(For information about this O antiphon, text, music and recording, please see our liturgy page.)

Today's Mass readings are Malachi 3. 1-4, 23-24 and Luke 1. 57-66. The responsorial psalm is taken from psalm 24, and, instead of the antiphon of the day, O Emmanuel, we have a version yesterday's (O Rex Gentium). Once again Colophon will be perverse and consider the Mass readings in the light of O Emmanuel, the last of the Great "O"s.

According to Malachi, the advent of the Lord was to be preceded by the coming of his messenger, the prophet Elijah. The identification of Elijah with John the Baptist was made by the Lord Jesus himself ("I tell you solemnly, Elijah has come…") but it is easy to see in Luke's account of the Baptist's ministry parallels with that of Elijah, especially in that fiery zeal for God which must have been so uncomfortable for his listeners. But it is the end of today's gospel passage which draws our attention. "'What will this child turn out to be?" [the people] wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was upon him."' Here, just before the birth of Christ, we are asked to consider the birth of his forerunner, the man who would prepare the way for him. John's birth was strange and there is a sense that something stranger still is about to take place. Who could have foreseen that the Son of God was about to be born? We know that John will be driven out into the desert by his love for God; that he will live on the margins of society, dress in weird garments and live on an austere diet; that he will be fearless in proclaiming the truth, challenge the kings of this world and pay the price exacted for such courage; that he will point his own disciples towards Christ and rejoice that he himself must diminish. And all because "the hand of the Lord was upon him."

Tonight's antiphon prepares us for the coming of Christ by heaping upon him titles which explain who he is and what he has come to do. As King and Law-giver he fulfils the promise of the Old Testament; he is the one for whom, whether knowingly or unknowingly, the whole of humanity (= the gentiles) has been longing; he is the Saviour of all. It is as Emmanuel, God-with-us, that we invoke him and ask him again to come and save us.