O Sapientia

O Sapiéntia, quæ ex ore Altíssimi prodiísti, attíngens a fine usque ad finem, fórtiter suavitérque dispónens ómnia : veni ad docéndum nos viam prudéntiæ.

O Wisdom, who from the mouth of the Most High proceedest, spanning from one end as far as the other, firmly and sweetly setting forth all things: come for to teach us the way of prudence.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

`One side of what? The other side of what?' thought Alice to herself. `Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Antiphons of course span one end of the Magnificat to the other and give us a way to colour that oft said song of Our Lady. However, what are these "ends" of this Antiphon that Divine Wisdom is said to span? The sides of the mouth of God? If so then Wisdom is the expression of a Divine smile beaming out across Creation, for surely a smile is the greatest distance that a mouth can span.

With the song of Joy that is the Magnificat, we can see this Wisdom pour forth a mystery, an abundance of opposites - the Virgin conceives and bears a son; he crooked path is straightened; the exalted are humbled; the humble exalted. This is a Wisdom that challenges our preconceived ideas, our dogmata and our doctrine, that transforms our world and turns them upside down.

And we're supposed to be joyful at this wholesale destruction of our order?

Of course we are! What we see as wholesale destruction is that of our worldliness which, if we let it continue, may challenge the teachings we receive but never negate them, rather open up the way into seeing a wider horizon - the horizon that Wisdom herself spans. Science and knowledge are too thin for Wisdom, for she spans no less than the Divine Smile. The Church possesses the fullness of Divine Truth, but Wisdom dictates that she cannot perceive it in Time, but only in the Totality of her being, Temporal, Aeviternal and Eternal for Divine Wisdom spans Time, Aeviternity and Eternity.

The promise is this: our own existence is infinitesimal, yet if we allow Divine Wisdom to stretch us, then we too will be able to perceive the Smile of God and feel His Joy.