Hail Ops!
Hail to the great goddess of the earth’s abundance!
Be with us through this non-time and into time itself and beyond!
We thank for your gifts and the countless pleasures we have been given.
May we continue with the holiday spirit!
Salve Ops!

* * * * *

The Opalia are the December festival of the earth-goddess under the indigitation of Ops. Unlike the goddess’ feriae in August, the Opiconsivia, she is here not nominally or directly connected to the god Consus. In December, she is simply Ops rather than Ops of Consus (Ops Consiva or Ops Consivia). But all the same, her festival and that of Consus embrace a central festival between them – that of Volcanus in August and of Saturnus in December. Ops may be identified with both Fauna and Maia, but she also appears to have a link directly with Saturnus. Ops and Saturnus came to be identified respectively with the Greek Rhea and Cronus. Some have considered this identity to be a mistake as well as a late development. But as with Saturnus’ association with the Forum, additamenta for the Opalia indicate that Ops too is now to be found at the same market place – whether with an aedes of her own or whether she in fact shares Saturnus’ temple with him.

In an incomplete suggestion, the Ostian Fasti include a mysterious reference possibly to the youth-goddess Juventas (Ioventati) or the supreme god Jupiter (Iovi). Ops herself continues an ‘upward’ trend to be seen in the uncovering of the underground altar of Consus and the restoration or reemergence – albeit temporary – of the golden age of Saturnus. As a harvest deity, Ops presides over the final in-gathering of the crops. She shares a link with the mundus and its earlier opening rites.

Ops is to be invoked while sitting on the ground and touching the earth with one’s hands.