A reflection on the daily readings, for Friday of the Second Week of Advent, by Father Perry.
From whence comes the terms “a wise fool,” I wonder?
It clearly is an oxymoron — that is, a figure of speech that combines two conflicting notions like: “accurate estimate”; or “close distance”; or “jumbo shrimp.”
But quite frankly, the scriptures often speak of wisdom.
And wisdom, we are told, is something we should pay attention to and listen to because the wisdom of God — and it comes to us in many, many ways — is something that will guide us and inspire us and teach us and ultimately give us life.
Isaiah shows us the wisdom of God as he reveals once again more about God’s desires for us and his dispensing of that wisdom in ways that will “show us the way.”
So Isaiah tells us: “Thus, says the Lord, your redeemer.”
That is wisdom right there.
In calling or naming God our redeemer, Isaiah spells it out in showing us just a little of what that redeeming looks like: God will “teach you what is for your good” and “lead you on the way you should go” and give commandments and laws that will make you “prosperous” and gift you with “many descendents”; and make the relationship between God and us so eternal that it could and would be said that “their name [your descendants] would never be cut off or blotted from my presence” (that is, God’s presence).
Now, that clearly is wisdom. If we could and would just listen!
If!
And the kind of listening is not just to words or directions; it is the kind of listening that springs from and centers in the heart.
And sometimes or many times we must become the wise fool who is not afraid to find God’s wisdom in things as foolish as the cross.
Those words are not mine, but come from the mouth of St. Paul as he writes them to the Corinthians.
But utter fools often do not see what is before their eyes or hear what is spoken to their ears.
Utter fools criticized John as being “possessed by a demon” and criticized Jesus as “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Jesus’ response to that utter foolish inability to recognize the greatness of John and the divineness of Jesus — “but wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
And Jesus would go about so simply and clearly and profoundly and divinely showing the works of God by loving and redeeming and healing and inspiring and teaching and modeling and living and dying the word and the wisdom of God!
Perhaps it is the refrain of the responsorial psalm today that puts the spotlight on the very wisdom of God for us, and both calls us and sends us forth with divine truth: “Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.”
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
