The 'O' Antiphons; "Wisdom"

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O Wisdom, you come forth from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth.

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For the week preceeding Christmas, a prayer is sung at daily mass. They are known as the 'O' Antiphons because each begins with "O [title of the messiah]": Wisdom, Adonai (Lord), stock of Jesse, key of David, rising Sun, King, and Emmanuel.

from Catholic Online:

The antiphons were composed in the seventh or eighth century when monks put together texts from the Old Testament which looked forward to the coming of our salvation. They form a rich mosaic of scriptural images. These seven verses, or antiphons as they are called, appear to be the originals although from time to time other texts were used. They became very popular in the Middle Ages. While the monastic choirs sang the antiphons the great bells of the church were rung.

A curious feature of these antiphons is that the first letter of each invocation may be taken from the Latin to form an acrostic in reverse.

So the first letters of Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, and Emmanuel, provide the Latin words: ERO CRAS . The phrase spells out the response of Christ himself to the heartfelt prayer of his people: "Tomorrow I will be there".

Wisdom in the Biblical sense is a more specific entity than what we think of today as "good sense." Despite the common, puritanical interpretations, there is plenty of evidence that the Jews worshiped many gods on down to the time of the exile and afterwards, and the last of these to go was "wisdom." Very generally personified as a woman, wisdom was present in everything good and was an intuitive, "divinely inspired" sense of balance and logic.

Old-Testament, Wisdom is present in the stories of Kings David and Solomon, the writings of the prophets and in books such as Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. The early chapters of Proverbs exalt Wisdom very directly. In the New Testament it is demonstrated most directly in the parables of the gospel.

~ Connor