Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about Wisdom, how it calls upon the foolish and the unenlightened, so that they may abandon their foolishness and embrace true wisdom and understanding. And what is this Wisdom about? It is the wisdom which can come from God alone, the understanding of all things and whatever happens around us, and not the false wisdom of men, or the false wisdom of the world.
If we read the exhortation by St. Paul in his letter to the faithful and the Church in Ephesus, then we would realise what is the distinguishing factor between the wisdom and ways of the Lord, and ways and the wisdom of this world, of mankind. The wisdom of God is far better than the wisdom of men, and the ways of the Lord are far beyond what men know in what they do.
But we are often too proud of what we know to let go of our own selfishness and pride, pride in the wisdom which we thought would lead us to greatness, to fame, to affluence and to might. And yet, these lead us only into destruction and annihilation in the end. For we have gained knowledge and wisdom through disobedience and sin, by our ancestors who wrongly ate of the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Satan tempted us to find a shortcut in life, by tempting them with knowledge and power. He tempted them by saying that if they follow what he said, then they would become like God. And in their foolishness, they believed in Satan and forgot or placed aside the restriction and prohibition which God had put in place, ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and once they found out what happened, they were ashamed and they felt guilty.
In the Gospel today, we heard about how the Jews doubted about what Jesus said about Himself, and they refused to believe that He could give His flesh for them to eat, and His blood for them to drink. To them, to have such a notion or idea was totally repulsive, and they could not comprehend what He meant when He said those words.
As a result, they abandoned Him, and many of the disciples of Jesus rejected and renounced Him after they heard this truth from Him. They might have thought of Him as a crazy Man who ranted on something that is both impossible and repulsive, but they did not know or understand, that it was their human wisdom and presumptive behaviour that had prevented them from seeing the truth in Christ.
It was also the same with the people of Nazareth, who had rejected Jesus when He came and proclaimed Himself before them, telling them who He was and what He was about to do in their midst. They did not believe in Him because they thought that they knew who He was, namely the humble Son of a mere village carpenter. They thought that it was impossible for a carpenter’s Son, and Jesus was likely a carpenter Himself, such a menial and thankless job to be able to bring about such things as Jesus Himself proclaimed.
In their hearts, they were blinded by hubris and pride, thinking of themselves as better than others. It is in our human nature to be competitive and critical of others, as our ego and pride often fill us up to the extent that we are unable to think with good reason, and then we commit things that are wicked in the sight of the Lord, and made a fool of ourselves, piling up one sin after another.
Today we are all reminded that we are mere mortals, and our knowledge of things in this world is not perfect and neither it is comprehensive. Our knowledge is flawed and imperfect, and what we know is often marred and corrupted by our desires, by the lies of Satan and the temptations he had given us through this world, and our pride and arrogance also often became our undoing.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we learn to be humble and to accept our weaknesses as a reality? Shall we all acknowledge how we can often be wrong in our own human wisdom and intellect, and how we can commit mistakes and faults if we depend only on our own power and intellect. And this include doubting the Lord who is Himself truly and really present in the Most Holy Eucharist.
There had been many people who doubted this, and they like the Jews did not and refused to believe that Jesus had given Himself, in the form of bread and wine transformed completely in matter and reality to be the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour. It was by this giving of the Body and Blood, willingly shed and given, that we have received a new hope from the Lord, the hope of a new and everlasting life, freed from sin and all of its snares, and where the true wisdom is revealed to us.
It may seem to be impossible for us that this happens, but we have to remember that nothing is truly impossible for our Lord, as everything that seem impossible for us, is possible for God. Remember that His ways are far beyond our worldly ways, and His wisdom is far greater than our human wisdom and intellect. It is therefore naive for us to think that we can try to explain what happened with our mere human wisdom and intellect alone, if we do not have the wisdom which our Lord had given to us.
Therefore, let us all today commit ourselves anew to the Lord, and throw far, far away hubris, pride and haughtiness from our hearts and minds, and humble ourselves before the Lord, He who knows everything, and everything inside our hearts and minds as well. Let us not put our trust in our own strength but give it all to the Lord our God, whose wisdom shall guide our path to righteousness.
May Almighty God, Holy Wisdom and the Truth, the Way and the Life be our guide always, and may He awaken in all of us the strong desire to love Him and to follow Him, walking in His ways and remain righteous and true to the end. God bless us all. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 