Outside of you there is no God who takes care of all things, to whom you must give account for the justice of your judgments… As you are just, you administer the universe with justice, and you do not condemn anyone who does not deserve to be punished…
Sunday 16th in Ordinary Time
WISDOM 12:13-19
Outside of you there is no God who takes care of all things, to whom you must give account for the justice of your judgments…
As you are just, you administer the universe with justice, and you do not condemn anyone who does not deserve to be punished.
… Your dominion over all beings makes you indulgent toward all of them… You judge with moderation and govern us with much indulgence because, by merely willing it, you can do all things.
By acting in this way, you taught your people that the just man must be a friend to others, and you gave your children the good hope that, even in sin, you give room for repentance.
This Book is, as everyone knows, the last of the Old Testament, and it was probably written in the time of Jesus or a few decades earlier, in Alexandria. Its full title is “The Wisdom of Solomon,” and it is a good example of how books were attributed to the most important author of the genre, as a literary “eponym.” (Thus, the Psalms to David, the three books of prophecies to Isaiah…)
Leaving aside its general content, the fragment we read today has been included here exclusively for the idea of God judging at the end, that is, as a complement to a part of the message of the parable of the weeds. With this, it shows the diminishment to which we subject the Gospel. We fit it into the molds of the Old Testament, which suit us better. Our conversion to Abbá is still on the way. We prefer a clearer image: the merciful Judge. And our human condition, as sinners always encouraged by the Father, yields to the image of the good and the bad, rewarded and punished by the Judge.
However, in this fragment there is a profound Wisdom, an extraordinary reflection on God. Precisely His absolute power is what makes God merciful. And it is a precious image of sin and “virtue”: envy, vengeance, injustice are signs of a petty spirit, they are fundamentally diminutions of the human being. This conception of sin as diminution is very important. Let us just note that it is the richness of the spirit that makes us poor, it is love that makes us forgive… No virtue is repression, but fullness; no sin is freedom, but slavery.
ROMANS 8:26-27
The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness.
For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groans.
He who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit’s aspiration is…
As it is presented to us, it has nothing to do with the rest of the readings. And, deprived of all context, in such a brief and isolated fragment, it hardly has any meaning. We will therefore leave it as it is and omit all commentary.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.