Word to the Wise
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 - Wednesday in the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
[Sir 4:11-19 and Mark 9:38-40]Wisdom breathes life into her children and admonishes those who seek her. He who loves her loves life; those who seek her will be embraced by the Lord....[Sirach] John said to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us." Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us." [Mark]
The "wisdom" praised in the Book of Sirach is demonstrated in the words of Wisdom incarnate in the gospel scripture for today from the Gospel According to Mark. "For whoever is not against us is for us!" This wisdom is widely ignored in the polarization that infects our political and ecclesiastical life. It has certainly been a problem for our own church over the centuries, especially after the Protestant Reformation. No one has a "stranglehold" on God's grace and mercy! And that grace and mercy can work through unusual persons in unusual ways. Jesus' words to John are well worth remembering. Wisdom demands careful discernment and not immediate prosecutorial judgment! Yet we see the latter at work all the time.
Civil political life and church political life resemble one another rather closely, unfortunately. (A recent motion picture, CONCLAVE, - which I have not yet seen - is advertised in this way, and popular novels perpetuate it. During one of China's occasional political upheavals when Chairman Mao was in power, his followers carried a little red book entitled, THE SAYINGS OF CHAIRMAN MAO. An evangelical publisher in the USA picked up on it and issued a little red book entitled THE SAYINGS OF CHAIRMAN JESUS. Today's wisdom from "Chairman Jesus" should be printed in capital letters for zealots on all sides, especially in our Catholic tradition. AMEN