+ The overriding theme for today’s readings is of
the seeming impossibility of the sign of a “virgin
with child.” How can this be? A virginal mother?? But it could be. [For nothing will be impossible with God].
And in fact, it was so. In the same way, the seeming impossibility of the
removal of Adam’s sin could in fact be a reality, because of the “child of the
virgin!”
In
our series of “O Antiphons” recited as the “Alleluia Verse” before
the gospel these last days of Advent,
today we consider “O Key of David, opening
the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom: come and free the prisoners of darkness!”
These “O phrases” are ancient titles of the coming Messiah, they indicate some
of the activity that he would initiate when once he arrived.
Today, then, we have the
seeming impossibility of the release of prisoners condemned to live in
darkness; this darkness and captivity was set in place by the free-will choice
of our father in the flesh: Adam, and his wife Eve. Their wrong choice thrust
them and all their descendants according to the flesh into an infernal place of
wailing in the dark – and the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven were closed
against them even if they could be freed.
But
the glorious Key of David: the Lord and Messiah of
David’s Royal House, Savior and Friend, Jesus Christ came to “turn on the
lights” and to open the prison doors and the gates of heaven all at the same
time – but by the price of his own self-sacrificial death on a cross. Praise be
Him!
We
thank this precious Key, we worship this Key, we adore this Key
who in his infinite wisdom and love did what was required for our salvation!
And we pray that we can help others use this wondrous Key, turn the lights on
in their own lives, and finally end up with us in a heavenly kingdom with gates
thrust open to receive us!
O Key of David, come and free
us all: the prisoners of darkness
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