Advent 24
Tuesday, Fourth Week of Advent
20 December 2022
O Clavis David
“O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel, qui aperis, et nemo claudit, claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.”
“O Key of David, and Scepter of the house of Israel, who openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and no man openeth: come and bring the prisoner forth from the prison-house, and him that sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death.”
This marks the fourth year of taking on the “Greater Antiphons,” otherwise called the “O Antiphons,” a seven day sequence of short verses that are sung during the Catholic Church’s vespers leading up to Christmas Eve. You can find my reflections on the previous three antiphons here (2019), here (2020), and here (2021). If you wish to hear these antiphons sung, you can find a YouTube playlist here.
The antiphon, commonly known by the first three words, “O Clavis David,” is a compilation of three different Scriptural references: Isaiah 22:22, Revelation 3:7, and Luke 1:79. While a beautiful Scriptural exegesis could be given by more learned folk, I will just be offering my personal thoughts.
“O Key of David”—I think our first thought should rightly be, “why a key?” Whatever may come to mind, it seems clear that it is meant to apply to the following lines: “who openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and no man openeth.” If it isn’t manifest at this point, the Key is Christ. What becomes somewhat frightful is the double-sided nature of this prophecy; not only does Christ open doors and keep them open, but He also shuts doors and seals them shut. If the first filled us with hope (and perhaps, if you are like me, it was a sort of sleepy, “yes, yes, I have heard it before” sort of hope), the second may chill us with fear. Christ, the merciful God come to save, closes the door and throws the bolt.
In the following line we see a continuation of the imagery, though now it is more dire. “Come and bring the prisoner forth from the prison-house.” Perhaps we thought about the key as unlocking some place we should like to enter, but here we see it as a sole means of escape. The imagery is even more clear in the Latin, since vinctum can mean prisoner, but it literally means “one who is in chains.” Moreover, the house of Israel is contrasted with the prison-house, both using the same Latin word, domus—or is it that we have turned the house of Israel into a prison-house through sin? What was our glorious inheritance, our gift from God, has in rejection become our burden. What can we do? We sit “in darkness,” crying out to the Liberator, for we are “in the shadow of death.” This is to say, death is our inevitable fate, fading into the shadows.
In this cursory glance it seems to me that them emphasis of this antiphon is on the need for hope. Isn’t it common for us to think we are capable of most things if we should only set our mind to it? If we encounter failure, we imagine that it was really a failure of effort. If we continue to fall short, it is a matter of consistency and hard work to change ourselves. Even our despair gives away a related notion: we despair because we think that the solution rests on us and we are not up to the task. Doubtless there is truth there; we are not mere automatons but have a real ability to mold our very selves. But there is also truth in saying (and I mean it truly, with an admixture of irony) you are not enough. There is a limit, an ability for self-reform that stops short. We cannot, not even in principle, attain to Heaven. It is the greatest good, yet it exceeds our nature. “You can do anything you set your mind to” is tragically inaccurate; for there is nothing we can more nobly want and cannot get. But the antiphon gives the solution: “Come and lead the prisoner forth.”
In studying St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of the virtues this semester, I was surprised by my own surprise at this line: “If anyone thought in general that God’s mercy is not unlimited, then he would be a non-believer.” Does it seem harsh? Maybe at first, but what Thomas is asserting is that God’s mercy, His grace offered to sinners, is boundless in such a way that it is part of the very nature of Who He is—so much so that its denial would be akin to a denial of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or the very existence of God at all. This leads us back to our first consideration.
If we are to be released from this prison, if the door is not to close shut upon us, we must not rely on our own ability. To do so is to remain seated in the darkness—seated, because we must resign ourselves to the chains. We rightly despair when we look to our own ability. True hope is to aim for the arduous good, so difficult that we cannot attain it by ourselves, but solely by the help of God. For this help we need no perfect dispositions; it is not dependent on the eloquence of our prayers, nor on previous conduct. To receive the Key, one must only imitate the antiphon and call upon Him. The door only remains locked so long as we pound against it without calling to the Master of the house. We are futile so long as we cling to the possession of ourselves, cling to our self-pardoning, cling to our rejection of perfection in lieu of mediocrity. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” says Christ. Do we live by these words, or by those of Seneca: “Errare humanum est.” “To err is human.”
Hope has in it the boldness to seek perfection and the humility to recognize that, left to ourselves, we are incapable. Let us give ear to the words of St. John the Baptist: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Therein lies our hope.
Adrian Ophals ’15
