The Christmas Novena
O Antiphonae
The Road to Bethlehem
Luke's Gospel dates the birth to a Roman census ordered by Caesar Augustus and carried out under the governor Quirinius (Luke 2:1-2), the only fixed civil event the infancy narrative gives; historians have never fully reconciled its timing with the reign of Herod the Great, whom Matthew's Gospel has still alive at the birth, and the discrepancy has been argued since antiquity.
O Wisdom
The Antiphon
O Sapientia, who camest forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence.
O Sapientia is the first of the seven great O Antiphons, sung at Vespers in the Latin rite since at least the eighth century; its text draws on Wisdom 8:1 and Sirach 24, Old Testament passages that describe Wisdom as present at creation and governing all things.
O Adonai
The Antiphon
O Adonai, leader of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and give him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
O Adonai takes its name from the Hebrew word substituted aloud for the unspoken divine name, and pairs it with two scenes from Exodus: the burning bush at Horeb (Exodus 3) and the giving of the law on Sinai (Exodus 19-20).
O Root of Jesse
The Antiphon
O Radix Iesse, who standest as a sign to the peoples, before whom kings shall keep silence and whom the nations shall entreat: come to deliver us, and tarry not.
O Radix Iesse draws its image from Isaiah 11:1, a shoot come forth from the stump of Jesse, Jesse being the father of King David; the antiphon reads the promised branch as still future, six centuries after the Davidic monarchy had ended.
O Key of David
The Antiphon
O Clavis David, and sceptre of the house of Israel, who openest and no man shutteth, who shuttest and no man openeth: come and lead the prisoner out of the prison house, where he sits in darkness and the shadow of death.
O Clavis David quotes Isaiah 22:22, where the key of the house of David is given to Eliakim, master of the palace, with the power to open and shut that no one else can reverse; the antiphon pairs it with Isaiah 9:2, on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.
O Dayspring
The Antiphon
O Oriens, splendour of eternal light and sun of justice: come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
O Oriens falls on or near the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, and names Christ the rising sun, a title drawn from the Vulgate's wording of Luke 1:78, placed deliberately at the year's darkest point.
O King of the Nations
The Antiphon
O Rex Gentium, and desire thereof, thou cornerstone that makest both one: come and save man, whom thou didst form out of the clay.
O Rex Gentium calls Christ the cornerstone that makes two walls one, a phrase drawn from Ephesians 2:14 and 20, and then returns to Genesis 2:7, where man is formed out of the dust of the ground.
O Emmanuel
The Antiphon
O Emmanuel, our king and lawgiver, the expectation of the nations and their saviour: come and save us, O Lord our God.
O Emmanuel is the last and shortest of the seven, naming Christ directly with the title from Isaiah 7:14, they shall call his name Emmanuel, meaning God with us; taken backward, the initial letters of the seven Latin titles, Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia, spell ero cras, tomorrow I will be there, a detail medieval choirs are recorded noticing themselves.
No Room
The Greek word translated inn in Luke 2:7, kataluma, is the same word Luke later uses for the upper room of the Last Supper, not the ordinary word for a commercial inn; many scholars now read the verse as saying a relative's guest room was already full, and the couple was given space where animals were kept for the night, in a family home rather than a wayside inn turning strangers away.
The seven O Antiphons are sung at Vespers from 17 to 23 December and are at least as old as the eighth century; the translations given here are the familiar English ones, long in public circulation. What follows each of those seven days is a fact about that antiphon's scriptural source; the first and last days, which have no antiphon of their own, carry a fact about the nativity narrative instead. The Advent custom of reading the antiphons backwards to find ero cras — tomorrow I shall be there — is medieval and may be a happy accident.
