(tune: O come, O come, Emmanuel)
O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death\’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
“Light from Light, true God from true God.” We recite these words every Sunday in the Creed. God is light. Light was the first thing He created according to Genesis 1. Most (though not all) creatures need light to live. Light is compared to truth; living in the light is also living in the truth.
Christ is the Light of the world, the “dawn from on high.” From earliest times, Christians have turned towards the East to pray. Christ is the Dayspring, the rising sun who dawns upon us from on high “to give light to those in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:9). The eastward orientation of churches and altars is a way of expressing the great cry of every Eucharist: “Let us lift up our hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.”
Let us live with our gaze fixed on God
within the communion of saints.
Amen.
Dominican Life on Lotus Lane 