Heart Space:

12-22-2019Pastor's LetterMary Ann Ronan

O Wisdom, O Holy Word of God,
You govern all creation with your strong yet tender care.
Come and show your people the way of salvation. From the O Antiphons

Deep in December, in the final days of Advent, Wisdom remembers as she sits by the Fire and knits. She has a long memory. She is an old woman.

Wisdom was there before the beginning and she saw it all happen - light from darkness, dry land from sea, earth carpeted with green growing things. She was more than a spectator. She was God's companion artisan, playing with delight in the fields of creation (Proverbs 8).

She is in fact the personification of God's creating Word, the logos knitted into the very core of creation, providing it with pattern and coherence (Genesis 1). She is the wise women who builds herself a house, sets her table, and invites to the feast all those who seek life (Proverbs 9). She reflects the Shepherd turned host in God's house in Psalm 23. Serene, changeless, all seeing, Wisdom shows us God's face.

He is Joseph, knowing his people's history of waiting for the Messiah. Growing up an obedient Jew, he knew about Isaiah's prophecy of the virgin birth. He was searching for the right thing to do. Asking for Wisdom... he came to believe he was going to be part of something bigger, much bigger... he agreed to protect and provide for...God! And God's mother! He walked in faith to follow God, not the path of law or the path established by power, but the road of Wisdom many of his people chose throughout history.

A few days from now, on Christmas, we will recall that the Word of the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) Wisdom personifies, took on human flesh in Jesus the Christ. In Jesus, wisdom assumes a human face that reflects the light prayed for in the Psalms (Psalm 67).

St. Luke tells us Jesus grew, as we must, in wisdom" as he grew in age.
In us, the members of Christ's Body, humanity continues to grow in wisdom as we remember the very long history of human experience. Wisdom's human face is scared by thorns, lined by suffering, and marked by the enduring quest to make sense out of a world of chaos.

So Wisdom still sits by the Fire, who is God (Exodus 3), and knits past and present together into meaning and value. In addition, each of us has been entrusted, just like Joseph, with a portion of the pattern.

O Wisdom, O Holy Word of God, come, teach us how to knit!

P.S. A story: The shepherds raised the lambs to be offered in the Temple sacrifice. When a lamb was born pure, the shepherds would wrap them in cloths to keep them from being tarnished in any way; for they were offered to God. When they came to the manger, they saw the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. This will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." They recognized the "the Lamb of God"; O Wisdom help us recognize Jesus and his face in all the suffering peoples of our time.

Told by a Bible Study participant from his time in the Fields of the Shepherds in Bethlehem.