The Great 'O'Antiphons
December 17th to 23rd
These short chants have been sung for centuries during the last days of Advent, immediately before the Magnificat at Vespers, the night prayer of the church. They address Christ with seven magnificent Messianic titles, one for each of the final days of Advent, based on the Old Testament prophecies.
Each Antiphon is accompanied below by a reflection, courtesy of The Great O Antiphons of Advent website.
23rd December
O Emmanuel - O God With Us
O Emmanuel - O God With Us
And so, we come to the seventh and last of the Great Advent Antiphons, O Emmanuel! O, God With Us!
The prophecy was fulfilled two millennia ago; it continues to be fulfilled in our daily lives; and it will be fulfilled again at the end of time. The cry of longing reverberates through all time, on heaven on earth, “O Come, Lord Jesus!”
Reflection
O Emmanuel
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us, Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
The prophecy was fulfilled two millennia ago; it continues to be fulfilled in our daily lives; and it will be fulfilled again at the end of time. The cry of longing reverberates through all time, on heaven on earth, “O Come, Lord Jesus!”
Reflection
O Emmanuel
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us, Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
22nd December
O Rex Gentium - O King of Nations
O Rex Gentium - O King of Nations
Today our title is 'O King of Nations'.
Reflection
O Rex Gentium
O King of our desire whom we despise,
King of the nations never on the throne,
Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,
Rejected joiner, making many one,
You have no form or beauty for our eyes,
A King who comes to give away his crown,
A King within our rags of flesh and bone.
We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise,
For we ourselves are found in you alone.
Come to us now and find in us your throne,
O King within the child within the clay,
O hidden King who shapes us in the play
Of all creation. Shape us for the day
Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.
Reflection
O Rex Gentium
O King of our desire whom we despise,
King of the nations never on the throne,
Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,
Rejected joiner, making many one,
You have no form or beauty for our eyes,
A King who comes to give away his crown,
A King within our rags of flesh and bone.
We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise,
For we ourselves are found in you alone.
Come to us now and find in us your throne,
O King within the child within the clay,
O hidden King who shapes us in the play
Of all creation. Shape us for the day
Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.
21st December
O Oriens - O Radiant Dawn
O Oriens - O Radiant Dawn
Today is the Winter Solstice and the shortest day of the year. We recall the words of Isaiah, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great Light'. From today onwards the days begin to lengthen in the northern hemisphere as we head back towards summer!
Reflection
O Oriens
First light and then first lines along the east
To touch and brush a sheen of light on water
As though behind the sky itself they traced
The shift and shimmer of another river
Flowing unbidden from its hidden source;
The Day-Spring, the eternal Prima Vera.
Blake saw it too. Dante and Beatrice
Are bathing in it now, away upstream…
So every trace of light begins a grace
In me, a beckoning. The smallest gleam
Is somehow a beginning and a calling;
“Sleeper awake, the darkness was a dream
For you will see the Dayspring at your waking,
Beyond your long last line the dawn is breaking”
Reflection
O Oriens
First light and then first lines along the east
To touch and brush a sheen of light on water
As though behind the sky itself they traced
The shift and shimmer of another river
Flowing unbidden from its hidden source;
The Day-Spring, the eternal Prima Vera.
Blake saw it too. Dante and Beatrice
Are bathing in it now, away upstream…
So every trace of light begins a grace
In me, a beckoning. The smallest gleam
Is somehow a beginning and a calling;
“Sleeper awake, the darkness was a dream
For you will see the Dayspring at your waking,
Beyond your long last line the dawn is breaking”
20th December
O Clavis David
O Clavis David
The First Reading today tells of David’s desire to build a house for the Arc of the Lord. However, the Lord says: 'I will make you a House…your throne will be established for ever.'
O Key of David and sceptre of the house of Israel; that openest, and no man shutteth; and shuttest and no man openeth: come, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death!
O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
Reflection
O Clavis
Even in the darkness where I sit
And huddle in the midst of misery
I can remember freedom, but forget
That every lock must answer to a key
That each dark clasp, sharp and intricate,
Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard.
Particular, exact and intimate,
The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward.
I cry out for the key I threw away
That turned and over turned with certain touch
And with the lovely lifting of a latch
Opened my darkness to the light of day.
O come again, come quickly, set me free
O Key of David and sceptre of the house of Israel; that openest, and no man shutteth; and shuttest and no man openeth: come, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death!
O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
Reflection
O Clavis
Even in the darkness where I sit
And huddle in the midst of misery
I can remember freedom, but forget
That every lock must answer to a key
That each dark clasp, sharp and intricate,
Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard.
Particular, exact and intimate,
The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward.
I cry out for the key I threw away
That turned and over turned with certain touch
And with the lovely lifting of a latch
Opened my darkness to the light of day.
O come again, come quickly, set me free
19th December
O Radix Jesse: O Root of Jesse
O Radix Jesse: O Root of Jesse
Today, we address Jesus as 'O, Radix Jesse' - 'O, root of Jesse'. Jesse was King David's father.
Reflection
O Radix
All of us sprang from one deep-hidden seed,
Rose from a root invisible to all.
We knew the virtues once of every weed,
But, severed from the roots of ritual,
We surf the surface of a wide-screen world
And find no virtue in the virtual.
We shrivel on the edges of a wood
Whose heart we once inhabited in love,
Now we have need of you, forgotten Root
The stock and stem of every living thing
Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove,
For now is winter, now is withering
Unless we let you root us deep within,
Under the ground of being, graft us in.
Reflection
O Radix
All of us sprang from one deep-hidden seed,
Rose from a root invisible to all.
We knew the virtues once of every weed,
But, severed from the roots of ritual,
We surf the surface of a wide-screen world
And find no virtue in the virtual.
We shrivel on the edges of a wood
Whose heart we once inhabited in love,
Now we have need of you, forgotten Root
The stock and stem of every living thing
Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove,
For now is winter, now is withering
Unless we let you root us deep within,
Under the ground of being, graft us in.
18th December
O Adonai - O Lord
O Adonai - O Lord
Today we hear the title, O Adonai. For our Jewish brothers and sisters, the name of God is so sacred that it is never pronounced, but replaced by an alternative name. Adonai is one such alternative.
Reflection
O Lord
Unsayable, you chose to speak one tongue
Unseeable, you gave yourself away,
The Adonai, the Tetragramaton
Grew by a wayside in the light of day.
O you who dared to be a tribal God,
O own a language, people and a place,
Who chose to be exploited and betrayed,
If so you might be met with face to face,
Come to us here, who would not find you there,
Who chose to know the skin and not the pith,
Who heard no more than thunder in the air,
Who marked the mere events and not the myth.
Touch the bare branches of our unbelief
And blaze again like fire in every leaf.
Reflection
O Lord
Unsayable, you chose to speak one tongue
Unseeable, you gave yourself away,
The Adonai, the Tetragramaton
Grew by a wayside in the light of day.
O you who dared to be a tribal God,
O own a language, people and a place,
Who chose to be exploited and betrayed,
If so you might be met with face to face,
Come to us here, who would not find you there,
Who chose to know the skin and not the pith,
Who heard no more than thunder in the air,
Who marked the mere events and not the myth.
Touch the bare branches of our unbelief
And blaze again like fire in every leaf.
17th December: Sunday in Week Three of Advent
O Sapientia - O Lord
O Sapientia - O Lord
Today, we begin the great 'O' antiphons. The first of these is O Sapientia - O Wisdom.
Reflection
O Wisdom
I cannot think unless I have been thought,
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.
I cannot teach except as I am taught
Or break the bread except as I am broken.
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,
O Light within the light by which I see,
O Word beneath the words with which I speak
O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me!
O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me
O Memory of time, reminding me
My Ground of Being, always grounding me,
My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me.
Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,
Come to me now, disguised as everything.
Reflection
O Wisdom
I cannot think unless I have been thought,
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.
I cannot teach except as I am taught
Or break the bread except as I am broken.
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,
O Light within the light by which I see,
O Word beneath the words with which I speak
O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me!
O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me
O Memory of time, reminding me
My Ground of Being, always grounding me,
My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me.
Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,
Come to me now, disguised as everything.