O Clavis David

If you can, won’t you please join us this evening at 6:00 PM for chanted Solemn Vespers at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Tacoma?

Continuing on with our annual tradition, we come closer and closer to the birth of the Messiah, “the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall close, who closes and no one shall open” (Revelation 3:7).

The key is the symbol of authority.

Christ is the Key of the House of David who opens to us the full meaning of the scriptural prophecies, and reopens for all mankind the gate of Heaven.

“And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Isaiah 22:22).

Christ himself employs the idea of the key as the symbol of authority:

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

(Matthew 16:17-19)

From these verses come the doctrine of Peter’s successor the Pope as the earthly head of the Church.

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israël;
qui áperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo áperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo cárceris,
sedéntem in ténebris, et umbra mortis.

Englished:

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.