Saturday 17 December
"Wisdom hath builded Her house." Icon (16th century), from the Cathedral of Athanasius and Cyril of the Alexandrian Kirillov Monastery near Novgorod (now in the Russian Museum).
O Sapientia
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. (cf Ecclesiasticus 24.3; Wisdom 8.1)
Bob Chilcott. Advent Antiphons, no. 1. Queens' College Choir, Cambridge, cond. Silas Wollston.
Holy God,
your prophets call us
to look forward to the dawn of a new day;
may we who witness the promised springtime
prepare the way for the coming Sun of Justice,
Jesus your Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.
— Bosco Peters
O Sapientia
Madeleine L’Engle
It was from Joseph first I learned
of love. Like me he was dismayed.
How easily he could have turned
me from his house; but, unafraid,
he put me not away from him
(O God-sent angel, pray for him).
Thus through his love was Love obeyed.
The Child’s first cry came like a bell:
God’s Word aloud, God’s Word in deed.
The angel spoke: so it befell,
and Joseph with me in my need.
O Child whose father came from heaven,
to you another gift was given,
your earthly father chosen well.
With Joseph I was always warmed
and cherished. Even in the stable
I knew that I would not be harmed.
And, though above the angels swarmed,
man’s love it was that made me able
to bear God’s love, wild, formidable,
to bear God’s will, through me performed.
Genesis 49:2, 8-10
Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob; listen to Israel your father.
‘Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a lioness—who dares rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.
Psalm 72
1. Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son.
2. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.
3. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.
4. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.
5. May he live while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
6. May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.
7. In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more.
Matthew 1:1-7
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph . . .
Long the night. Traditional Ukrainian, adapted from an arrangement by Wasyl Barwinski. Sung in Veszprém, Hungary, 17 April 2022.
Long the night and kind the dawn, in Bethlehem where her son was born. She touched his side and stroked his head as she gently laid him to bed. She held his hands she kissed his feet; she sang to see a sight so sweet: ‘In excelsis Gloria’.
In the hills the iron lay, that men would beat into nails one day, where the thorn tree roots go down, that men would twist to a crown. In the woods where an axe would ring to cut a cross that would bear a king, Mary’s Voice rose from afar: ‘In excelsis Gloria’.
— English text by Alick Rowe.
The King's Singers: Patrick Dunachie - countertenor; Edward Button - countertenor; Julian Gregory - tenor; Christopher Bruerton - baritone; Nick Ashby - baritone; Jonathan Howard - bass.
May the Lord, when he comes, find us watching and waiting. Amen.