The O Antiphon: December 21 - O Oriens

O Dayspring,
splendor of light everlasting:
Come and enlighten
those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death.

Today is the shortest day of the year in our "little world." And the longest night. Though it is the darkest day, the Advent candles burn brightly. The Church calls from the darkness to her Lord, her Dayspring from on high, who is “the joyous light of glory.”


God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness. God spoke Light into the darkness. Light is life. Without Light there is no life. Darkness is death, the silence of God, the absence of God.

Advent calls us out of the darkness to live in the light of Christ, to be the children of the Light that we are. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” The night is over. The Day has dawned. Christ has risen from the dead. He has cast the bright beams of His light upon you.