon which the other virtues depend. Prudence is a habit of the intellect that allows us to see in any circumstance what is virtuous and what is not. Prudence helps us to seek what is virtuous and avoid what is not. Prudence perfects the intellect (rather than the will) in practical decisions. It determines which course of action must be taken. It indicates what the golden mean is hic et nunc…here and now. This mean is at the core of every virtue. Without the virtue of prudence courage becomes foolhardiness… rushing in to the wrong danger in the wrong way at the wrong time. Without the governing of prudence mercy devolves into slackness and enervated weakness, spinelessness.

But this is still a kind of prudence which is merely human prudence, not looking beyond the issues of daily life.  We must also look beyond this vale of tears. In addition to the prudence which grows out of the school of hard-knocks and which becomes a sound and good habit through repeated acts, there is another prudence, an “infused” prudence. This kind of prudence is a grace given us by God out of His merciful love. This greater prudence, which governs other grace-filled virtues, cannot be separated from the life of grace. It is exercised in the state of grace.  Mortal sin is its enemy.  This higher kind of prudence helps us to determine the proper things that help us to salvation.  It helps us to avoid things that slam the door that Christ opened (mortal sin). Thus, prudence cannot be separated from charity, which is in the soul as a characteristic of sanctifying (habitual) grace.

Today in the opening “O Antiphon” we sing to Emmanuel who is coming.  We plead with Him, for He orders all things “sweetly and strongly.”  He teaches us how to avoid things that harm us, both in material concerns and in our pursuit of the happiness of heaven.  He teaches us true prudence.

Take stock: is there something going on in my life that needs to be examined in prudence? Am I doing something which is going to be an obstacle to the happiness of heaven? Christ is coming, both at Christmas as the infant King and the end of the world as the Judge and King of fearful majesty. This is a cause to rejoice.  But it is also cause to prepare prudently and well the way of the Lord and make straight His paths before He comes, as we heard about on “Gaudete” (“Rejoice!) Sunday of Advent.

Listen to the monks at Le Barroux sing this antiphon and the Magnificat with which it is inextricably bound:

 

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The Riches of Ember Wednesday of Advent – The Missa Aurea or Golden Mass

Posted on 17 December 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This week we observe, being after St. Lucy’s Day last 13 Dec, the Advent Ember Days.

Ember Wednesday of Advent had the tradition of celebrating the Missa Aurea, or Golden Mass, so-called because in ancient illuminated missals and sacramentaries the initial capitals were in gold.  It was once a strong custom, in the Middle Ages, and then it faded away only to be revived with the 1960 reforms. And now certain people are trying to suppress again that which has always been sacred and great.

All the more reason to do it up big and do it up right.  Molon labe.

Missa aurea also refers to little dramas in medieval times in which the Annunciation was acted out.  It is thus not just “golden Mass” but “the golden sending“, which of course refers to the moment in which Our Lord becomes incarnate in the womb of the Virgin and His work for our salvation begins a new phase.

The first words of the Gospel for this day are “Missus est angelus…“.  So, missus… missa… etc.

Missa aurea comes to be used in the terminology of art history also for paintings of the Annunciation, which often contain dramatic elements associated with the tableaux struck in the dramatic presentations of the mystery.  Doves would be lowered and an old man would be placed in a loft wearing an alb and cope.  Angels would come vested in dalmatics.

The Arena or Scrovegni Chapel in the 13th c.  Giotto’s frescoes echo this tradition as do many paintings of the Annunciation.

In nature in the Northern Hemisphere, we are in the shortest days and longest nights.  Frankly, I long for the longer days.  Imagine how people longed for the light before they had electricity.   The longing we have for the calendar to move, the Earth to whiz faster toward longer days, is a parallel for our longing for the Lord to come.  He is Light from Light.

The 1st Collect for Ember Wednesday speaks to this impatience: read it aloud and listen for the urgency within the threefold “command” we are issuing to the Lord (festina… ne tardaveris… impende).

COLLECT:

Festina quaesumus, Domine, ne tardaveris,
et auxilium nobis supernae virtutis impende;
ut adventus tui consolationibus subleventur,
qui in tua pietate confidunt.

This Collect, an ancient prayer found in such manuscripts as the 8th c. Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis, survived the snipping and pasting experts of Fr. Bugnini’s Consilium in a somewhat truncated form, to be prayed on 24 December in the Novus Ordo: Festina, quaesumus, ne tardaveris, Domine Iesu, ut adventus tui consolationibus subleventur, qui in tua pietate confidunt.

That form tardaveris is a perfect subjunctive of tardo, “to tarry, loiter, linger, delay”, paired here with ne to form a kind of imperative.  That ne tardaveris is found in the Latin version of the Psalms.

Impendo is “to expend, devote, employ, apply”.  Pietas, when it refers to man has to do with “duty”, but when applied to God, it becomes “mercy… pity”.  Remember that adventus here is a genitive with tui.   Sublevo means, basically, “to lift up from beneath, to raise up, hold up, support”, but it comes to mean, “to sustain, support, assist, encourage, console any one in misfortune”.  The perfect way to describe this vale of tears in which we journey.

LITERAL VERSION:

Hurry, we beseech You, O Lord, tarry not,
and expend upon us the help of heavenly power;
that those who rely upon Your mercy
may be sustained by the consolations of Your Coming.

You can feel in this prayer the growing Christian sense of urgency and longing.  Motus in finem velocior! Advent seems to pick up speed and become more anxious for resolution as we plunge headlong into physical darkness and cold, the reminders of our inevitable appointment with death.

This oration looks simultaneously back to the Nativity of the Eternal Word made man, but also forward to the Second Coming, which gives us consolation.  Christians in the state of grace can feel great consolation at the thought of the Coming of the Lord, in history and in the time to come.

We need not be afraid when we are in the state of grace.  Therefore, the Christian always eagerly says “Come, Lord Jesus.  Maranatha.   Come.”

This prayers rings with consolation.

May the Lord’s coming and promise of return console any of you who are burdened with sorrow. Many people feel at times inconsolable.

This time of year can be a annual trial of despair and sadness for so many who are alone and suffering.

In gratitude for the Lord’s promises, console others.

Think of this as a “golden rule”.

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