Today is Feb. 26, Wednesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time.
We read at today’s Mass, “Wisdom breathes life into her children and admonishes those who seek her” (Sir 4:11).
In one of my very favorite books about the Christian relationship to wisdom, Father A. D. Sertillanges, OP, writes, “Do you want to have a humble share in perpetuating wisdom among men, in gathering up the inheritance of the ages, in formulating the rules of the mind for the present time, in discovering facts and causes, in turning men’s wandering eyes towards first causes and their hearts towards supreme ends, in reviving if necessary some dying flame, in organizing the propaganda of truth and goodness?”
If the answer to his question is yes, then boy, do I have a spirituality for you!
‘He who loves Wisdom loves life’
But even if the answer is no, even if you’re not filled with a longing to pursue holy wisdom through hours of daily study as a sacred calling, every Christian is invited to come to know more and more of God and of his wisdom. As we read today, “He who loves [Wisdom] loves life; those who seek [Wisdom] will be embraced by the Lord.”
Now one mistake that people sometimes make is reducing Christianity to a system of ideas. Christianity does involve ideas. Some of those ideas have political consequences. And those are important.
But the reason God invites us to study our Faith, to be curious and informed, is because he calls us to ultimately know him. As Father Sertillanges says, “Wisdom, tried and proved in her heroes, has whispered an invitation to us too; and what happiness it is to say: She is in me also!”
Let us pray,
Grant, we pray, almighty God, that, always pondering spiritual things, we may carry out in both word and deed that which is pleasing to you. 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. Amen.
