She is Fairer Than the Sun, suprassing every constellation in the stars.

I watched a friend of mine one time as he interacted with a girl that he was clearly in love with.  Every day he would hang out with her, listen to her intently, and help her in every way he could.  Eventually she asked him to help her go out on a date with his friend.  The hurt in his eyes was evident to all of us around.  We all knew he was in love with her.  Everyone knew, but her.  How did he respond though?  He helped her to be happy.  Talking to his friend, he set up the date.  He suffered in silence as she dated, had her heart broken, and eventually broke up with this man.  All the while he was there for her. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, a true friend.  I don't know if she ever knew he loved her.  It's really a story that belongs best in a romantic comedy, but of course those always have happy endings, right?

I see tomorrow's Gospel reading in much the same way as what I described before.  The Pharisees wanted to know when the Kingdom of God would be among them.   Jesus warned them that it was already there.  God had already condescended among men, becoming a man himself.  Here stood the Kingdom of God right in front of them.  Jesus Christ.  His heart was bulging with love for them.  He came to die for them.  He emptied himself of everything in order that he might live among them, and redeem them to himself.  Then they came to him and asked, where can we find that which makes us happy?  Don't you see?  He's right there in front of you!  How easy for us 2000 years later to judge them. 

Yet, do we truly see him each day?  Isn't he calling out to use daily?  In the face of a friend?  In the eyes of a stranger?  In the brilliant rays of a morning sunrise?   Do you see him?  Or do you keep looking over him trying to find him somewhere else?  We don't need to be going to and fro, asking for signs and wonders.  No rather, he's already here.  All we have to do is open our eyes, our hearts, our minds.   He calls out to us from the tabernacle, in the Eucharist and he says, "I love you.  I will do anything to make you happy.  I have died for you, and offer you eternal life." 

Why do we fail?  Why is it so hard to see him?  One thing I think is something that the first reading mentions.  We lack true Wisdom.  Wisdom it says is the aura of the might of God, and a pure effusion of the glory of the Almighty.   She is the refulgence of eternal light.  The spotless mirror of the power of God.  Aren't those beautiful descriptions?  It is through Wisdom that we begin to actually notice God in our daily life.  Not necessarily in explosions and miracles, though those can happen too.  Rather though, also seeing him in the ordinary.  In the simple and the plain.  Saint Josaphat was one of those who had Wisdom.

We have many today who make the same error that men were making back in his day.  They only see God in this rite or that rite of the Catholic church.  In their ardor and zeal they reject anything that does not fit their box.  Going as far as to reject the Pope, or the Orthodox, or to form their own society rejecting the Novus Ordo.  Josaphat, unlike some of the schismatics of today, clung to his unity with Rome.  He did not want to change from his orthodox faith, and he did not want his people 'Latinized'.   Yet, he fought to bring understand and unity to his people.   Saint Josaphat died seeking to reunite the two, not to create more division.

That is true Wisdom isn't it? What do we take away from all of this?  I think that we learn that like Saint Josaphat we need to work for unity.  We need to pray for and seek Wisdom that we might see God in our brothers and sisters.   That we need to look for Jesus calling out to us saying, "behold, the Kingdom of God is among you."   We need to look inside, examine ourselves, and ask.. are we working for unity or division?  We need to let God's Wisdom and love flow through us until we too become an aura of the might of God, a pure effusions of the glory of the Almighty.  Until we are so close to Jesus Christ that when others look at us, they see not us, but rather Him shining through us.  Let us cling to the Sacraments, seek His face, and continually knock on the door of our own hearts asking it to open to the influence of the Holy Spirit. 

His servant and yours,
In Christ,
Brian

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Wisdom From on High

Today was one of those amazing days where I got the honor of sitting in a group of men who are

offering their lives in hopes of eventually being configured to Christ to the servant in Holy Orders.  It struck me as I began to read the readings for tomorrow of how apropos they were after the experiences we shared today in that room.  The first reading from the book of Wisdom is just so powerful and reminds me of one of the very great philosophical reminders that Father Peck talked to us about today.

I prayed, and prudence was given me;
I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
I preferred her to scepter and throne,
and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her,
nor did I liken any priceless gem to her;
because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand,
and before her, silver is to be accounted mire.
Beyond health and comeliness I loved her,
and I chose to have her rather than the light,
because the splendor of her never yields to sleep.
Yet all good things together came to me in her company,
and countless riches at her hands.

Wisdom 7:7-11 NAB

How truthful is that?  I think we often don't understand the power that God has given us in the gift of reason and logic.   We take it for granted.   Do we hold it up as something precious?  Something so wonderful that it makes gold seem like sand?  That something quite rare is really just as common as the sand by the sea?   Do we long for wisdom more than our own health or beauty?   Today's society would teach us otherwise.  To choose to have wisdom over even light?   Are you so enthralled by the beauty of God's gift to us of prudence that you would give up your sight itself to be perfected in it's execution?

There is an allegory from Plato that Father Peck mentioned in his lecture that really puts things in perspective.  The Cave, in which people are chained to the wall unable to see anything or anyone, except for that which is right in front of their face.  They cannot see behind them or around them, but only the shadows cast by a fire and by objects held by people unseen.  That these people are unaware of the world outside because all they know is the shadows on the cave wall. Here we have these people in bondage, but are they aware of it?  Do they realize how much they need?  How much they haven't seen?

In freedom they find themselves open to a world of sight and sound that is so much more full of depth than anything they had thus experienced.  They feel sorry for those still trapped in the cave, and do everything they can to bring them out of the bondage.. out of the flat, one experiential existence.  Isn't that what wisdom is indeed?  Philosophy? Theology?  Opening our minds to a reality so far beyond what we first perceived with our limited senses?  Bringing us to understand something so much deeper than just the visible, but helping us to grapple and wrestle with the invisible?  In Wisdom we find hope, we find a world beyond just the shadows cast on the wall in our self imposed caves, but rather we open our minds to contemplate and experience things beyond ourselves. 

How does that apply to the gospel?  The church in her infinite wisdom and effort has attempted to tie the gospel and the first reading together thematically.  What do I see there?  In this parable Jesus talks of a young, rich man who wants to know what he must do to get to heaven.  The rich man says he has followed the commandments, and wants to know what more he must do?  Jesus tells him to sell all that he has and give it to the poor, then come and follow him.  The Scriptures then tell us that the "young man went away sad, for he had many possessions."   Then Jesus speaks of a camel passing through the eye of a needle.  We could really go deep into that imagery and what it might mean or what the words might mean, but suffice it to say that many times I have a hard time just threading a needle with regular thread... imagine doing it with anything larger? 

How does that mesh with the first reading?  Wisdom.   That is what Jesus was encouraging this young man to do, to increase his Wisdom.  You see the young man was trapped in his cave, in his own prison of viewing the world.  He was attached to the material wealth he had, enough that the thought of losing it made him sad.   Jesus was not condemning having possessions, nor even having wealth; but rather being attached to those things.   We was asking him to see the world of detachment, a world in which we are free of desire.   A world in which we are free of suffering, because we do not desire health, wealth, comfort, etc over God... but rather what consumes us most is God.  That is true Wisdom.  That is what Jesus offered to this young man.  He saw him shackled, looking at the wall of the cave, unable to see more than the shadows that Satan and the world offered him.   Jesus tried to free him and bring him outside the cave to see the real world, so full of color and sensation, something beyond what the rich mans mind was able to see.   Instead of coming outside, the young man simply sat in the cave looking at the wall. 

So what about us?   Are we ready to step outside the cave?   Are we ready to follow Christ with a growing detachment to worldly things and a thirst so enormous for God's presence in our lives that we would give up everything else for it?  That anything else, even the most precious gems and metals would seem like filth and refuge to us?  Thomas Aquinas said nearing the end of his life, ""The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me."   Are we there?   Are we at least working to be there?

Lord I believe,
Help my unbelief.

In Christ,
Brian