The Wisdom of Solomon

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We’re told in the First Book of Kings, “Now, Yahweh, my God, you have made your servant King, in succession to David, my father. But I am a very young man, unskilled in leadership. And here is your servant, surrounded with your people whom you have chosen, a people so numerous that its number cannot be counted or reckoned. So give your servant a heart to understand how to govern your people, how to discern between good and evil, for how could one otherwise govern such a great people as yours?” (1 Kings 3:7-9).

The passage continues, “It pleased Yahweh that Solomon should have asked for this. ‘Since you have asked for this,’ God said, ‘and not asked for long life for yourself or riches or the lives of your enemies but have asked for a discerning judgment for yourself, here and now I do what you ask. I give you a heart wise and shrewd as no one has had before and no one will have after you. What you have not asked I shall give you too: such riches and glory as no other king can match. And I shall give you a long life, if you follow my ways, keeping my laws and commandments, as your father David followed them’” (1 Kings 3:10-14).

The most important trait of King Solomon is his wisdom, which Our Lord will later echo in St. Matthew. “On Judgment Day,” He says in St. Matthew, “the Queen of the South will appear against this generation and be its condemnation. Because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and look, there is something greater than Solomon here” (Matt. 12:42).

Our Lord highlights the wisdom of Solomon and suggests that only His wisdom, the wisdom of the Son of Man, is greater than that of Solomon.

The sacred author shows the origin and the manifestations of that wisdom. It's a gift of God at the King's request.

“God gave Solomon immense wisdom and understanding, and a heart as vast as the sand on the seashore.” We're told that “the wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.” (1 Kings 4:29-30).

He was wiser than anyone else, says the Book of Kings. “For he was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite and the sons of Mahol. and Heman, Calcol, and Darda. His fame spread to all the surrounding nations. He composed 3,000 proverbs. His songs numbered 1,005. He could discourse on plants from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing on the wall. He could discourse on animals and birds and reptiles and fish. Men from all nations came to hear Solomon's wisdom, and he received gifts from all the kings of the world who had heard of his wisdom” (1 Kings 4:31-34).

The more one acts with wisdom, we're told in the same Book of Kings, the more that gift increases in man.

“God speaks to Solomon” also means that the Lord ratifies him as King of Israel. Solomon's request pleases God because it is made in humility, and has, as its object, not material things, but discernment or wisdom to administer justice among the people.

It's a foretaste of all the order which, according to Christ's teaching, the prayer of petition should have.

In one of the Catechisms, it says, “The Master and Lord of all things Himself taught and commanded what is to be asked of God, and in what order it should be done. For since prayer indicates and expresses our desires and petitions, then we ask properly and with method; and the order of the petitions follows the order of the things that are to be desired.

“Now, true charity teaches us to direct our whole life and to drive desires to God, who, being the supreme Good, must of necessity be loved with a supreme and special love. And God cannot be loved heartily and exclusively if his glory and honor are not preferred to all things in creation. For all goods of our own and those of others, and in short, all that is designated by the name of good, must be subordinated to the supreme Good as coming from him” (Pope Pius V, The Catechism of the Council of Trent).

From Solomon, we can learn to look again at the things that we ask of God. Often they may be material favors: things we want, things that will suit our own comfort.

But Our Lord is telling us that it's very pleasing to Him if we ask for things—gifts, talents—whereby we may be of greater service to our people. “He asked for wisdom to judge my people well” (cf. 1 Kings 3:9).

It's good to ask God for those gifts that only He can give, but the greatest that we need to be a better person, a better follower of Christ, a person of greater interior life, a person of greater virtue, greater charity, greater humility, greater order; whatever it is those virtues are that we need most—maybe purity and chastity, maybe prudence, maybe justice—so that we might fill ourselves with those good things (cf. Eph. 1:23): so that I can be a better student, a better parent, a better mother, a better father.

Wisdom can be defined as “knowledge of things through their ultimate causes” (Aristotle). It's wisdom to see only good and beauty in all things, because wisdom sees God's beauty in everything and goes to serve others.

“True wisdom is a participation in the mind of God” (John Paul II, Audience, Jan. 29, 2003). Wisdom is a divine gift and a guide of life and of the decisions of the faithful. It gives us a loving knowledge of God and of people and created things, insofar as they refer to Him.

As someone said once, “You get knowledge in college, but wisdom comes from God.” You may have an experience some time of speaking to somebody who perhaps does not have too much education but often their words express a wisdom that is uncommon, a wisdom that can only have come from the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes we get wisdom in the course of life. Sometimes we don't. But it's enlightening and inspiring to listen to people that God may place in our path who may be full of wisdom, in spite of having very little opportunity in which to acquire it.

Through the gift of wisdom, the Holy Spirit places this knowledge within the reach of simple souls who love God. We're told in St. Matthew: “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes” (Matt. 11:25).

It's a knowledge not learned from books but given by God who illumines and fills our mind and heart, will and understanding with love. By means of this light of love, the Christian has a more intimate and joyful knowledge of God and His mysteries.

There's a Chinese proverb that says, “A single conversation across the table with the wise man is worth a month's study of books.” In the course of our life, we have to try and gather wisdom to use our time well, to practice the virtue of humility, to give a lot of importance to our ongoing formation.

Fulton Sheen liked to say, “Just as a mouse eating piano keys cannot understand how someone can sit at a piano stool and play Tchaikovsky, so we do not understand the wisdom of God's ways.”

Through the world of nature and of grace, the Holy Spirit enables us to perceive and contemplate the infinite wisdom, power, and goodness of God. His nature is reflected in created things.

In Christ Is Passing By, St. Josemaría says, “Through this gift a Christian perceives and understands that “all creation, the movement of the earth and the other heavenly bodies, the good actions of creatures and all the good that has been achieved in history, in short, everything, comes from God and is directed towards him.” This is in Christ Is Passing By, Point 130.

The Book of Wisdom says, Truly he will be able to say that wisdom “guided him on straight paths. She showed him the kingdom of God and gave him knowledge of the angels” (Wisd. 10:10).

The Holy Spirit Himself will warn us when what is good and true in itself is in danger of becoming bad by leading us away from our last supernatural end. It could be a disordered desire for material possessions, or an attachment to these goods in a way that does not leave the heart free to serve God.

Christians must sanctify themselves in the middle of the world have a particular need of this gift so as to direct all temporal activities to God, making them a means of holiness and apostolate.

Through it a housewife discovers how her work at home is a way to God if it is done with an upright, honest intention and with a desire to please God; a student learns that study is the ordinary way to love God, to do apostolate, and to serve society; for an architect the way to God is through plans and drawings; for a nurse, her care of the sick.

We understand that we must love the world and temporal affairs, and come to discover the truth of those words of St. Josemaría in Conversations:

“There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it” (Josemaría Escrivá, Homily, “Passionately Loving the World” Oct. 8, 1967 in Conversations, Point 114).

We have to try and apply this truth about the gift of wisdom to our ordinary Christian vocation in the middle of the world, to our interior life, to our apostolate, our work, our spiritual direction, our sacraments.

St. Josemaría says in Conversations, “When a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you repeatedly, and hammered away once and again at the idea, that the Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse out of the prose of each day.” It's in Conversations, Point 116.

The epic poetry that we men and women write for God is composed of the ordinary events of the day, the problems and joys that we meet along our way.

Like Solomon, we have to ask for the wisdom to judge well. “Age doesn’t always bring wisdom; sometimes age comes alone” (Oscar Wilde).

In the Furrow, Point 38, St. Josemaría says, “It is no use trying to please everyone. There will always be people who disagree, who complain. The way popular wisdom sums it up is: ‘What is good for the sheep is bad for the wolves.’”

In an Encyclical called “Faith and Reason,” one of the greatest Encyclicals of John Paul II, he says. “Another of the great insights of St. Thomas was his perception of the role of the Holy Spirit in the process by which knowledge matures into wisdom. From the first pages of his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas was keen to show the primacy of the wisdom which is the gift of the Holy Spirit and which opens the way to a knowledge of divine realities.”

"His theology allows us,” he continues, “to understand what is distinctive of wisdom in its close link with faith and knowledge of the divine. This wisdom comes to know by way of connaturality; it presupposes faith and eventually formulates its right judgment on the basis of the truth of faith itself.

‘The wisdom named among the gifts of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the wisdom found among the intellectual virtues. This second wisdom is acquired through study, but the first ‘comes from on high’, as St. James puts it (James 3:17). This also distinguishes it from faith, since faith accepts divine truth as it is. But the gift of wisdom enables judgment according to divine truth.”

The Holy Father continues, “It is no accident that when the sacred author comes to describe the wise man, he portrays him as one who loves and seeks the truth: ‘Happy the man who meditates on wisdom and reasons intelligently, who reflects in his heart on her ways and ponders her secrets. He pursues her like a hunter and lies in wait on her paths. He peers through her windows and listens at her doors. He camps near her house and fastens his tent-peg to her walls.’”

The Book of Sirach continues: “‘He pitches his tent near her and so finds an excellent resting place; he places his children under her protection and lodges under her boughs; by her he is sheltered from the heat and he dwells in the shade of her glory’ (Sir. 14:20-27)” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998).

St. Paul to the Colossians says, “The treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ” (Col. 2:3). The closer we become to Christ in our interior life, in our presence of God, among the ordinary daily realities of our ordinary existence, the more we're going to find those treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

One writer said, “Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge; other people just gargle.”

The Book of Proverbs says, “A fool takes pleasure in doing wrong; the intelligent, in cultivating wisdom (Prov. 10:23).

We could ask Our Lord God for that grace to learn how to cultivate that wisdom on a daily basis—in our spiritual reading, in our cultural formation, in all the things that we're exposed to, in our conversations with people, in our openness to new knowledge and new things.

St. Paul says to the Romans, “How rich and deep are the wisdom and the knowledge of God! We cannot reach to the root of his decisions or his ways” (Rom. 11:33).

The Book of Proverbs says, “For Yahweh himself is the giver of wisdom. From his mouth issue knowledge and understanding (Prov. 2:6).”

The Book of Wisdom itself says, “Wisdom will never enter the soul of a wrongdoer, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin (Wisd. 1:4).

In the Gospel, Our Lord encourages us to find wisdom in daily life. We're told, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).

Augustine says, “Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you” (St. Augustine, Confessions).

St. Paul says, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

How do we acquire the gift of wisdom? Like the other gifts of the Holy Spirit, it accompanies sanctifying grace, makes a person well disposed to receive inspirations and movements of the Holy Spirit, and “completes and perfects the virtues of those who receive them” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 1831).

“The spiritual person,” we're told by St. Paul, “can assess the value of everything, and that person's value cannot be assessed by anybody else” (1 Cor. 2:15).

We ask for the gift of wisdom, not only for special undertakings, but to follow God's will, which is a continuous task for the Christian.

Beneath the surface of things, when we follow the Holy Family closely in the different decisions they had to make, we see how they were trying to follow God's will in a deep way: the journey to Bethlehem, the fleeing into Egypt, the coming back to Nazareth.

“This discernment,” we're told, “is nourished by the light and strength of the Holy Spirit, who evokes everywhere and in all circumstances, obedience to the faith, the joyous courage of following Jesus, and the gift of wisdom, which ‘judges all things and is judged by no one’ (cf. 1 Cor. 2:15). It rests on the fidelity of the Father to his promises” (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores dabo vobis–“I shall give you shepherds”).

Through this gift, we share in Christ's love for the people we're in contact with. It's relevant for our apostolate.

Through this gift, we see in our dealings with other people a chance to be more merciful, doing an effective apostolate, and bringing them closer to God.

We understand better the great need that men have to be helped on their way to Christ. Others are seen as persons in need of God, and that's the way that Jesus sees them.

This gift teaches us to view events in the light of the providence of God, who is always a loving Father.

In Christ Is Passing By, Point 133, we're told, “Among the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I would say there is one that we all need in a special way: the gift of wisdom. It makes us know God and rejoice in his presence, thereby placing us in a perspective from which we can judge accurately the situations and events of life.”

With the vision that this gift bestows, the soul who wishes to follow Christ closely contemplates reality from a higher perspective, because it shares in some way in the vision which God Himself has of Creation. Everything is judged with the clarity given by this gift.

Illumined by this gift, the same gift that God Himself has of Creation, the saints have understood the real meaning of the events of this life, whether small or great.

They don't consider illness a misfortune, nor do they rail against the sufferings they endure, because they understand that God blesses them in different ways, and frequently He blesses with the Cross.

Through this gift, the motions of grace will bring us and our friends and neighbors a great peace. We'll be helped to bring joy wherever we go, and to find the right word to reconcile those who are at odds with one another. This gift ties in with the beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9).

Those who have peace in themselves can bring peace to others. This peace which the world cannot give (John 14:27) results from seeing all within the providential plan of God, who never for a moment forgets His children.

In Friends of God, it says, “May the Mother of God and Our Mother protect us, so that each one of us may serve the Church in the fullness of faith, with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and with our contemplative life. May each of us joyfully honor the Lord by carrying out his duties, those which are properly his; each one of us, in his job or profession, and fulfilling the obligations of his state in life” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 316).

Queen of Apostles, pray for us and with us, so that the Holy Spirit will descend in abundance upon His Church, and that she will shine throughout the world, ever more united, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF