Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Sacraments and Sapientia: 1 O Sapientia


O Wisdom, who from the mouth of the Most High proceedest, spanning from one end as far as the other, firmly and sweetly setting forth all things: come for to teach us the way of prudence.  
"She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness." (Proverbs xxxi.26)
 So speaks King Lemuel's mother. Wisdom is something which the good wife possesses and something to be looked for when a man is looking for a lifelong companion and lover. Naturally the same must surely be true for a woman looking for her husband. In the Proverbs Wisdom is personified as the righteous woman who cries out for men to hear her ways and be happy, so it seems a marriage literally made in Heaven when a couple find in each other the radiance of the Wisdom of God to delight their eyes.

 Wisdom bids us, "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled " (Proverbs ix.5). At the Wedding in Cana, the Lord Himself provides the best wine for the married couple. The wine our Lord gives is good to drink and bestows happiness and joy at a wonderful celebration. The presence of God in a marriage completes that very marriage, and sanctifies it so that the biological humans and metaphysical persons are in harmony with the Universe.

We see this wisdom in the Holy Family in which two people exemplifying purity, chastity and charity bring into the World the Saviour of mankind. The child is born in simplicity and humility, with nothing but swaddling bands, a trough for a bed, but the love of a wise couple. The foolishness of God is truly wiser than Man's wisdom.

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