Word of the Week

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom: Sophia (Gk.): Meaning “wisdom”, “skill”, or “insight”
Wisdom is a spiritual gift of ‘insight’ that belongs to Christ, which we participate in as children of God and heirs to the divine life of God. Wisdom is that gift which enables one to readily obey the will of God as it perfects the virtues already etched onto our souls (CCC 1831).

Wisdom can be found 218 times in Sacred Scripture: 167 occurrences in the Old Testament (a whole book is attributed to the beauty of wisdom) and 51 times in the New Testament. Paul’s use of wisdom draws out three principle notions of OT wisdom. First, that the Torah is the totality of wisdom (Deut.4.5-6). Second, Solomon’s portrayal as the art of prudent living which is directed towards righteousness (1 Kings 4:29-34) (Hahn and Minch, 18). In the case of Solomon, we see that wisdom is synonymous with “an understanding of the heart” (1 Kings 3:12) and being a child of God. In fact, he is the first biblical figure to be called “son of God” . Lastly, wisdom perceived as a ‘skill’, because it is personified in God as Creator and Carpenter of the world (Prov.8; Wis. 7:22). In this last case, “Wisdom had its beginning in eternity and is intertwined with the Word of God (Wis.9.1) as well as the work of the Holy Spirit (Wis.9.17)” (Hahn and Minch, 18). Furthermore, Jesus Christ is the incarnation of wisdom from which proceeds our own sanctification and redemption (1 Cor.1:30).

Wisdom is not knowledge or skill as much as it is the proper ordering of knowledge and skill. Wisdom requires a certain detachment from material things so that one can begin to value the truth in spiritual things. With relationship to wisdom and things, Donald Demarco notes in his work The Heart of Virtue, that we are inundated with material things: “…things to know, acquire, have, dispose of, but there is no wisdom contained in things” (Demarco, 226). Wisdom orders all things to God’s eternal plan. Wisdom is rooted in a poverty of heart and the receptivity that we are children of God (1 Jn.3.1; Rom.8:14-17). In the end, a true wise man is a seeker of simplicity because he pursues divinity.

“I am not a wise man, but a lover of Wisdom.”

--Pythagoras

Primary Texts Consulted

•  Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
•  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch, Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The First and Second   Letters of Paul to the Corinthinas. RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004.
. Demarco, Donald. The Heart of Virtue. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996.

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