Blessed are you, O Church: behold, the great feast thunders within you, the festival of the King. Zion is forsaken; her gates thirst greatly and are desolate of feasts. Blessed are your gates, opened yet not filled, and your courts spread wide yet not sufficient. Within you the nations thunder: behold, they have cried out and silenced that People.
Blessed are you, O Church: at your festivals the Watchers rejoice among your feasts. For one night the Watchers gave praise on earth, which had withheld and wronged praise. Blessed are your voices, sown and harvested and stored in heaven’s treasuries. Your mouth is a censer, and your voices, like spices, send fragrance through your festivals.
Blessed are you, O Church: every offering comes to you at this feast. Once the Magi, amid treacherous men, offered their gifts to the Truth. Blessed is your dwelling, to which the Son of the King bent down and in which He dwelt, He who is worshiped with gifts. Gold from the West and spices from the East are offered at your festivals.
Blessed are you, O Church, for near you there is no tyrant king slaughtering children. In Bethlehem he killed children at random so that he might kill the Child who gives life to all. Blessed are your children, envied and honored by kings. The crown of the East that trampled your beloved will itself be trampled by your beloved.
Blessed are you, O Church: behold, Isaiah too rejoices in you through his prophecy: ‘Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Child whose name is a great mystery.’ O interpretation revealed in the Church! Two names were mingled and became one: Emmanuel—God is with you always, He who mingled you with His members.
Blessed are you, O Church, through Micah who cried that a Shepherd would come forth from Ephrath. For He came to Bethlehem to take from it Jesse’s stock and shepherd the nations. Blessed are your lambs, marked with His mark, and your sheep, guarded by His word. You are the enduring Bethlehem, O Church, for within you is the Bread of Life.
Blessed are you, O Church: behold, Daniel too, the beloved man, rejoices in you. He announced that the glorious Messiah would be killed and that the holy city would be laid waste through His killing. Woe to the People that was cast away and did not return; blessed are the nations that were called and did not turn back. The invited guests were rejected, and others in their place enjoy their banquet.
Blessed are you, O Church: behold, on your lyre King David sings within you. In the Spirit he sang concerning Him: ‘You are My Son; today I have begotten You in holy splendors.’ Blessed are your ears, purified to hear. On His day, awaken as His Body and call to Him. Learn from Zion, which made His feast mournful; gladden Him who has gladdened you.
Blessed are you, O Church: all the feasts flew from Zion and pitched their tents with you. Within you the weary prophets found rest from the labor and disgrace they bore in Judah. Blessed are her books, spread open in your temples, and her feasts, celebrated in your sanctuaries. Zion is desolate, and behold, today the worlds thunder in your feasts.
Blessed are you, O Church, with ten blessings, which our Lord gave as a complete mystery. For every number hangs upon ten; therefore ten blessings made you complete. Blessed are your crowns, woven with all of them, the holy blessings mixed into every crown. O blessed one, crowned with every blessing, cast a blessing upon me also.
Blessed are you, Ephrath, mother of kings, from whom the Lord of crowns dawned. Micah gave you good news that He is from eternity and that the span of His times cannot be grasped. Blessed are your eyes, which received Him before all others; He made you worthy to see Him when He dawned. The Head of blessing and Beginning of joys—you received Him before everyone.
Blessed are you, Bethlehem: towns and mighty cities were jealous of you. As women were jealous of Mary, so daughters of rulers among the virgins envied her. Blessed is the maiden whom He made worthy to be His dwelling, and the village He made worthy to be His habitation. A needy maiden and a little village He chose in order to humble Himself.
Blessed are you, Bethlehem: in you there was a beginning for the Son who from eternity is in the Father. It is beyond grasp that He is before the ages, yet in you He subjected Himself to time. Blessed are your ears: in you first sounded the cry of the Lamb of God who rejoiced in you. He became small in your manger, spread through every region, and was worshiped throughout creation.
Blessed are you too, Mary, for your name is great and exalted because of your Child. Could you tell how, how long, and where the Great One who became small dwelt in you? Blessed is your mouth, which confessed and did not murmur, and your tongue, which praised and did not probe. His Mother was bewildered by Him even while she carried Him; who, then, can be sufficient for Him?
O woman whom no man knew, how can we behold the Son you bore? No eye is sufficient to stand before the changing manifestations of the glory upon Him. Tongues of fire dwell in Him who sent tongues at His Ascension. Let every tongue beware: our inquiry is stubble, and our searching is fire.
Blessed is the priest who in the sanctuary offers to the Father the Father’s Son, the Fruit plucked from our tree though He is wholly from Majesty. Blessed are the hands sanctified by offering Him, and the lips worn with kissing Him. The Spirit in the Temple longed to bring Him in; when He was crucified, the veil was torn and went out.
The Archangel gave you greeting as a pledge of holiness. Earth became a new heaven for Him when the Watchers descended and praised upon it. The sons of the Height encircled your dwelling because of the Son of the King who dwelt in you. Your dwelling below became like the heaven above through the Watchers.