Church Year

    Daily Office Booklet

    Daily Office Booklet 2026: January–April

    Posted on December 29, 2025
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    Good news! We’ve completed the latest edition of the Daily Office Booklet. Beginning to pray the Daily Office is a great way to start the New Year. This edition will guide you through Morning and Evening Prayer, using the lectionary readings from January through April 2026. As always, we’ve rendered PDFs for you to print in both booklet and…

    Today in the Spirit: Christmas 2A

    Posted on December 28, 2025
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    We continue to celebrate the Christmas season on the Second Sunday of Christmas. For Christmas 2, the Church gives two options for the assigned Gospel readings in all three lectionary years. These, together with the various options for Gospel readings on Christmas Day, provide coverage of all the infancy and childhood narratives of our Lord’s…

    What is Boxing Day? A Guide to the Second Day of Christmas

    Posted on December 24, 2025
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    Boxing Day, celebrated on December 26, is the second day of Christmas and a day of charity and public festivity. The day is named for gift boxes given to those outside the immediate family, especially those who serve us throughout the year. (It might have something to do with boxing, too, but you’ll have to…

    O Emmanuel

    O Emmanuel

    Posted on December 19, 2025
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    It is folly to the world wrapped in darkness, but our pleas to God to send us Immanuel find their answer in God’s naturally ordered creation by sending us a baby.

    O Rex Gentium: O King of the Nations

    O Rex Gentium: O King of the Nations

    Posted on December 18, 2025
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    Traditional Antiphon O King of the nations, and their desire, The Cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel O come, Desire of nations, bindin one the hearts of all mankind;Bid thou our sad divisions cease,And be thyself our King of Peace. It…

    O Oriens: O Morning Star

    O Oriens: O Dayspring

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    December 21st arrives draped in shadow. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year and the longest night—often falls on this day. It’s a time when darkness seems to have truly overcome the light. Thus, it is particularly fitting that the Church assigns O Oriens, the O Antiphon naming Christ as…

    O Clavis David: O Key of David

    Posted on December 16, 2025
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    O Clavis David, meaning “O Key of David,” proclaims God’s appointed leadership of Christ Jesus as the fulfillment of the hopes and promises given to the dynasty of King David.

    O Root of Jesse (O Antiphons)

    O Radix Jesse: O Root of Jesse

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    To many of us modern folks, the antiphon that begins with “O Root of Jesse” seems, perhaps, out of place among the others in the sequence. Poetic, sure. “Biblical,” of course. But the rest of the “O Antiphons” appear to emphasize key—sometimes eternal—attributes of who God is.

    O Adonai: O Lord of Might

    Posted on December 15, 2025
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    The O Antiphons give seven Messianic titles to Jesus. The first title, Wisdom (Sapientia), evokes God’s creation as described in Genesis and Proverbs. The second title, Adonai, derives from the second book of the Bible, Exodus, in which God delivers his people. Traditional Antiphon O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared…