32nd Sunday Homily - Wisdom opens us to Life

Wisdom, what is it?  It might be like an old adage: I may not know what it is, but I know it when I see it!


Wisdom; the Old Testament speaks of it a lot. It is often given a feminine persona. Generations passed this wisdom down through proverbs, psalms; through an oral tradition. The Jewish Wisdom books were compiled several hundred years before Jesus in response to the Greek conquerors coming into the land and bringing their own form of wisdom. A wisdom that presented a threat to the Jewish people.

Wisdom in the Christian sense connects to the Holy Spirit. It comes from this Jewish wisdom.

Wisdom, the intersection of intellect and emotion. It comes from a practice of discernment; a practice of patience. It is foresight. It is vision. It has depth, it relies on community. Wisdom comes from, is with, and will be with Love.

One of our great aspects of our Catholic faith is our belief in Sacraments. A Sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible reality. By nature, our belief in sacraments tells us that we always need to discern, we need to look deeper so as to find the richer meaning. Something more occurs, more than water being poured over a child’s head, more than oil on the forehead of a teen, more than bread and wine being blessed…

The sacraments call us to the resource of wisdom.

We have another parable given by Jesus that invokes a wedding. Wedding parables invite us to think about life; about engaging in life.   Wise people understand that opportunities to engage in life come at different times and different places.  Opportunities to give love, to receive love; opportunities for compassion, mercy, justice, kindness, patience, humility...all the virtues of Christ, all the virtues of a Child of God, are presented to us almost daily.

Can we be open to them?

A Wise person will be. The fool, not so much.
A wise person engages with life, engages with opportunities to make the world better. Fools, lose out and only show concerns for themselves.
Wise people celebrate life & love. Fools live in anger, resentment, hatred.

Wisdom is built over time, with the help of others.  As Christians, we found our wisdom on Jesus Christ, on his Death and Resurrection.  We discern the meaning of this momentous and utterly transcendent event; we take time to go deeper to understand its impact on what it means in our personal lives, how it makes us better persons. We stand on the shoulders of the wisdom of our saints, our wise persons in our community.  


The more we contemplate that Death and Resurrection, the more we become wiser in forgiveness; the more we see our connection to each other. We can see how the Father forgives so generously, because the Father wishes that we grow and progress; we walk freely.  The more we contemplate the Death and Resurrection the wiser we grow in just how important it is to see goodness in others and work for that goodness, in other words to Love.  There are tremendous opportunities each day for us to be truly engaged in living. Life is always lived outside of our own selves, as Jesus’ Death and Resurrection point to us. Life means we are connected to others, in a profound way.

Christ came so that we can be free; free to live life in the full.  That means being wise.

Maybe this is a time to go deeper; to grow in that wisdom.
Given the chaos, given the fears; given the anger and divisions...
maybe we Catholics can be ready...

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