26 February 2019
Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
According to Sirach (and many other of the sacred authors) trials come to the one with faith, to purify and wisen him. It is by enduring difficulties with patience that the faithful deepen in the wisdom God wishes to give them. “…wait on God, with patience, cling to him, forsake him not; thus will you be wise in all your ways. […] Trust God and God will help you.” Patience begets wisdom. The patient man knows from personal experience how little he is, how in need of the Lord he is. Being patient does not reveal that we are the source of our own strength, but rather how weak and powerless we really are. Thus, the patient man knows from experience how much he does rely, and must rely, on the Lord. In this is his wisdom, even when the trial that brought this knowledge comes to an end.
Because of truly foolish pride, the disciples are in no state to understand Christ’s prediction of His own Passion, the moment where in His humanity He will reveal the depths of our neediness. Rather, they turn to a more comfortable, familiar and vain topic of conversation: ‘how am I better than my neighbor?’ How artfully wisdom heals their spiritual ill! Jesus teaches them that greatness is found in the one who is little and who serves his neighbor, especially the one who serves and learns from the little ones such as children. Just in case words would not sink into their hearts, Jesus gives them the most vivid visual imaginable of the kind of person that He approves: He places a child before them, and as Mark notes, putting his arms around the child, literally embracing the child, He shows them the one who recieves Christ and the Father. The one whose heart is open to those who are little, to humility, to service, the one who seeks to be last and least, such is the one who has left room in his heart for wisdom to enter and actually prepare him for the trials which will come as he follows Christ crucified. May we embrace the paths to wisdom which the Lord puts before us.