CHRISTMAS NOVENA - Day 8: O Emmanuel

23rd December: O Emmanuel

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

Based on the famous prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, the title Emmanuel is the key to the mystery of incarnation. The presence of God with the people was the greatest of the promises that they could experience. Be it with Abraham or with Moses or with Joshua or with the people who were walking in the desert, one of the prominent promises that God gave was to be with them! Christ comes as the fulfilment and the most complete expression as that promise: as God among us.

The symbol is the virgin with the child in the manger. It is not just any child, but the promised salvation of the God of the universe, the king who has come to meet his subjects to make them co-heirs to his throne. The manger is a lovely symbol that unites the heaven and the earth, the Divine and the human!

The presence of the Lord is salvific; one who has experienced it cannot remain silent - he or she has to go out and share it, make every one else experience that presence! This is the crux of evangelisation: it is not proselytisation, not sheep stealing and increasing the numbers within a fold. It is sharing that salvific presence that one has experienced, from the Lord. The first call is to experience the God-with-us, the presence of the Lord with us, and the call that follows is to share that presence with those around - that is salvation.

The prayer is to the Lord our God to save us by God's saving presence... in simple words it is a beseeching to stay with us, to live with us. to sanctify us, to make us worthy of God and of God's great big family.

The Reign - an attentive beholding!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Fourth Tuesday in Advent - December 23, 2025

Malachi 3: 1-4, 23-24; Luke 1: 57-66

We are in the last step of preparation towards the commemoration of the great Incarnation moment! Just as our 24 day long preparation towards this feast this year, the original incarnation event had its preparation too, only that it was a bit longer, longer by let us say a few centuries... yes, there was a patient and compassionate preparation on the part of God... preparing God's people generation after generation to behold that peak moment of revelation. 

The preparation, which Malachi compares to the skillful precision of a silversmith, was so patient that some were not strong enough to wait; it was so compassionate that it did not leave out even those who did not have the strength. Yes, the Lord prepared with everyone in embrace; no one is  left out of that compassion. 

The preparation of God was so attentive - no one, no detail was left unattended, just as a silversmith cannot afford to take his or her eyes off the precious metal that is being worked on. God had the divine eyes fixed on each of us, with love and understanding, preparing each of us. We see that in the Gospel today...how every one was being prepared - John the new born, his parents, those around - everyone; the whole creation is gearing up to behold the coming of the One, the One Saviour, the Son of God. 

For us, the pilgrims of hope, for whom the hope is the Reign, the Reign is being prepared with attention, patience and compassion... just as the Lord who is preparing it with attention, we are called to behold it with attention. There could be experiences and responses that can make us lose the attention and focus on other matters that may not be proportionately important or urgent! The Word calls our attention today, towards an attentive beholding of the Reign.