One of the richest Christian traditions is praying the “Oh Antiphons” on the seven days before Christmas. We learn to appreciate these Antiphons more deeply if we take a closer look at theology, anthropology, and even twentieth-century American musical‑comedy.

The “Oh” of Ecstasy

I’ve loved Broadway musicals since I was a young girl. My favorite is The Fantastiks, the longest running musical in American history. When I saw it for the fifth time in a tiny off-Broadway theater recently, I marveled at how much more I understood since the first time I saw it in my early twenties. The Fantastiks is essentially a story about the movement from romance to mysticism.

The heroine is a romantic and naive sixteen-year-old girl. In one of the opening scenes, she screams “Oh!” almost a hundred times and falls into a swoon: “Oh, oh, oh!… I hug myself till my arms turn blue and my tears come down and I can taste them!” The girl  experiences what poet Richard Wilbur calls the “oh of ecstasy.” The word “oh” occurs repeatedly in the writings of the Christian mystics.

The seven Oh Antiphons are “ohs of ecstasy,” cries of the heart, cries of awe and wonder, mystery, and adoration. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J., the French paleontologist-mystic, said: “The more human we become, the more we become prey to a need, a need… to adore.” According to British author G.K. Chesterton, “If we cannot pray, we are gagged. If we cannot kneel, we are in chains.”

In the Christian mystical tradition, adoration is the highest form of prayer. When we hear the “Good News” proclaimed by the Incarnation, The-Word-Made-Flesh we celebrate at Christmas, the good news expressed in every one of the Oh Antiphons, we may need to fall on our knees and adore or hug ourselves till our arms turn blue and the tears come down and we can taste them. Full of awe, we wonder: How can this be true? How is it a dream come true?

“Praise Names” from the African Bushmen

The Bushmen who live in the Kalahari Desert of southwest Africa are inherently religious. For these people, all life is sacred and full of the Divine, so the Bushmen are full of gratitude and praise. They have “praise-names” for everything. Their names for people are like our “nicknames,” but unlike nicknames, Bushmen praise-names are not casual, irreverent or short. They are longer, more sublime, and majestic. The name uLangalibalela, given to a man who is “both a doctor of the body and healer of fading shadows,” mysteriously means “The Right Honorable Sun-Is-Hot.”

The Bushmen also give praise-names to the commonplace materials they use every day to survive in the harshness of their desert environment. A hunting spear for finding food may be called U-Simsela-Banta-Bami: “He-Digs-Up-For-My-Children.” Like the African praise-names for Umkulunkulu, who is “the first spirit of all things,” the Oh Antiphons are praise-names for the Holy One who “comes” to us on Christmas.

Primordial Words

Most of the Oh Antiphons are titles for the Messiah taken from the Jewish Testament. But they are older than ancient Israel, growing out of our very bones and blood, as old as the awakening of human life on earth. This may be why they move me so deeply. German Jesuit Karl Rahner helps me understand when he reflects on the complementarity of theology and poetry. Rahner spoke eloquently about “primordial words.” “Primordial” is my favorite word in the English language. It means first, original, foundational, primary, elemental, existing at or from the beginning. As Rahner wrote:

There are words which delimit and isolate, but there are also words which render a single thing translucent to the infinity of all reality. They are like seashells, in which [we hear] the sound of the ocean of infinity, no matter how small they are in themselves. They bring light to us, not we to them. They have power over us, because they are gifts of God, not [human] creations…. Some words are clear because they are shallow and without mystery; they suffice for the mind; by means of them one acquires mastery over things. Other words are perhaps obscure because they evoke the blinding mystery of things. They pour out of the heart and sound forth in hymns. They open the doors to great works and they decide over eternities. Such words, which spring up from the heart, which hold us in their power, which enchant us, the glorifying, heaven-sent words, I should like to call primordial words.

What, then, are these primordial words, these “ohs of ecstasy,” praise-names that “evoke the blinding mystery of things,” the enchanting little finite antiphons which pour out of the human heart and open the door to infinity? Here is the traditional translation of the seven antiphons. December 17: Oh Wisdom. December 18: Oh Adonai. December 19: Oh Root of Jesse. December 20: Oh Key of David. December 21: Oh Dayspring. December 22: Oh King. December 23: Oh Emmanuel. These are the images we sing in the verses of the traditional Advent hymn, “O Come Emmanuel.”

“Oh Come”

In the traditional prayers said on the first Sunday of Advent, the most important  primordial word is “come”: “Oh Lord, rouse up your power and come.” After Vatican II, Church officials rewrote the Oh Antiphons and unfortunately eliminated the word “Oh.” They emphasized the word “Come” instead, which begins each of their translations of the seven prayers.

The symbols in the Antiphons are vivid: key, root, flower, and the dayspring, morning star or rising sun. Several of the other symbols are less evident. Wisdom is usually depicted by the all-seeing eye of God or a scroll and Adonai, Ruler of Ancient Israel, by a Jewish star, the burning bush, or the Ten Commandments.

Creating your own Oh Antiphons is a wonderful way to celebrate the season of Advent. When I lived in monastic community, we began first with paper and hung the symbols up one by one as we prayed the Antiphon for each day. But paper was too flimsy. The next year we made them out of purple cloth filled with pinto beans. But the beans were too heavy, and the Antiphons crashed to the floor! We finally carved our Antiphons out of wood and painted them bright colors. Our anticipation of Christ’s coming was greatly enhanced as the familiar wooden patterns were hung secretly each night in the chapel. Forty years later, I have my own personal set of wooden Antiphons and put one out in my urban hermitage on each one of these seven special days. They are primitively painted in purple and gold. I cherish every one of the flaws in them, a gift from an old friend, the first in my circle to leave this world and just before Advent.

To absorb the mystery revealed in the Oh Antiphons, we cannot simply read about them. We need to pray them or their “magic” will not work. When we pray them day after day, year after year, they begin to permeate our entire being. May my own translation of the Oh Antiphons, created for two or more voices, plunge you more deeply into the inexhaustible mystery of the Word-Made-Flesh we celebrate at Christmas.