The Great 'O' Antiphons: O Oriens - 21 December

December 21st

O Oriens,

splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:

veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

English:

O Morning Star,

splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

No matter what people may say about the Advent and Christmas Season in our Northern Hemisphere, we can never get away from the interplay of dark and light. For us the experience of this time in December is of real long dark nights and very near the festival of Christ's birth the more ancient festival of the Solstice, the longest night and shortest day. Unlike some rather die hard religious people, I have no bother with the interconnectedness of older festivals and Christian faith, in Christ the meaning of life becomes different, suffused with a new and unending power, that of triumphant hope, where light softens the cruel dark of fear and death, where a new star stands high above the sun.

Isaiah prophesied that "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-on them light has shined." (Is 9:2).

Saint Bede wrote a wonderful evocation of this light, Christ O Oriens, our true Morning Star: 'Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day'.

O Oriens

On our small Island

Mariners and travellers have looked up

Into the night sky, deeply caught in winter,

O Oriens ! They cry, which is the light to guide?

On the deep rough sea,

Their boat in creaking music

Catching the wind's wail,

They look for the North Star,

Brightest in the constellation.

Far below, shepherds-herding flocks,

Riders on their dancing horses,

Nomads and hunters, down all ages

Looked up and often

Navigating by that star

Into the inky blackness of deep winter's night!

We are spared their travails,

And yet-

Hidden in our deepest selves,

We share with them a yearning.

Who can guide us?

Where is that steadfast light?

On our small Island

We travel still,

Looking, simply looking

Our compass pointing ever onwards!

The Solstice in Winter

Hurls its sharp edged laughter

At our feeble faith,

So often in our ember moments,

When flickering hope,

Is nearly going out.

And yet comes now the dawn,

We greet our Sun,

O Oriens! Sol Justitiae!

In splendour robed,

Our Morning Star

Reveals the gate of heaven!