O Antiphon Craft

Our family has been exploring the Liturgy of the Hours this year. Pope John Paul II's encouragement for the laity to explore these prayers really touched our hearts and we have been praying Sunday Vespers together as a family with the help of this lovely resource. (Although I am sure our Cistercian friends would chuckle at our feeble attempts).

The O Antiphons have been on my mind for a while and I had an idea that was loosely based on a craft I saw years ago. I think Marjorie's idea first caught my eye over at the 4Real forum, but it has been too long to remember exactly.

I loved the idea of recycling the stacks of empty Altoid boxes in my craft closet, but didn't want to hunt for things to create dioramas. So instead, I printed off the images from Fr. Z's wonderful Antiphon Website and used his translations to create the cards inside. I probably should have put the dates, now that I think about it, but oh well.

I colored the inside pictures with chalk pastels but you might decide to let your kids color one each night. My kids are on a little bit of a coloring strike right now.

I covered the nutritional information on the back with pretty paper, then made stencils of the first letters of the Messianic titles, and outlined them in gold glitter paint. My idea is that when the Antiphon is read, the box can be placed with the letter showing slowly spelling out ERO CRAS which translates to "Tomorrow, I will come!"

According to Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Benedictine monks arranged these antiphons with a definite purpose. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia - the Latin words ero cras are formed, meaning, “Tomorrow, I will come.” Therefore, the Lord Jesus, whose coming we have prepared for in Advent and whom we have addressed in these seven Messianic titles, now speaks to us, “Tomorrow, I will come.” So the “O Antiphons” not only bring intensity to our Advent preparation, but bring it to a joyful conclusion.

If you would like to make your own, here are my pdf files that already have all the images sized correctly. This file has the inside pictures and antiphons, and this one has the outer images with the titles. You just have to trace around them and cut them out. For the stencils on the back, I used the Harrington font in a 275 pt. size. If you need some Altoid boxes, you local friends can come get some extras, otherwise, dump the mints in a candy dish and let your house be perfumed by them. (That way you can use the boxes now!) I prefer peppermint, but cinnamon would be nice too! (Ooooh, maybe wintergreen... my grandpa always smelled like wintergreen!)

Hope you are all warm and cozy. Our snow has melted into rain, but we are hoping for some more soon!