O Sapientia

The Great O Antiphons of Advent - O Holy Wisdom

We are well into the days of Advent, and indeed the festival of Christmastide is just around the corner. This final week leading up to Christmas brings around some of my favorite forms of liturgy, the great O Antiphons. These beautiful liturgical prayers compose a series of cries for the coming of our Lord, using various names and roles that Christ fulfills. The first one being O Sapientia, or O Holy Wisdom:

"O Wisdom of our God Most High,
guiding creation with power and love:
come to teach us the path of knowledge!"

In celebration of these wonderful prayers, I have written my own in the form of blank verse half-sonnets, featuring seven lines instead of the usual fourteen. There will be an entry for each day of O Antiphon prayer, leading up to Christmas Eve. Today's focuses on the theme of wisdom, which here I have given the form of the Word as seed, referencing Christ's parable in Matthew chapter 13.

Since I’m still waiting for a late promise,
For the return of he whom my heart loves,
I will prepare my heart and home with prayers:
‘Oh come with wisdom in your outstretched hands.
Come plant a garden in my harrowed heart!
O let your word be as a seed that’s sown
And dies to bear a harvest hundredfold!’

Advent is a time for me where hope and frustration meet. Christ came once, fulfilling one set of promises and defeating death through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection. He co-suffered with us and with all creation which continues to groan for the fulfillment of the next promise, which is to return and finally restore that which death still tries to steal away.

Sometimes, the longing for Christ’s return is so strong that it is almost painful. While I know that to God all times are soon, as a temporal creature keenly aware of the passage of time, it often seems as if He is late in coming. Another liturgical year has passed, and we begin the cycle anew, in another season of darkness, still holding to that promise of light on the horizon, and the gates opening soon.

The days of Advent, and these prayers are designed to keep our hope alive even as it is again deferred. We pray that Christ’s Wisdom rides ahead, guiding us and keeping our oil flasks full. In my poem-prayer, I connect the Garden of the New Eden to one that God is already working in my heart, and plead that the trials of today do not do only damage but roughly prepare the soil for a new crop as both physical and metaphysical Spring approaches.

I included the parallels to the Parable of the Sower in Matthew chapter 13. Parables were how Christ chose to share his wisdom during his earthly ministry. It seemed fitting to use them here, remembering what he has already given as well as looking forward to what he will bring.

Illustration of Sapientia from the 12th century. Wisdom stands between Christ (above), Zechariah and Jacob (below), David, Abraham, and Malachi (down the left side), and Balaam, Isaiah, and Daniel (down the right side.)

Sláinte

*Work on The Abbey of Curiosity will always remain free. I do, however, have a taste for high quality paper and pens with which to draft my poems, so if you have found pleasure in my writings, you can donate to the paper and pen fund through Buy Me A Coffee. Kind words are also appreciated to bolster my delicate poet’s ego. :)