Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent
With the festivities of pre-Christmas holiday parties, the bustle and Christmas carols sounding it is challenging to stay within the beautiful, deep invitations of the Advent season Scriptures and images. Today we start my favorite part of Advent—the weeklong series of O Antiphons—each day having an image of the Messiah for whom we long. We are familiar with each of them as they make up the verses of the haunting ancient hymn, O Come O Come Emmanuel. In the community evening prayer (Vespers), they are the Magnificat antiphon. In the daily Eucharist Liturgies O antiphons are embedded in the Gospel acclamations (and often the Communion antiphons) through the last week leading up to Christmas Eve, Emmanuel, God is with us.
Today we pray for Wisdom as expressed in the Gospel Acclamation:
O Wisdom of our God Most High,
Guiding creation with power and love:
Come to teach us the path of knowledge.
Wisdom is one of the gifts of the Spirit, and those who study Philosophy, or bear the title of a PhD—Doctors of Philosophy are to be Lovers of Wisdom (literal meaning of philosophy from the ancient Greek). Wisdom is the ability to learn, think, ponder, reflect and apply knowledge well in our world. For people of faith, wisdom is key in the process of prayer and discerning God’s way or path in a situation. I value the insights gained from steeping in verses of the Bible’s Wisdom: Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and especially the deuterocanonical books of our Catholic Bible: Wisdom and Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus).
I grew up as a Polish Canadian in Winnipeg - among many other eastern Europeans and sometimes attended the Ukrainian Catholic eastern rite services. Beautiful icons and mosaics drew us into the ever-present transcendent mysteries of God and I recall the striking words that were called out to us several times by the priest or deacon before and after the Scripture Readings: “Wisdom, Let us be attentive!”. This striking call heightened attention to the immanent reality of the presence of Holy Wisdom in our midst in the Sacred Scriptures.
This week, may Wisdom show us a new path. As the darkness lengthens, may we find quiet moments each day to light a candle (or candles on our Advent wreath), savor the Scripture images, steep in some Wisdom Literature, and enter into the longing of each O Antiphon.as a prayer for the coming of God more fully into the lives of our families and friends, communities, Church and world. In this way, we can live into the words of today’s psalm response: Justice shall flourish in his time and fullness of peace for ever.
Wisdom! Let us be attentive!
—Sr. Leanne Jablonski, FMI