Ad te levavi animam meam, or “Unto thee lift I up my soul” is the first chant of the first Sunday of the first season of the liturgical year in the West. This Introit (Entrance Chant) comes from Psalm 25 (24) and is meant to set the tone not just for this Sunday’s Mass, but for the whole season of Advent. What is it about the character of this psalm that makes it appropriate for this season?
Advent is a multifaceted, richly themed season, and this psalm touches on many of those themes: the theme of spiritual effort (To thee I lift up my soul), the theme of renewed education and learning (Lead me in thy truth and teach me), the theme of penitence (Pardon my guilt, for it is great), and the theme of petition (Bring me out of my distresses…and deliver me). But the most characteristic aspect of Advent is the theme of expectation and waiting. And three times in this psalm the notion of waiting on the Lord can be found — “Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame”; “for thee I wait all the day long”; “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for thee.”
While one or two English translations use the phrase “look for thee,” and even the venerable Coverdale translation renders it merely as “hope in thee,” the vast majority of English translations (including the KJV and the Douay-Rheims) agree on “wait for thee.” And in the liturgical Latin used for this text, “wait for thee” runs, te exspéctant. Expectation. We wait for God to come in Advent through an active expectation. And this expectation informs every other thematic facet of this season.
One of the delightful ways we can see how the various characteristics of Advent are evoked by this psalm are in the illuminated chant manuscripts for this Introit. Below are some examples of what came to the mind of the illuminators when thinking about this chant and this season. Each illustration is within the “A” of Ad te levavi….
