Understanding “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

One thing that Christmas reminds me of is the Advent Season: the four Sundays of Advent, the four Advent candles, and of course, the Advent Wreath. Basically, the season of Advent represents the beginning of the liturgical calendar (the time frame that the Roman Catholic Church follows for the Holy Mass) and the coming of Jesus Christ.

I am in charge of choosing the songs for the first morning service in our Church. As such, I opted to have the song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” as our post-communion song. I was going over my copy of the lyrics and a hunch made me feel that it wasn’t right.

Thank goodness for the Internet for I was able to check and iron out the correct words to the song! I found the following Latin lyrics and their translation on this site: