THE INCARNATION OF WISDOM IN US

THURSDAY, TWENTY SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

1 Cor 3:18-23; Ps 23:1-6; Lk 5:1-11

The Foundation of Foolishness and Wisdom

We continue our reflection by considering wisdom to be the indwelling of the word of God in the heart of a Christian. The Holy Spirit sounds the depths of God. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a man, his spirit sounds his depths. It follows that man does not know himself without the Holy Spirit. The regeneration of man happens only when he accepts the word of God and commits his life to it. This commitment is a new birth, which our Lord explained to Nicodemus. Because the new birth commences with our saying yes to the word of God and no to self, it is the incarnation of the word of God in a Christian. Here, the fiat of each Christian resembles that of the Blessed Virgin Mary when she conceived the Eternal Word. Thus, the incarnation that happened objectively for all with the fiat of the Virgin Mary happens subjectively for each of us at our fiat to the word of God. This fiat is the foundation of wisdom in each respective soul. Once regenerated in the image of Jesus Christ in this manner, namely, by acceptance of the word of God, we start knowing self as empty and nothing which must receive God, who is everything. Before the light of God’s word shone in our souls at conversion, we deceived ourselves as being or possessing something; we were nothing and had nothing of value in the heavenly currency.

It follows that the Christian conversion experience is very humbling. The humbling experience makes it a real conversion. St. Paul made this point by writing to the Corinthians. “Make no mistake about it: if any one of you thinks of himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn to be a fool before he really can be wise. Why? Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.” St. Paul himself had the humbling experience of Christian conversion when he discovered that the righteousness he thought he had acquired as a Jew, practicing Judaism, was simply rubbish and counted for nothing in Jesus Christ. This humility must remain in us, for it is a solid foundation for Christian spirituality. Through the word of God, we must keep a constant consciousness that everything we are and have in the spiritual realm is given to us and never merited. “So, there is nothing to boast about in anything human: Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life and death, the present and the future, are all your servants; but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.” The world and everything in it belong to God; all we have are his gifts to us. In meditating on the word of God, we understand that God wants nothing from us other than that we give him ourselves for all his gifts.

The Gospel narrates Peter’s encounter with the Word of God, his conversion, and the associated humbling experience. He carried himself with pride as an experienced fisherman. But he worked through the night without any catch. With a certain air of disappointment, he listened to the word proclaimed by the Lord. These words were addressed to him afterward: “‘Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.’ ‘Master,’ Simon replied, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets.’” The instruction would be considered foolish or inept in his fisherman’s wisdom because he knew by experience that fishing is better at night. It was out of difference to this Master who taught with authority that he obeyed. When he obeyed, the word of God proved his wisdom to be foolish before God. That humiliation brought him to conversion. “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.” We must remember that everything we have: knowledge, wealth, qualification, title, profession, etc. is nothing before the word of God. The fear of God, to obey his word, is wisdom.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to feed constantly on your word that gives life, that we may grow in the wisdom that has incarnated in us at our conversion and baptism and come to the fullness of the glory and stature of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.