Greetings!Some of the church’s best music comes around in Advent and Christmas – it’s all the “hits,” all the time! One of our biggest “hits,” O Come, O Come Emmanuel, has a fascinating hidden message – see the article below. In both services we’re singing a few verses each week. I hope you’re able to join us in worship this season to experience this extraordinary hymn! See you at coffee tomorrow. Blessings, Rev. Annie P.S. Stick around after 11:00 church this Sunday to help put up our wreaths and greens! |  |
O Come, O Come EmmanuelThis hymn, originally in Latin, takes us back over 1,200 years to monastic life in the 8th- or 9th-century. Seven days before Christmas Eve monasteries would sing the “O antiphons” in anticipation of Christmas Eve. Each one references a prophetic name for Christ in the Book of Isaiah (O Wisdom from on high, O Wheel of Jesse, etc.) Put together, the first letter of the second word of each antiphon in Latin spells SARCORE. If read backwards, the letters form a two-word acrostic, “Ero cras,” meaning “I will be present tomorrow.” The credit for turning all of this into a hymn goes to John Mason Neale (1818-1866), an English minister and translator who was particularly devoted to traditional texts from Latin, Greek, and German. His scholarly interests mirrored an interest in old church music that blossomed in the 19th century. |
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