WISDOM 2:12-20
The wicked said:
Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He has become a reproach to our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life. For if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.
As we already know, this book is the most recent of all the writings of the Old Testament. (Some think that it could have been written in times contemporary to Jesus, although the majority leans rather to dating it around the year 100 B.C.). Placed under the authority of Solomon, it aims to gather the ancestral wisdom of Israel.
The second chapter shows “the wisdom of the wicked.” I think it is a beautiful text, which can serve us very well for our meditation. For today’s Eucharist, only some verses are selected, but the entire chapter is very interesting, and it would be good for us to read it completely. It is included at the end.
This text has two applications to accompany the Gospel of Mark. On the one hand, the type of “Righteous One” who is incarnated in Jesus and who is the object of persecution. The parallel of some phrases with the invectives that the leaders of the people directed at Jesus on the cross is impressive (“If he is the Son of God, let God come and save him”).
For this reason, this text has been reread in the church with a prophetic sense, announcing Jesus. On the other hand, it applies to our Christian life, in parallel with the words of Jesus that refer to the persecutions that those who follow him will suffer, so well expressed in the second letter to Timothy, culminating with the phrase of 3:12: “All who want to live a godly life as Christians will suffer persecution.”
JAMES 3:16 – 4:3
Where there are envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Those who make peace are sowing peace, and their fruit is righteousness. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
It follows the same line as previous Sundays. It is about “the wisdom of Jesus” and shows a certain parallel with the first text, insofar as it reflects a way of proceeding that does not arise from Jesus but from the wisdom of the world, originating in the bad tendencies of our spirit.
FULL TEXT OF THE BOOK OF WISDOM
Chapter 2.
For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
“Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts; when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be dispersed like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat. For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because the seal is set and no one returns.
Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Let none of us fail to share in our revelry, everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot.
Let us oppress the just poor man, let us not spare the widow, let us not respect the old man’s gray hair full of years. Let our strength be the norm of justice, for weakness, as it seems, is of no avail.
(Here is included today’s text)
Thus they reason, but they err; their wickedness blinds them; they do not know the secrets of God, they do not expect reward for holiness nor believe in the prize for blameless souls.
For God created man for incorruptibility, he made him in the image of his own nature; but by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and those who belong to him experience it.
Chapter 3.
Instead, the souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment will touch them. In the eyes of the foolish, they seemed to have died; their departure was considered affliction, and their departure from among us as complete destruction; but they are in peace.
Although, in the judgment of men, they may have suffered punishments, their hope was full of immortality; for a short correction they will receive long benefits, for God tested them and found them worthy of himself; as gold in the crucible he tested them and as a holocaust he accepted them.
The day of his visitation they will shine forth, and like sparks among stubble they will run. They will judge the nations and rule over the peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever. Those who trust in him will understand the truth, and those who are faithful will remain with him in love…
José Enrique Galarreta