(For information about this O antiphon, text, music and recording, please see our liturgy page. Please note that the concluding prayer (veni …) is in the plural form, not singular as it was yesterday. Now read on.)

Today at Mass we read either the Song of Songs 2. 8-14 or, as we do in community, Zephaniah 3. 14-18, and the account of the Visitation we had yesterday, Luke 1. 39-45, with verses from psalm 32 as responsorial psalm. The gospel acclamation ignores the O antiphon for the day and instead provides shortened forms of those for 20 and 23 December. We shall not do likewise because to address Christ as the Morning Star (O Oriens) on this, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, is symbolic of our hope both for this world and the next.

The exuberant joy of the passage from Zephaniah finds a lively echo in the gospel. Neither Elizabeth nor John can contain their gladness at the nearness of their Lord, and although we do not read the next few verses of Luke today, we know that they contain Mary's own hymn of rejoicing, the Magnificat. There is a world of difference between such Spirit-filled outpourings and the forced jollity of some of the "worship songs" inflicted on innocent congregations. But the presence of such delight in God begs the question. How often do we receive the gospel as Good News? How often do we welcome the coming of God as cause for celebration? Too frequently, I suspect, we are a little piano, unwilling to risk all that admitting God into our lives "with no holds barred" may involve. We prefer the dimness of the familiar and safe to the brilliance of the unexpected.

Tonight as we sing the Magnificat antiphon, hailing Christ as Splendour of Eternal Light and Sun of Justice, we shall be reminded that we are children of light, not creatures of darkness. As Christians we are, so to say, professional risk-takers, ready to be light-bearers in any and every situation. It requires effort, of course, just as it required effort on Mary's part to be a Light-bearer to Elizabeth; but only so can our prayer embrace the whole human race, "Come and free those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death."