Today in chapel we had a service that prayed and sung the O Antiphons of Advent. Traditionally, the O Antiphons were sung consecutively beginning on December 17 and ending on December 23. For our students, we experienced them all at once, but for you, our readers, we offer a version of them one at a time. Come, Lord Jesus !
December 17
ANTIPHON
O Wisdom, proceeding from the mouth of the Most High, pervading and permeating all creation, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of understanding.
READING
From Proverbs chapter 9 and 1 Corinthians chapter 1:
Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town, “Who
ever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
COLLECT
O Christ, Wisdom of the Father through whom all things were made, we forsook you long ago, being deceived through serpentine guile to seek after our own wisdom and light. Grant us, we pray, that in holy fear and faith we seek and find the wisdom that shines from your cross, that, enlightened thus, we may walk the path which leads unto life everlasting. Amen
HYMN
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who ord’rest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
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