Advent Vespers - Procession

We sang Advent Vespers in St Mary's church in Stirling. Father Andrew Kingham officiated

We started the Processional Hymn in the doorway from the vestry so it sounded distant and had little reverberation from the surroundings.

This was quite effective in communicating that we were coming from a distance.

Then we began to enter the nave and by the end of verse 2 the reverberations sounded better, as you can hear.

By verse three the building was making us sound like chant experts.
Those Pugin boys really knew how to build churches with great acoustics for Chant.

We processed to the back of the church by way of the north aisle, then up towards the Altar along the centre aisle. Our voices hardly changed until we walked past the hand-held phone microphone at verse seven, when you can hear our individual voices as we rustled by.

We sang the final Gaude in front of the Altar, before ascending to our places, bowing first to the Tabernacle and then to each other, after we had climbed the Sanctuary stairs in twos.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

The hymn is the Latin original of Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel and lists the seven 'O Antiphons’ used in the days before Christmas. The congregational Booklet had both the Latin text and the translation of the hymn and described the ancient origin of the O Antiphons. These dated from the earliest centuries of the Catholic Faith.

The congregational Booklet also explained that the first letter of each Antiphon spelled the Latin for 'Tomorrow I will come' (Ero Cras).

Clever, these long-ago Benedictines who arranged the verses so.

December 23: O Emmanuel (O God who is with us)

December 22: O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations)

December 21: O Oriens (O Dayspring)

December 20: O Clavis David (O Key of David)

December 19: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)

December 18: O Adonai (O Lord)

December 17: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, And order all things, far and nigh;

To us the path of knowledge show, And cause us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Adonai, Lord of might; Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,

In ancient times didst give the law, In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free, Thine own from Satan's tyranny;

From depths of hell Thy people save, And give them victory o'er the grave.

Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David come; And open wide our heav'nly home ;

Make safe the way that leads on high, And close the path to misery.

Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind, All peoples in one heart and mind;

Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease; Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.