By Andrew Junker | Dec. 14, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

Across the world, millions of Christians wait patiently or otherwise for the coming of Christmas. Throughout the season of Advent, they participate in any number of traditions that help prepare them for the Nativity: Advent calendars, Advent wreaths, las posadas.

But there’s one lesser known tradition that begins today, Dec. 17, and it holds great insight into the whole notion of waiting for a Savior. They’re called the O antiphons, and they’re recited or chanted every night during Evening Prayer from the 17th until the 23rd of December.

Each night, the antiphon uses a different title for the Messiah: O Sapientia (Wisdom), O Adonai (Lord), O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (Key of David), O Oriens (Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (King of the Nations), and O Emmanuel.

The exact origins of these antiphons are a bit mysterious, but they’ve been a part of the Church’s Christmas preparation since at least the 8th century.

Taken as a whole, the antiphons tell the story of a people waiting for their savior, said Gayle Somers, a teacher at the local Institute of Catholic Theology.

“The O antiphons rehearse for us the experience of God’s people who waited for the first Advent of the Lord’s Messiah, although they did not know it was Jesus, the son of a carpenter, for whom they waited,” said Somers, who also teaches Scripture classes at the Kino Institute. “Why was Israel longing for a Messiah, One who would be addressed by these seven antiphonal names?”

To answer that question could take a book, but the short answer is because God promised them a savior.

“God promised to bless Abram with a son, and to make a great nation of him, a nation through whom ‘all the families of the earth shall bless themselves,’” Somers said. “Clearly, God had a plan.”

Much of the Old Testament, then, is the unfolding of this plan. Israel received God’s law through Moses; it was called to be a special nation, a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

“This was the nation in which God literally dwelt — the Temple in Jerusalem was the solitary place on earth where God would meet with His people, in the person of the High Priest, once a year,” Somers said.

And for a time, the nation lived up to its calling with the kingships of David and Solomon. But, then, there was a succession of bad kings, who refused to listen to the prophets God sent to call His people back to Him. It all resulted in the Babylonian Exile.

“Most painful was the loss of the throne in Israel — there was no son of David to rule God’s people, as God Himself had promised,” Somers said. “The glory of Israel was gone. It was not simply that the Temple and palace and houses had disappeared, but the very promises of God to His people, from which all those things had come, now seemed in serious doubt.”

Into this mess God sent the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, who were not sparing in their judgment of Israel. At the same time, these prophets told their people that God had not abandoned them. In fact, He was preparing them for coming of a great Messiah.

“One who was wise like Solomon (O Sapientia), who would manifest God’s glory as the flame in the bush had to Moses (O Adonai), the flower of Jesse’s stem (O Radix Jesse) was on the way,” Somers said.

“The throne of David was not lost (O Clavis David); the sun of justice was yet to rise again on God’s beloved people who sat in the darkness of exile (O Oriens),” she said.

“That One would be a true Son of David, reaching out to the Gentiles to show them the light of the Lord, as was always Israel’s vocation (O Rex Gentium). And, most remarkably, that One would be called Emmanuel, ‘God with us’ (O Emmanuel), which was the blessing Israel had lost through stubborn disobedience — God’s own presence in their midst,” Somers said.

And while the O antiphons provide a wonderfully concise retelling of salvation history, the rich writings from which they come should be an ever new and challenging source for Christians today, said Tricia Hoyt, director of the Office of Parish and Community Engagement for Catholic Charities.

“The reign of God is in the present moment, and the opportunities to see and enter into its fullness are all around us,” she recently wrote for a Catholic Charities reflection.

“Yet the fulfillment of God’s desire for the created order is not yet realized. The reign of God is here and not yet. Advent is the time when we live in a heightened awareness about the tension between the now and the not yet,” Hoyt wrote.

From her perspective, then, the Old Testament readings at Masses during Advent become a call to arms against injustice. She reflects on this perspective when reading Jeremiah.

“The Prophet Jeremiah is an illustration of this reality, emerging from a tradition which, after the Jewish exile in Babylon, longs for a restored Israel. It is the cry of those who have experienced utter destruction and desolation and who cling to the boundless hope that the world will be put right once more,” Hoyt said.

“As human beings, we know what it is to fix our gaze on a dream that we so ardently desire, knowing that the realization of the dream may not occur within our own lifetime,” she said.

And that’s a feeling all Christians can have if they long to see God’s kingdom in all its glory and power, Somers said.

“The first Advent assures us that this is not an empty hope. Even while we wait for Christ’s Second Coming, at the end of time, we know that every time we go to Mass, we anticipate His coming,” she said. “Advent gives us four weeks to prepare for another year’s worth of those ‘comings.’”

Will Christians show Christ the hospitality denied to Him at the Inn? Will they greet Him as Emmanuel in the Eucharist? Somers asked. Will they seek Him in the wisdom of Scripture? Will they announce Him as the light of all the nations?

“If we are ready for Him in these ‘comings,’” she said, “our Advent season will be fruitful and rich.”