In many churches in New Orleans I see some face I have met in prison, some one with whom I have pleaded, some one whose pledge I have taken. My work has not stopped here. I have gone to the judge and pleaded for leniency.
In the year of the incarnation of the Lord 1170, Henry king of the English, son of Empress Matilda, held his court in Normandy at Bur, keeping the day of the Lord’s Nativity, saddened and troubled greatly because the archbishop of Canterbury did not wish to absolve the English bishops whom he had bound with the chain of excommunication.
We are accustomed to a natural order of things, with seasons that follow each other in turn, with chores for each season, and beauty different to each season. We know that to do then; we know how to be summer people and how to be winter people.
God is light, and to those who have entered into union with him he imparts of his own brightness to the extent that they have been purified. When the lamp of the soul, that is, the mind, has been kindled, then it knows that a divine fire has taken hold of it and inflamed it. How great a marvel! Man is united to God spiritually and physically, since the soul is not separated from the mind, neither the body from the soul.
Nurslings of purity and disciples of chastity, raise we our hymn to the Virgin-born God with lips full of purity. Deemed worthy to partake of the flesh of the Spiritual Lamb, let us take the head together with the feet, the Deity being understood as the head, and the Manhood taken as the feet.
In this night of reconcilement let no man be wroth or gloomy! in this night that stills all, none that threatens or disturbs! This night belongs to the sweet One; bitter or harsh be in it none! In this night that is the meek One’s, high or haughty be in it none!
O Virgin of Virgins, how shall this be?
For neither before thee was there any like thee,
nor shall there be after. —
Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me?
The thing that ye behold is a divine mystery.
O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver,
the Desire of all Nations, and their Saviour:
Come and save us,
O Lord our God.
O Rex Gentium
O King of the Gentiles, and their Desire,
the Corner-stone, Who madest both one:
Come and save man,
whom Thou hast made out of the dust of the earth.
O Oriens
O Orient, Brightest of the Eternal Light,
and Sun of Righteousness:
Come and lighten them that sit in darkness,
and in the shadow of death.