The O Antiphons of Advent

Reflecting on the Advent Hymn, "O come, O come, Emmanuel" with The Rev. Douglas A. Beck, ObJN                                                   

If you listen closely to these last days of Advent, you’ll hear humming. Not loudly. Not triumphantly. More like the low, steady sound of the tide along the rocks, or the wind moving through spruce trees just before snow. These are the days of the O Antiphons.

From December 17th to the 23rd, the Church gives us these ancient names for Christ: O Wisdom. O Adonai. O Root of Jesse. O Key of David. O Dayspring. O King of the Nations. O Emmanuel. Each one begins with that long, aching vowel—O—a sound that feels less like a word and more like a sigh. Or a prayer breathed out naturally. Each name for Christ is a prayer in itself.

The thing to know about the O Antiphons is this. They don’t explain Jesus. They call to him. They don’t define God. They reach for God. They remind us that we don’t have to have everything sorted out. They show us that it is ok wait with honesty as we are. They show how to name what we need without pretending we already have it.

Each antiphon gathers up centuries of longing. They echo the cries of a people who knew exile and silence, who wondered if God had forgotten them. And yet, night after night, they kept singing. Come. Come with wisdom for our confusion. Come with light for our darkness. Come with presence for our loneliness.

There’s something deeply countercultural about this way of waiting. We’re used to urgency. We like answers now, fixes now, clarity now. But the O Antiphons slow us down. They invite us to dwell in the not-yet, to trust that God is already moving even when we can’t see it—like seeds beneath frozen ground, movement under the deep sea, like the moments just before the sun breaks the horizon.

And then there’s this quiet surprise hidden in the O antiphons. If you take the first letters of the Latin titles and read them backward, they spell E-R-O C-R-A-S, ero cras, a Latin phrase meaning “Tomorrow, I will come.” Not today. Not on our timetable. But tomorrow. God’s promise whispered into the waiting.

So maybe our task isn’t to rush, but to linger with these names. To let them shape our prayer. To let them remind us that God meets us not in certainty, but in longing, as we pray: “O come, O come, Emmanuel. Stay close. We’re listening.”