Seat of Wisdom
One of the titles we give to our blessed Mother in her litany is that of Sedes Sapientiae—Seat of Wisdom. Pope Pius IX, who proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, wrote that “Both in her Offices and in the most holy Liturgy the Church hath been accustomed to apply to the creation of Mary the language in which the Holy Scriptures set forth the Eternal Generation of the Uncreated Wisdom.” In other words, when “Wisdom” speaks to us in the Old Testament, we apply these words to the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. It’s why we read in the Epistle of the Immaculate Conception these words from the Book of Wisdom: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” The unborn Child dwelling in Mary’s womb was the Son also of God, the personification of Wisdom itself. It follows that she who is the tabernacle of this Most High God is also the Seat of Wisdom, and had to exist, at least in God’s Divine Will, from the very beginning of time, even before God promised that a woman would crush the serpent’s head with her heel.
Today is the 3rd Sunday in Advent, and we are celebrating the Octave of our blessed Lady’s Immaculate Conception. It is also the Sunday that introduces us into the season of Sapientiatide—“Wisdom-tide.”
Just as Passiontide rounds out the season of Lent by focusing on the Passion of Christ, similarly Sapientiatide intensifies our feelings of expectation for the coming of the Christ Child, Wisdom Incarnate, at Christmas. This often neglected season of the Church’s year, while still part of Advent, begins on December 17 and lasts until Christmas Eve itself. If you count these days, you will observe that there are eight days of Sapientiatide, allowing us to use this season as an Octave of preparation. When we take note that it follows on almost immediately after the Octave of the Immaculate Conception, the Seat of Wisdom, we begin to see the essential Christmas connection between Mother and Child in a whole new light.
Liturgically, the most noted peculiarity of Sapientiatide is the series of Antiphons sung before and after the Magnificat at Vespers. Known as the “O Antiphons,” they address the coming Saviour by seven titles, the first of which is “O Sapientia,” from which the season derives its name. “O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.” These antiphons are paraphrased in the well-known Advent carol, O come, o come, Emmanuel.
As the Seat of Wisdom herself approaches Bethlehem during this last week of Advent, we cannot help but thank God, who in his own divine wisdom saw fit to provide such a worthy Mother for his Son. Let us hearken to her exhortation in the words of the Book of Wisdom, that those who find her, find life itself. During the time of her expectation, we can look in no other place for the Saviour other than within his mother’s womb. If we find the Mother, we will find the child. Let us be truly wise and follow her to Bethlehem.