The Beauty and Power of the O Antiphons
COMMENTARY: These Seven Ancient Prayers Remind Us There Is
More to Advent
(photo: Shutterstock)
FATHER THOMAS
PETRI, OP CommentariesDecember
17, 2018
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that
mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!
This favored Christmas carol is no carol at all.
It’s a hymn for the season of Advent — the liturgical season
that is about so much more than simply preparing for Christmas. During these
short four weeks, the Church has historically focused on our Lord Jesus Christ
as the fulfillment of all prophecy and human yearning as she anticipates not
only the celebration of his incarnation at Christmas but also as she waits in
hope for his glorious return at the end of time.
The verses of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel are
taken from seven ancient antiphons that the Church has used in her Evening
Prayer liturgy since well before the ninth century. Every year, from Dec. 17 to
23, the Church’s liturgy enters a more intense and proximate preparation for
Christ’s coming at Christmas. This shift is noticeable in the readings at Mass
during these days, but also in the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, specifically
at evening prayer. Every evening during that week, the Church prays one of what
have become known as the great “O Antiphons” before reciting Our Lady’s Magnificat canticle.
The O Antiphons invoke Our Lord using imagery taken from the
Old Testament: O Wisdom From on High; O Lord of the House
of Israel; O Root of Jesse’s Stem; O Key of David; O
Radiant Dawn; O King of the Nations; and O Emmanuel.
To these biblical images are added various pleas such as: “Come to teach us the
path of knowledge!”; “Come to save us without delay!”; and “Come and free the
prisoners of darkness!”
Each of these O Antiphons is a beautiful prayer in itself,
but each also demonstrates exactly how the Church has come to understand
Christ’s relationship to the promises and images of God so prevalent in the Old
Testament.
O Wisdom From on High!
Isaiah prophesied that a shoot would sprout from the stump
of Jesse. One of Jesse’s heirs would be a messianic figure and redeemer for
Israel.
“The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of
wisdom and of understanding” (Isaiah 11:1-2). Because Isaiah’s prophecies look
forward so expectantly to the redemption of Israel and the whole world in the
great promises of God, he is particularly the prophet of the season of Advent.
Christ, however, is more than the Anointed One. St. Paul
told the Church in Corinth that “Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of
God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). Christ is the Wisdom that the Book of Proverbs
speaks of as God’s artisan and delight (Proverbs 8). The Eternally Begotten Son
is always the delight of the Father and the Artisan through whom all things
were made.
Perhaps a more poignant instance of a powerful Old Testament
image of the divine is the Dec. 18 antiphon: O Lord of the House of
Israel, giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai. The events recounted in the
Book of Exodus are magnificently tremendous, from the Burning Bush to the
parting of the Red Sea to the giving of the Law to Moses at a Mount Sinai
covered in thunder and lighting.
The Church Fathers routinely noted Christ’s presence in
God’s various manifestations to the Israelites. St. Justin Martyr recalled, “The
same One, who is both angel and God, and Lord and man, and who appeared in
human form to Abraham and Isaac, [also] appeared in a flame of fire from the
bush and conversed with Moses.”
St. Gregory of Nyssa comments on the events of the desert —
the clouds, the thunder and the tabernacle of God’s presence — “Taking a hint
from what has been said by Paul, who partially uncovered the mystery of these
things, we say that Moses was earlier instructed by a type in the mystery of
the tabernacle which encompasses the universe.” This tabernacle, Christ the Son
of God, he continues, “is in a way both unfashioned and fashioned, uncreated in
pre-existence but created in having received this material composition.”
The pre-existing Eternal Son of God who is the perfect Image
of God is also the presence of God in the flaming bush, on Mount Sinai and
perfectly in his incarnation.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Latin version of
this antiphon begins with “O Adonai,” borrowing the Hebrew word
God-fearing Jews speak when reading the Torah to avoid speaking the proper name
of God himself — it is the name Lord, the name St. Paul tells the
Philippians was bestowed on Christ because he did not deem equality with God
something to be grasped, but rather emptied himself unto death (Philippians
2:6-11). Jesus Christ is Adonai. He is Kyrios. He is
the Lord.
Finally, other O Antiphons identify Christ as the
fulfillment of Israel’s greatness and human longing. He is the Oriens,
the dawn that Isaiah promised would rise upon God’s chosen people (Isaiah
60:1-2). He is also the Root of Jesse. So he is not only the fulfillment, but
the beginning, of the Israelite lineage.
He is the Creator and the One through whom David’s lineage
came to be. So Christ is both the beginning and end of the promise to David. He
is the Alpha and Omega. He is the One the Old Testament predicts will rule as
King of all the nations.
The O Antiphons are much more than simple refrains to be
chanted before Our Lady’s Magnifcat or to serve as verses in
an Advent hymn. They reveal the mysteries of Christ already being revealed in
the power and glory of God in the Old Testament.
St. Thomas Aquinas was right to insist that many of the
great prophets of Israel had real and explicit prophetic knowledge of Jesus and
his mysteries even though they lived hundreds of years before the Incarnation.
“Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day,” Jesus himself once preached. “He
saw it, and he was glad” (John 8:56). Christ is active in Israel. He is in the
Old Testament.
These great antiphons remind us that there is so much more
to Advent than preparing for Christmas. They remind us that Christ is the focal
point of salvation history, and, in fact, of all world history, because he
is Emmanuel — “God with us.”
The wisdom of God is exactly such that the Lord creates us
to be in relationship with him in order to bring light not only to our lives,
but to the world. Every year the Church gives us these four weeks so that we
might remember in an intense way what we should be living every day: in
preparation, anticipation and joyful hope that the Lord will come to us and
save us.
O Emmanuel, Our King and Giver of Law: Come to save us,
Lord our God!
Dominican Father Thomas Petri is a professor of moral
theology
at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-beauty-and-power-of-the-o-antiphons
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