A little background...
December 21 is the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere today we will have only about 8 hours and 45 minutes of daylight. The night ahead will be the longest of the year and beginning tomorrow, daylight will lengthen at an average of 2 minutes and 7 seconds every day.
In the week before Christmas there are special antiphons sung in the church's prayer and the one for today is "O Rising Sun!" On the solstice, the shortest day of the year, we celebrate Christ as "Oriens" which means dawn, sunrise, break of day. Christ is the light no darkness can extinguish!
Rise like the dawn, Lord!
Let your sun's rays thaw my heart
to melt and heal what my grips my soul...
O come, O Day-Spring, from on high
and cheer me with your light...
that rob me of your peace...
Draw me from my darkness
Draw me from my darkness
to the light that dawns each morn...
In these dark and wintry days, Lord,
In these dark and wintry days, Lord,
by my warmth and be my light...
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