I wrote a blog post about the O Antiphons in 2019, and I loved picking out the image to illustrate each one.  So I have decided to post on the O Antiphons again, in order to highlight additional images and to explore the scriptural roots of the meaningful word images.  If you aren’t familiar with the O Antiphons or need a refresher, please check out my 2019 blog post here.

So now, beginning today with O Sapientia, I will be posting on each O Antiphon for the next seven days before Christmas, in these late days of Advent intensification.

Even if you are completely out of balance and rushing around getting ready for Christmas, reciting the words of the O Antiphon for each day takes less than a minute.  You can easily include them before and after grace at dinner or as part of your advent wreath tradition.  And if you take just another less than a minute to light a candle or your advent wreath beforehand, I promise the O Antiphons are breathtaking by candlelight!

You can find my blog post on the O Adonai antiphon for tomorrow here.

O Sapientia – Antiphon for December 17

O Sapientia, Holy Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from the beginning to the end, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: come and teach us the way of prudence.

O Sapientia quae ex ore Altissimi prodisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponenesque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Sapientia, Holy Wisdom:

Here at the beginning of the O Antiphons, we recognize Christ as the divine, Anointed One, a manifestation of Holy Wisdom, the eternal, preexisting Sophia Holy Wisdom who participated in the creation of the world.  Christ has long been associated with Wisdom, and Sapientia Holy Wisdom is the first of the seven Messianic titles for Jesus we encounter in the O Antiphons.

Our God gave birth to me at the beginning, before the first acts of creation. I have been from everlasting, in the beginning, before the world began.  Before the deep seas, I was brought forth, before there were fountains or springs of water, before the mountains erupted into place, before the hills, I was born – before God created the earth or its fields or even the first clods of dirt.  I was there when the Almighty created the heavens, and set the horizon just above the ocean, set the clouds in the sky, and established the springs of the deep, gave the seas their boundaries and set their limits at the shoreline.  When the foundation of the earth was laid out, I was the skilled artisan standing next to the Almighty.  I was God’s delight day after day, rejoicing at being in God’s presence continually, rejoicing in the whole world and delighting in humankind. (Proverbs 8:22-31)

In the reading from Proverbs above, I always imagine Wisdom, who “was God’s delight day after day,” as dancing and spinning around and laughing and singing and “rejoicing in the whole world” at the very beginning of creation – dancing life into being.  Wisdom is part of the Messianic legacy that Jesus inherited and that he passes on to us.

Coming forth from the mouth of the Most High:

Wisdom sings her own praises, before her people, she proclaims her glory.  In the assembly of the Most High, she opens her mouth, in the presence of the host of the Most High, she declares her worth.  “From the mouth of the Most High I came forth, and mistlike covered the earth.” (Sirach 24:1-3)

Sophia comes out of the mouth of God as the intimate breath of the Holy One, covering Earth with Her precisely balanced Wisdom.  Indeed, Wisdom enters into the world from the mouth of the Most High like a wind – maybe with only a slight breeze or maybe with a fierce gale force, depending on the situation.  And yet She meets us where we are, giving us what we need, and encouraging us to make wise decisions.  In anticipation of the procession of Wisdom/Jesus into the world, we anxiously wait for the Messiah to come to us Incarnate.

Wisdom is a way of being aware and paying attention to life, while leaving an opening for the movement of the Divine.  It is not static intelligence – it requires reflection, balance, understanding, and the determination of a judicious path forward. Wisdom is about discerning things in the most life-affirming way and giving voice to what is most important in a given situation or action.  I believe that we all have access to both layers of human wisdom and pieces of Divine Wisdom within our hearts.  And when we are really in tune with our well-considered internal wisdom, we must listen and then speak what comes forth from the mouth of the Most High with our own voices.  In the reading below from 1 Corinthians, we see that a mature spirituality calls for speaking God’s mysterious and hidden wisdom out loud with our own voices:

There is, to be sure, a certain wisdom, which we express among the spiritually mature. It is not a wisdom of this age, however, nor of the rulers of this age, who are headed for destruction.  No, what we utter is God’s wisdom: a mysterious, a hidden wisdom.  God planned it before all ages for our glory.  None of the rulers of this age knew the mystery; if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory.  Of this wisdom it is written, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on humans what God has prepared for those who love God.”  (1 Corinthians 2:6–9)

As a reminder, there are a couple of options if you are interested in hearing the O Antiphons chanted in Latin.  First, if you click here you will go to the Traditional Catholic Living website (Reference 5) that has a link to each O Antiphon, with the words and music so that you can follow and chant along.  You can also find the chants here at an LDS blogpost (Reference 6.)  I like this link, because it includes the entire vespers sequence.  Each O Antiphon is chanted, followed by the Magnificat, finishing with the O Antiphon chanted again.

In my opinion, listening to the Gregorian chanting by candlelight is the best way to experience the O Antiphons!

 

Readings: The New American Bible, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington DC, 1970.

Reference 1: Malcolm Guite, “O Sapientia an Advent Antiphon,” blog post, December 17, 2021.

Reference 2: Ives Digory, O Sapientia: Meditations on the O Antiphons, blog post at Sanctum in Heremis website, December 17, 2014.

Reference 3: O Wisdom, Mount Saint Mary’s Cistercian Abbey, Wrentham, MA, December 17, 2019.

Reference 4: Br. Jerome OSB, “Reflections on the O Antiphons,” blog post at https://liturgy.co.nz/reflection/oantr2.html, 2011.

Reference 5: Sing the O Antiphons Gregorian Chant, Traditional Catholic Living website, http://www.traditionalcatholicliving.com/o-antiphons-advent/.

Reference 6: Awaiting the Coming Messiah: The “O Antiphons,” LDS Seasonal Materials, http://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/2013/12/awaiting-coming-messiah-o-anitiphons.html.

Reference 7: O Sapientia, Saint Benedicts’ Abbey, Atchison, Kansas, blog post at https://www.kansasmonks.org/new-blog/2021/12/17/o-sapientia, December 17, 2021.

Image 1: Holy Wisdom – Sophia, Russian Orthodox icon, Moscow, early 18th-century. 

Image 2: Icon of Sophia, the Wisdom of God of Kiev, “They Come in Sevens: The Kyiv Sohpia Icon,” blog post by David, at Icons and Their Interpretation website, August 13, 2014.

Image 3: Orthodox Icon of Divine Wisdom (София Премудрость Божия) from St George Church in Vologda, 16th-century.

Image 4: Full-page illustration of Sapientia (Wisdom,) illuminated manuscript from the 12th-century. Wisdom is the central figure, between the figures of Christ (above), Zechariah, father of John the Baptist and the patriarch Jacob (below), David and Abraham, Malachi and Balaam, Isaiah, and Daniel (to the left and right, respectively.)  Public domain.