O Wisdom! A meditation on the first of the Great O Antiphons of Advent

 

 

 

O Wisdom!

This night the Church turns toward the second half of its Advent journey as with eight great cries from the aching heart of humanity we express the ancient longing for wholeness,

for liberation,

for union with the divine,

for grace…

From the long cold of our Edenic exile we turn towards the sky and kindle hope looking into the dark for a light beyond all night and we sing the ancient invocations of Presence and power:

The O Antiphons,

the deep magic from before the dawn of time…

So at sundown each evening from now until Christmas Eve we will call on the One who comes…

who descends that we may ascend…

who goes forth from the Father that we may return with Him to the houses of light… We will call on Him by names so ancient they are written in words of fire in the hidden heart of Creation their lightening letters breathed forth from the Divine as transcendent touches that set souls longing and hearts bursting as their litany of longing is intoned

O Sapientia! O Wisdom!

We cry out from the heart of our foolishness, from the loss of our shallow knowing, from our listing and lying about the truth and the wound at the heart of all things…

O make us wise…

Enlighten our darkness…

Long sought and hidden,

yearned for by sages and saints,

desired by philosophers and poets

down the ages Wisdom comes…

so often lost…

so often found…

so needed today.

Pouring forth its divine energies

as Hochma,

as Hagia Sophia,

as God at play,

as a young girl in the full exultation of wonder,

as a woman birthing beauty and blessing,

as an elder sage where being and experience are fused at last into

Wisdom…

For Wisdom

is revealed in the heart,

and in the womb,

in the mother

and in the child,

for in no other way could

so close a union,

an inter-weaving,

an inter-being,

an incarnation

be revealed.

For the One who comes

is already

and always

here.

Hidden yet always present…

Heard thundering from the cloud,

from the mountaintop,

in the burning of the bush,

on the edge of the breeze

in the quiet rhythm of the breath,

and in the rippled

waters

of the womb.

And so, as the tide of sunset washes this world

in the dark ocean of night,

we breathe and stand for the Maiden Mother’s song

And chant our first invocation…

To the Word,

to Wisdom,

to the One who is…

to th One who comes...

“O Wisdom

Who proceedeth from the mouth of the Most High,

Who fills the Universe and holds all things together in a strong yet gentle manner,

O come to teach us the way of truth!”