Word to the Wise
Saturday, February 25, 2017 - Saturday in the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
[Sir 17:1-15 and Mark 10:13-16]God from the earth created man, and in his own image he made him. He makes man return to earth again, and endows him with a strength of his own. Limited days of life he gives him, with power over all things else on earth....[Sirach]
Books of "wisdom" have been around since humans discovered how to reflect on their experience and lessons and write these down for posterity. The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians and Persians and Chinese have all contributed to the vast collection. So too did the Hebrew sages who collected the words we find in Sirach and other wisdom books of the Bible. We view the biblical wisdom through the eyes of faith as inspired by God and meant for our instruction. Today's passage is a wonderful poem to the creation of the human person and what God has done for us in creating us. What continues to puzzle is why humanity continually tries to destroy all of this with things that run the gamut from trash to weapons of mass destruction!
When Pope Francis published his encyclical on the environment, entitled LAUDATO SI, he was ridiculed by certain pundits, yet all that he did was to eloquently appeal to the world, "Don't mess up our common home!" That is common sense - simple wisdom! When the American bishops, some years ago, appealed to the world about peace, they were told they shouldn't talk politics! Why?
Perhaps we should all read the books of wisdom in the scriptures and reflect on our own efforts to spread that word. A filling station in South Africa posts words of wisdom on a chalk board every day and it gets sent around the world! Somewhere on our shelves may be a copy of Robert Fulghum's, EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN. We can read wisdom in the scriptures and do the same job as the filling station and Fulghum. The Holy Spirit will take care of the rest! AMEN
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