RBWords

     Many years ago I read Robert Fulghum's All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten!  It is a very charming work and is indeed full of "wisdom" of all kinds.  The book won many awards and made Fulghum, a former minister, an internationally known figure.  Yet, there is little that is original in the book in the sense that the "wisdom" contained there did not come from Fulghum himself.  He found charming and contemporary ways of saying things that are ancient.  Books like his were already known to the authors of the "wisdom" literature in the Bible from ancient Egyptian and Babylonian sources!  One result is the Book of Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus) which begins our return to "Ordinary Time" in the liturgical calendar.

     What the biblical authors did was to look at the "wisdom" they had with the eyes of faith.  The opening lines of the Book of Sirach, quoted above, almost echo the opening lines of the Book of Genesis in attributing all wisdom to an eternal God who has existed before all time.  Whether the wisdom is something "secular" like holding hands when crossing the street (or, I suppose, when getting through a moving camel caravan) or the wonderful words about friendship (Sir 6;14-17), it comes from God, the source of all wisdom.  Eventually the early Christian community, which began to read the Old Testament in the light of their faith in Christ, would see Christ as the physical manifestation of God's wisdom!  For the next few days, we will be treated to passages from Sirach in the first scripture.  They are truly worthy of our attention!  AMEN