Tag Archives: Advent

In Advent, Get a New Heart

Advent is upon us. It is an anticipation-filled season of preparation. We are making ready our hearts to celebrate our savior’s birth; and for that reason it is a penitential season as well. If we are truly entering into the fullness of preparation, then we have to be thorough. When we ready our home to welcome our holiday guests we dust out the cobwebs from corners and clear clutter that has been collecting in the spare bedroom. Must we not do the same in our hearts for the Advent of our King?

I have recently been listening to “Clean Heart,” a powerful song off of Matt Maher’s newest album, and it totally reminded me of Advent’s penitential role in preparing us for the celebration of Christmas. (In fact, I added it to my Advent Playlist on Spotify.) The lyrics capture what should be the disposition of our hearts during this time:

“When everybody’s looking for another fight;

when trouble’s on the rise, no end in sight;

oh, Savior won’t you come and make the wrong things right.

Let me be the place you start…give me a clean heart.”

So often we look to the external problems as the cause of our fractured world and disconnection to God. However, Maher’s words remind us where all repentence and restoration must start — internally, in our own individual hearts. The heart that enters Advent asking God to fix her own brokeness first is the humble soul that will be able to be used by God to redeem external brokeness according to his will and kingdom purpose. We cannot be participants in the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth if our hearts are not dwellings fit to welcome our savior.

St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “Love to pray. For prayer gives a clean heart. And a clean heart can see God.” As we enter Advent, it is vital for us to spend time communing with the Lord, so that we can accurately assess the mess in our hearts. Do we have hearts that can see him, that will recognize his coming? The Lord can give us the hearts we need, but we have to release to him the ones we have been hiding. In Ezekiel 36:26, God says:

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

When our hearts are not clean, they are not actually hearts at all. They certainly are not the dwellings that our Creator made to inhabit. Would you give your guest a bed of stone? Of course not, but we cannot give what we do not have. During this Advent season, don’t disguise your hard heart with fine linens; our savior came to a humble manger filled with straw. He doesn’t want the “filthy rags” of our self-righteousness and self-sufficiency (Isaiah 64:6). He wants a soft heart of flesh, and only he can give it to us. Give him your dirty, hard heart; and let him give you a new one — one that is a clean, humble, and soft manger in which he may lay.

 

Copyright 2017 Jessica Ptomey

O Antiphons

We are about to enter the last week of Advent. We are making the final preparations in our hearts to welcome Christ and celebrate His birth. One way that we can do that is to pray the “O Antiphons,” and they start today (Dec. 17th). The “O Antiphons” are really prayers for Jesus to come in our lives. There are seven antiphons, each calling on a different name of our Messiah; and we pray one per day from Dec. 17th to Dec. 23rd.

You could pray them with Evening Prayer, as is the tradition. Or, if you have little ones, you could simply say the antiphon before bed each night, sing the corresponding verse from O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and read the Bible verse that mentions that name. Pray them in a way that flows naturally with your family’s prayer life.

I have listed the antiphons, Bible passages, and hymn verses for each day below. Here they are…

o-antiphons

December 17 – O Sapientia (Wisdom)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: come and teach us the way of prudence.”

Isaiah 11:2: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 18 – O Adonai (Lord)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O Adonai and Leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flames of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us with outstretched arm.” 

Isaiah 33:22: “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler, the Lord is our king; he will save us.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times once gave the law
in cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 19 – O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O Root of Jesse, who stand as a sign among the people, before whom kings shall shut their mouths, to whom the nations shall make supplication: come to deliver us, and tarry not.”

Isaiah 11:1: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”

O come, thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
an ensign of thy people be;
before thee rulers silent fall;
all peoples on thy mercy call.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 20 – O Clavis David (Key of David)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel; who open and none can shut; who shut and none can open: come and lead to freedom the prisoner who sits in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Isaiah 22:22: “I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.”

O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery. 

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 21 – O Oriens (Rising Sun)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O Rising Dawn, splendor of eternal Light and Sun of Justice: come and illuminate those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Malachi 4:2: “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”

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.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 22 – O Rex Gentium (King of Nations)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O King of the Nations and their Desire, the Cornerstone who binds two into one: come and save mankind, whom you fashioned from clay.”

Isaiah 28:16: “See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: ‘One who trusts will not panic.’”

O come, Desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

December 23 – O Emmanuel (God with us)

Tradition O Antiphon: “O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the hope of all nations and their Savior: come and save us, O Lord our God!”

Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

img_2003We plan to start the tradition of praying these antiphons as a family this year. Our children are little, and I have found that having something tactile or sensory to pair with a prayer or religious ritual helps them understand the meaning and get “into” it. So this year I’m finishing up some O Antiphon ornaments for us to hang each night after we pray, read, and sing. I will be posting them each day on Instagram. (You can follow me at jessica.ptomey.) If you are on social media, I encourage you to post your O Antiphons tradition using the hashtag #OAntiphons.

Advent: Why We Rejoice

We are now in the third week of Advent, and lighting the third candle (the “Gaudete” candle) reminds us that we are to rejoice. The chorus of O Come Emmanuel calls us to “Rejoice, rejoice…” — in Latin, “Gaude, gaude…” The brightening of the Advent purple to the color rose is a visual prompt to brighten our hearts at the anticipation of our savior’s birth. We know that we are awaiting Christ’s birth, that this is the reason for our Christmas celebrations. But do we regularly meditate on the impact of that long-awaited birth on human history? Why is this cause to rejoice? Listen to the closing of the Magnificat’s Morning Prayer for the third Sunday of Advent:

“O God of all good, you sent your Son to bring sight to the sightless, healing to the wounded, cleansing to the unclean, hearing to the deaf, life to those condemned to death. Make your Church a living proclamation of your rule, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.”

advent_why-we-rejoice Continue reading →