O Emmanuel

LATIN: O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.

ENGLISH: O Emmanuel, God with us, our King and lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: come to save us, O Lord our God. (From Catholic Online)

Isaiah foretold that “The Lord himself will give you this sign: the Virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” (7:14). Remember “Emmanuel” means “God is with us.” (From Catholic Education Resource Network)

Of some note, according to Professor Robert Greenberg, we get an amazing message if we take the first letters of the titles backward in the Latin. They spell out Ero Cras, or “Tomorrow, I will come.” And, indeed, tomorrow Christ does come!

Brenda Schmitz’s Christmas Wish

If anyone embodies the spirit of the holidays, it’s Brenda Schmitz. And she lost her battle to ovarian cancer two years ago.

May we all learn to be as warm and giving as she demonstrates in a heart-warming letter to her husband.

The Reason of the Season

So a bit of a more timely rant.

I was on one of the many sites I visit off and on during the day, when I saw a piece talking about how to explain Christmas to kids when they aren’t celebrating the holiday for some reason (in the author’s case because she’s Jewish). And I will note that I absolutely love this line of the author’s:

The appeal of Christmas is that every year we try to chase something we can’t get, and to create the family situation we wished we had. Listen up, Jewish children. For Christmas celebrating peoples, Christmas is a chance to get it right, and even though we inevitably fail, we keep trying. –Julia Sonenshein

And we have to admit it’s kind of true: it’s a time we strive for an ideal of perfection and even though it may not always come through (you can read Carolyn Hax’s Holiday Hootenanny for some great examples of the holidays falling apart), we always come back and try again. I think that says a lot about us as humans and our capacity for hope.