O Emmanuel (antiphon)

Author

Malcolm Guite

O Emmanuel (antiphon)

Author: Malcolm Guite
Source: Malcolm Guite, ‘O Emmanuel’ (O Antiphon sonnet)
Link: https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2022/12/23/o-emmanuel-a-final-antiphon-and-more-music-7/
Advent placement: 2025-12-03 (paired with [[03-the-burning-chair-cask-strength-bourbon-barrel-select]])

Theme: The final O Antiphon - God-with-us folded into time and place.

Verbatim source text

Reproduced from calendar/2025-12-03.qmd (Whisk(e)y Advent 2025).

O Emmanuel

By Malcolm Guite1

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us O long-sought With-ness for a world without, O secret seed, O hidden spring of light. Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame, O quickened little wick so tightly curled, Be folded with us into time and place, Unfold for us the mystery of grace And make a womb of all this wounded world. O heart of heaven beating in the earth, O tiny hope within our hopelessness Come to be born, to bear us to our birth, To touch a dying world with new-made hands And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.