O Oriens: O Dayspring
December 21st arrives draped in shadow. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year and the longest night—often falls on this day. It’s a time when darkness seems to have truly overcome the light. Thus, it is particularly fitting that the Church assigns O Oriens, the O Antiphon naming Christ as the “Dayspring,” to the darkest day of the year.
Traditional Antiphon
O Dayspring, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
O come, Thou Dayspring,
come and cheer,
Our Spirits by Thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
The Dawn Shall Break
Today’s antiphon primarily draws on Luke 1:78-79, within the Song of Zechariah (also called the Benedictus). In it, Zechariah praises God after the birth of his son, John the Baptist. It is a passage we recite each time we pray the office of Morning Prayer:
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In the tender compassion of our God *
Benedictus (Luke 1:78-79), Book of Common Prayer (2019)
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death, *
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Oriens literally means “rising,” the place of the dawn, the east from which light breaks forth. The antiphon names Christ as the Dayspring, not merely a light within the darkness but the turning point—the moment when the night begins, almost imperceptibly, to give way. He is the one the prophet Malachi names the “Sun of Righteousness” (Malachi 4:2). The solstice sky is not yet bright. Cold still permeates the air, and the dawn comes late. But something has shifted. From this day forward, the light will begin to return.
Those Who Dwell in Darkness
The world we inhabit knows many long nights. Violence, injustice, grief, and quiet despair can make it feel as though the shadows are deepening rather than lifting. This time of year, the world feels even darker and heavier than usual. As I have written before, this can be a very hard time of year for many people, myself included. In my article “The Good Grief of Advent,” I write,
For some, it’s because the holidays call to mind the people they’ve lost. For others, it raises the fear of family conflict and pours salt on past wounds. And then, for some, like me, it’s because our very brains turn against us this time of year. Seasonal Affective Disorder makes it hard for me to function in December. Getting out of bed is a chore… At the very time of year when church activities and social functions increase, I am at my weakest.
Jacob A. Davis, “The Good Grief of Advent”
The 19th-century poet Christina Rossetti was no stranger to the world’s brokenness and her own suffering. Her 1872 poem “A Christmas Carol” (Better known as “In the Bleak Mid-winter”), written shortly after she experienced a near-fatal attack of Graves’ disease, paints a picture of Christ’s birth amidst a harsh winter setting:
In the bleak mid-winter
Christina Rossetti, “In the Bleak Mid-winter”
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Rosetti, of course, knew that ancient Palestine almost never got snow. The picture she paints isn’t of the literal setting of Bethlehem the night of Christ’s birth. She paints a picture of the dark, cold spiritual state of the world that he enters. O Oriens does not deny the world’s darkness; it names it honestly: we are those who Zechariah said “dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” And yet the Church dares to sing this antiphon of Light precisely here on the day of light’s scarcity.
The Dawn of Hope
Christ comes not as a sudden blaze that erases the night, but as the faithful dawn that breaks it. His light does not merely illuminate; it orients. Like the appearance of the morning star, it gives direction to those who have lost their way, warmth to those grown numb, and hope to those who can scarcely imagine morning. Like the solstice itself, his coming marks a decisive change that may be quiet, even hidden, but is nonetheless real.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee make their way through the dark, desolate, evil-occupied land of Mordor on their quest to destroy the One Ring once and for all in the fires of Mount Doom. Weary from their journey, but unable to sleep, Sam gazes up at the cloudy sky while Frodo rests.
Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a bright star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
That one star, shining in the midst of the dark clouds and the barren landscape, is enough to give Sam hope. It provides a glimmer that there is something far beyond, and far more beautiful, than the darkness that surrounds him. It gives him the peace to rest and the fortitude to carry himself—and even Frodo—to the end of the journey.
To pray O Oriens on December 21 is to confess a stubborn, holy hope: that even now—especially now—the light is turning toward us. He has come and will come again. The night is not endless. The Dayspring has risen, and the shadows, however long, are already on borrowed time. The Sun of Righteousness is dawning.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:5
Image: original art by Anderson Carman.
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