Monday 24 February 2025 - All wisdom is from the Lord

Monday 24 February 2025

Today is Monday the 24th of February in the 7th week of Ordinary Time.    Salt of the Sound sing, ‘Come Thou Fount’.     Come, Thou Fount of every blessing  Tune my heart to sing Thy grace  Streams of mercy, never ceasing  Call for songs of loudest praise  Teach me some melodious sonnet  Sung by flaming tongues above  Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it  Mount of Thy redeeming love  Here I raise to Thee an altar  Hither by Thy help I'm come  And I hope, by Thy good pleasure  Safely to arrive at home  Jesus sought me when a stranger  Wandering from the fold of God  He, to rescue me from danger  Interposed his precious blood  O to grace how great a debtor  Daily I'm constrained to be  Let Thy goodness, like a fetter  Bind my wandering heart to Thee  Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it  Prone to leave the God I love  Here's my heart, O take and seal it  Seal it for Thy courts above  Here's my heart, O take and seal it  Seal it for Thy courts above  Today’s reading is from the Book of Ecclesiasticus.    Ecclesiasticus 1:1-10    All wisdom is from the Lord,     and with him it remains for ever.  The sand of the sea, the drops of rain,     and the days of eternity—who can count them?  The height of heaven, the breadth of the earth,     the abyss, and wisdom—who can search them out?  Wisdom was created before all other things,     and prudent understanding from eternity.  The root of wisdom—to whom has it been revealed?     Her subtleties—who knows them?  There is but one who is wise, greatly to be feared,     seated upon his throne—the Lord.  It is he who created her;     he saw her and took her measure;     he poured her out upon all his works,  upon all the living according to his gift;     he lavished her upon those who love him.    Several of this week’s readings come from the book of Ecclesiasticus. This is said to have been written by an experienced civil servant living in Jerusalem a couple of centuries before Christ. He wants to pass on to future generations what he has learnt from his long years of public service. What’s your first impression of these opening verses?    The writer is very aware of the limits of what human beings can know, without the help of God. But his response isn’t to commission new research, or to give up all hope of ever reaching deeper insight. He invites us, instead, to ask for wisdom as a gift from God. How do you react to that invitation in your own life?    Listening to the passage a second time, notice the kind of things that the writer thinks that it is difficult to discover.  Ecclesiasticus 1:1-10    All wisdom is from the Lord,     and with him it remains for ever.  The sand of the sea, the drops of rain,     and the days of eternity—who can count them?  The height of heaven, the breadth of the earth,     the abyss, and wisdom—who can search them out?  Wisdom was created before all other things,     and prudent understanding from eternity.  The root of wisdom—to whom has it been revealed?     Her subtleties—who knows them?  There is but one who is wise, greatly to be feared,     seated upon his throne—the Lord.  It is he who created her;     he saw her and took her measure;     he poured her out upon all his works,  upon all the living according to his gift;     he lavished her upon those who love him.  You might like to finish this prayer by asking God for the kind of wisdom that you yourself need at the moment.  Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.