O Adonai, a second Advent reflection and sonnet

Image by Linda Richardson

The second of the Advent Antiphons,in my Advent Anthology from Canterbury Press Waiting on the Word, O Adonai, touches on the ancient title of  God himself, who was called Adonai, Lord, because his sacred name, the four letters known as ‘The Tetragramaton’, could not be uttered by unworthy human beings without blasphemy. But the Advent Hope, indeed, the Advent miracle was that this unknowable, un-namable, utterly holy Lord, chose out of His own free will and out of love for us, to be known, to bear a name, and to meet us where we are. The antiphon touches on the mysterious and awesome manifestations of God on the mountain in the sign of the burning bush. For early Christians this bush, full of he fire of God yet still itself and unconsumed, was a sign of the Lord Christ who would come, filled with God and yet in mortal flesh unconsumed. I have tried to pick up on some of these themes in the sonnet I wrote in response to this antiphon. You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. The image above was created by Linda Richardson. she writes:

O Adonai! This is the plural of the word Adon, meaning Lord or Master. These wonderful ‘O’ antiphons surge into our Advent consciousness, bringing with them all the weight of our Christian tradition. The joy of what is coming resounds in our ears as it has done for Christians down the centuries, connecting us with those who first encountered YHWH, those early tribal refugees in Egypt.

Keeping tradition in mind you will see behind the ‘O’ the Latin plainsong and I imagine that it is still chanted in many places.

You can find you can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,

qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,

et ei in Sina legem dedisti:

veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm

O Adonai

Unsayable, you chose to speak one tongue,

Unseeable, you gave yourself away,

The Adonai, the Tetragramaton

Grew by a wayside in the light of day.

O you who dared to be a tribal God,

To own a language, people and a place,

Who chose to be exploited and betrayed,

If so you might be met with face to face,

Come to us here, who would not find you there,

Who chose to know the skin and not the pith,

Who heard no more than thunder in the air,

Who marked the mere events and not the myth.

Touch the bare branches of our unbelief

And blaze again like fire in every leaf.

For a wonderful site about the Advent Antiphons and the wisdom of the meadiaeval mystics see Julia Bolton Holloway’s great site Umilita

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