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WISDOM GIVES US DIVINE LIFE

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SATURDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 17:1-13; Ps 103:13-18; Mk 10:13-16 Spiritual Awakening of a Child of God Sirach beautifully summarised many issues we have touched on in our reflection on God’s creation and the purpose of the material universe. We have read about God’s fashioning of man from the earth and the reason for sending him back to dust. The body he made for us, which was to be our earthly paradise, turned into a prison when we disobeyed God and chose to walk outside his company, away from the light of his word. But the prison term was correctional for all who repent and turn back to God our creator and benefactor. The time of our earthly life is determined to teach us the meaning of life through the wisdom God made present in our world of sensible things. Sirach lists all the gifts he gave to us. “He shaped for them a mouth and tongue, eyes and ears, and gave them a heart to think with. He filled them with knowledge and understanding and revealed to them good...
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BECOMING A DEPENDABLE FRIEND

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FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...
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NATURE PREPARES US FOR GOD

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THURSDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 5:1-10; Ps 1:1-4,6; Mk 9:41-50 The Harmony between God and Nature We have harped that nature bears us like a mother and trains us to live in the House of God. Nature is our mother concerning our natural or material makeup, for as we have read and reflected on the creation accounts in Genesis, we are taken from the dust and shall return to the dust. The same holds for our intelligible makeup, for we are using nature here to refer to the wisdom with which God created and governs the material universe, which is the light he made first and separated from darkness; she bears us and home-trains us before she enrols us in the school of divine law, to whom she hands us over for our higher education. The basic education we receive from nature on generosity, meekness, courage, moderation, etc., is reinforced by the law of the Lord in our relationship with God. The words of Sirach confirm this graduation from nature to the Commandments. “Do not g...
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ONE WHO IS NOT AGAINST US IS FOR US

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WEDNESDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 4:12-22; Ps 119:165,168,171-172,174-175; Mk 9:38-40 The Dividends of following Wisdom Sirach uses the feminine pronoun for the created wisdom. He already informed us that his referent is the wisdom seen in all God’s creation. Since we have been following his consideration of the created wisdom of God that is supposed to lead and guide man back to God, we consider this wisdom with which God created the material universe as the light he made first and separated from darkness. The light refers to every intelligible form of material creatures. Sirach confirms this understanding in the opening verses: “The Lord himself created wisdom; he saw her and apportioned her, he poured her out upon all his works.” The created wisdom visible in everything God made is rightly considered with feminine gender to distinguish her from the uncreated wisdom, the Eternal Word of God. As we stated yesterday, the ever-present wisdom in creation is the first tu...
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OUR PURIFICATION PRECEDING WISDOM

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TUESDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 2:1-11; Ps 37:3-4,18-19,27-28,39-40; Mk 9:30-37 Wisdom purifies the Just Man The fear of the Lord, Proverbs says, is the beginning of wisdom. The created nature begins the instruction of the human mind on the fear of the Lord. As we read from Sirach yesterday, the contemplation of the awe-inspiring creatures of God, animate and inanimate, fills our minds with deep respect for the Creator of them all. Anthropological research has confirmed the wonders of created nature to be the foundation of many of our traditional religions and practices. Men end up with idols when nature strikes them with amazement because they have lost the original light to guide their minds to the true God at the fall of Adam and Eve. Thus, walking the dialectical path of knowledge of evil and good, we are all exposed to the pitfalls along the way and the difficulty of making out the nature of the true God with our weakened rational light and human will. Consequent...
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WALKING WITH WISDOM OF GOD

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MONDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 1:1-10; Ps 93:1-2,5; Mk 9:14-29 Wisdom in God’s Creation We commence reading the book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus. He praises the wisdom of God, which is displayed everywhere in creation. Since God is the source of wisdom, wisdom characterises all his works, made to guide the minds of men to the contemplation of the greatness of God. As Saint Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans, we see God's invisible qualities in creation. Sirach gives some of these wonders that lift the human mind to ponder about the Creator of the universe. “The sand of the sea and the raindrops, and the days of eternity, who can assess them? The height of the sky and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss, who can probe them?” If these simple material numerical qualities are difficult for the human mind, how can we fathom the source of wisdom with which these creatures were articulated and brought into existence? “For whom has the root of wis...
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MODELLING OURSELVES ON THE HEAVENLY MAN

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SUNDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Sam 26:2,7-9,11-13,22-23; Ps 103:1-4,8,10,12-13; 1 Cor 15:45-49; Lk 6:27-38 Contemplating Spiritual Things The Church led us through the creation stories and how the man and woman God created in his image and intends to make into his likeness fell short of the glory God planned for them by exercising their free will in disobedience to God. By choosing to disobey God, they entered the path of pain, suffering, and death. These characterise the path of knowledge of good and evil. The loss of God’s assisting grace with them in the Garden set them on the path that would reveal the weakness of human nature without God. The weak and corrupted human nature is what they passed on to us, their children. The orientation to the earth, which their sin inculcated in the common nature, is what Paul affirms we all participate in. “The first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul; but the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. That is, first...
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