O Virgo Virginum

‘O Virgo Virginum, the last of the Great O Antiphons in the old English liturgy of Sarum, occurs on December 23rd. Its structure is quite different from all the other Great O Antiphons. The first part is a question addressed to the Virgin Mary; in the second part she replies with another question, and then, gives her answer.
 
O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? That which ye behold is a divine mystery.
 
Here, at Silverstream Priory, since the beginning of Advent, we have been singing O Virgo Virginum each morning as the Marian Antiphon at the end of Lauds’.

Dom Mark Daniel Kirby OSB, Prior of Silverstream Priory, Co. Meath, Ireland, writing in 2012