Category: Blog

Today’s antiphon follows on from Exodus by turning to the prophecies of the Promised Messiah.

The first sentence of the antiphon is a reference to Isaiah 11:10 (“In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek”). It is also quoted by St Paul (Romans 15:12), who confirms that the long-awaited Messiah has arrived.

However, inserted into this reference to Isaiah 11 is the phrase, “Kings fall silent before you”. This does not relate to any of the glorious and kingly prophecies, but comes from the Song of the Suffering Servant, in Isaiah 52. After describing how this Servant will suffer and be disfigured beyond recognition, Isaiah adds: “kings shall shut their mouths because of him”.

So this antiphon, in its first line, succinctly refers us directly to the Easter mystery, forecasting the Passion, but more significantly, the exultation of the Servant that will follow, through His Resurrection. And crucially, as Isaiah already suggests, this Redemption will be universal: for all the nations, the kings and peoples.

The final phrase, “do not delay,” is a direct reference to a particular prophecy of Habakkuk, who is given a vision by the Lord. In the Jewish tradition, this vision, which “awaits its time”, concerns the promised Messiah. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the pronouns referring to the vision are changed to masculine (whereas “vision” is feminine in Hebrew), as a direct reference to the Messiah. The prophecy is then picked up by both the letter to the Hebrews and by St Peter’s letter in the New Testament, thus taking up this refrain again in expectation of Christ’s Second Coming.

In this way, the third antiphon at once captures both the historic manifestation of the Messiah, with His Saving Mission, and His future arrival with the renewal of the heavens and the earth.

Listen to the O Radix Iesse antiphon here

“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.”

Wisdom is the explicit theme of seven of the Old Testament books, all of which personify her as coexistent with God.

In the Book of Sirach, she says of herself, “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High”: a reference to the creative Word of God in Genesis 1. This is the same Word through whom all things were made (cf. John 1:3): the Incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ.

In the Book of Wisdom, Solomon writes of her, “She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well”. Thus the antiphon picks up the long-held understanding of creation as, not simply a momentary act akin to setting things off, but a continuous and permanent act of holding all things in being. As St Augustine is keen to emphasise, though Christ became incarnate and therefore mortal insofar as He took on our human nature, in His Divinity He remained present everywhere and in all things.

Finally, Wisdom invites us to “walk in the way of insight”, following her invitation to her banquet (Proverbs 9). And so the antiphon concludes by asking Him who is “the way, the truth and the light” (John 14) to teach us His way as we walk towards the great Mystery of His birth on earth.

And so the first of the seven antiphons sets the metaphysical scene, pointing us to “the beginning” of both the Old Testament and the New, to the Coming of the Almighty One in human form.

Listen to the O Sapientia antiphon here