The O Antiphons and the Christmas hymn "O Come O Come Emmanuel"
The document "O Come O Come Emmanuel", prepared by the Broken Bay Vicar General, Fr David Ranson, is a series of Advent reflections based on the O Antiphons, a Christmas hymn. These reflections accompany participants toward the sacred mystery of Christmas in wondrous anticipation for the birth of the Lord.
The familiar Christmas hymn brings to melody what in our Catholic Advent liturgy are known as the "O Antiphons". They are the great Magnificat antiphons used at the Church’s Evening Prayer on the last seven days of Advent. They likely date to sixth-century Italy, when the philosopher Boethius refers to the text in his The Consolation of Philosophy. They subsequently became one of the key musical features of the days leading up to Christmas.
Each text, in the original Latin, begins with the vocative particle “O”. Each antiphon is a name of Christ, one of his attributes mentioned in Scripture.
The antiphons are:
17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
18 December: O Adonai (O Lord)
19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
20 December: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
21 December: O Oriens (O Dayspring)
22 December: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
23 December: O Emmanuel (O With Us is God)
The first letter of the titles, from last to first, appear to form a Latin acrostic ‘Ero cras’, meaning ‘Tomorrow, I will be [there]’, mirroring the theme of the antiphons. This is formed from the first letter of each title – Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia.
O Come O Come Emmanuel Advent reflections (PDF 512.1KB)
O Come, O Come Emmanuel with Jessie Black