We are in the midst of a little-known subseason of the liturgical year – a series of seven days at the end of Advent leading up to Christmas Eve. This season is sometimes called “Sapientia-tide.”

For well over a thousand years, it has been customary in some Christian traditions to sing every day, as a part of Evening Prayer, the canticle that Mary sang when she visited Elizabeth. This is often called the Magnificat because Mary “magnifies” the Lord. Before and after the Magnificat, it is customary to sing an “Antiphon,” which is a short sentence of scripture or devotional text that brackets the canticle.

During “Sapientia-tide,” the Antiphons for the Magnificat are what we call the “O Antiphons,” and in fact, you’ve heard them all before! These seven Antiphons are the verses of the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” We call this seven-day season “Sapientia-tide” because Sapientia is the Latin word for wisdom.

The first Antiphon (on December 17th) is the verse of that hymn that begins, “O Come thou Wisdom from on high, who orderest all things mightily.”

I love the idea of having a short season, just before Christmas, dedicated to Wisdom. Lots of us, in our modern world, find that we have a nearly endless supply of information at our fingertips. Our access to knowledge seems unlimited. If ever uncertain about something, we can simply ask Google and find a million websites to give us an answer. But information is different from wisdom, and sometimes we find that all the information in the world doesn’t actually ensure that we will be wise people.

At Christmas, we welcome the birth of the one who is the Wisdom that fashioned the world, the one who “orders all things mightily” (see Book of Wisdom 8:1 in the Apocrypha). Pray that Christ, “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), will teach us to use all knowledge in ways that are faithful to his own wise and loving purposes for us.

Our King and Savior now draws near; O Come, let us adore him!

God bless you!

Fr. Mac