OUR PURIFICATION PRECEDING WISDOM


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. Consequently, the paucity of God’s self-revelation and many distorted images of him many people present increase the difficulty of attaining genuine faith and knowledge of God. The difficulty increases with the influx of demonic forces due to bad choices we make daily; these demons specialise in deluding the unwary minds of men and women and leading them away from the worship of God.

Within this background, Sirach gives us the following admonition: “My son, if you aspire to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for an ordeal. Be sincere of heart, be steadfast, and do not be alarmed when disaster comes. Cling to him and do not leave him, so that you may be honoured at the end of your days.” The creation lays a good foundation for true knowledge of God when we genuinely desire to find and know the Lord, not to seek self and selfish gains or material benefits. Our human composition is part of the natural creation. So, it requires knowledge of self and the work of nature around us. The fear of the Lord grows in us as we meditate and contemplate the work of God within and without. As stated yesterday, God built the faculty for wisdom in man. Sirach captures this in the following words. “Whatever happens to you, accept it, and in the uncertainties of your humble state, be patient, since gold is tested in the fire, and chosen men in the furnace of humiliation. Trust him and he will uphold you, follow a straight path, and hope in him.” The path is the righteous path of wisdom outlined by the word of God. The testing that the good Lord subjects us, his own, is to turn our uncertainties to certainty by removing the dark shadows beclouding our vision of God. We must persevere in faith to develop patience, which builds character that assures hope.

The Eternal Wisdom confirms the path we will walk in his human nature. He instructed his disciples, and all of us, as follows: “The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.” The disciples did not understand the meaning of his words, for it takes a lot of purification to follow the Eternal Wisdom. The gospel subsequently reveals the impurities preventing the disciples from understanding the words he spoke to them. “They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ They said nothing because they had been arguing which of them was the greatest.” Their selfish interests prevented them from understanding the teaching of our Lord on what is required to attain union with God. To arrive at true worship of God, we must take a back seat, observe, meditate, and contemplate the words and works of the Eternal Wisdom. “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.” The same lesson the Psalmist echoes in these words: “If you trust in the Lord and do good, then you will live in the land and be secure. If you find your delight in the Lord, he will grant your heart’s desire.” Wisdom oversees the purification of our minds, hearts, and wills to make us his everlasting companions in heaven.

Let us pray: Grant us the grace, almighty God, to see your goodness within and around us daily, that contemplating the works of your hand and your word, we may learn to conform our lives to your immutable will and design and be found worthy of your heavenly kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.         

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