Holy Scripture
Passage: The Book of Wisdom 1:1-15
“Because into a soul that plots evil wisdom does not enter, nor does she dwell in a body under debt of sin.
For the holy spirit of discipline flees deceit and withdraws from senseless counsels and is rebuked when unrighteousness occurs.
For wisdom is a kindly spirit, yet she does not acquit blasphemous lips; Because God is the witness of the inmost self and the sure observer of the heart and the listener to the tongue.”
Wisdom 1:4-6
https://www.bible.com/bible/463/WIS.1.4-6
Reflection
About a month ago, I started doing the Liturgy of the Hours, specifically, Morning and Evening Prayer. But recently I started doing the Office of Readings alongside these hours of prayer.
As a former Protestant, it has been amazing to see all the “Catholic Shadows” — practices I thought originated in Protestantism, but were actually inspired by Catholics and modified by Protestants: think infant baptism vs. baby dedications — and trace the shadow to its object, the Church, and its source of light, Jesus Christ.
As I began praying the Liturgy of the Hours and doing the Office of Readings, it struck me that even our devotional life did not originate with Protestantism, but with the early Church. The earliest Christians were Jewish, and so they continued many of the Jewish devotional practices from the Old Testament, like singing and praying the Psalms. This practice has continued and developed for 2000 years. Amazing!
Today’s readings came from the Book of Wisdom, and the passage lends support to the idea that Mary was without sin. The Church’s official teaching is that Mary was immaculately conceived. Protestants deny this and sometimes apply this to Christ’s conception, but this is an error.
Mary’s conception was immaculate, being preserved from sin, but Christ’s conception was incarnate, He who knew know sin becoming man. Mary was created sinless; Jesus was begotten, not created. He is the Word made flesh, and His sinless flesh was given to Him by the sinless Virgin.
This should not be a problem for Protestants logically because if God can create “sons of Abraham from these very rocks,” a sinless woman from the rib of a man, assume a man up into Heaven, “become Sin for us,” while still retaining His sinlessness, then He can obviously create a woman as sinless a second time. God is omnipotent, and what He did once, He can do again.
But what about the scriptural support for this?
In today’s passage, we read the following:
Because into a soul that plots evil wisdom does not enter, nor does she dwell in a body under debt of sin.
In the New Testament, we discover that Jesus is God, and that Jesus is Wisdom itself (1 Cor. 1:24). God, a.k.a., Jesus, a.k.a., Wisdom, cannot enter or dwell in a “body under debt of sin.” This is why we have Baptism, because it cleanses us of Original Sin, making us a fit dwelling for Christ.
One principle of interpretation, whether it is the Bible or an ancient work, is to recognize when the author says something he didn’t have to. For example, when we see Mary in Luke’s Gospel, she is greeted by the angel with the famous line, “Hail Mary, full of grace.”
Why does the angel do this? Why does Luke think it’s important that he include this detail? Even if the angel said it, why does Luke think it’s important to use valuable ink and parchment to record this phrase?
Well, if Jesus is the Word become flesh, God himself, and He knows know sin, then he cannot be physically, mentally, and spiritually united to a “body under debt of sin.” Whatever body Christ inhabits must be cleansed of Original Sin. This is why Baptism is the first sacrament, because it cleanses us of our “first sin,” Original Sin, and makes us a temple of the Lord. Why? Because wisdom does not dwell in a “body under debt of sin.”
At this point, some Protestants might object and say, “See, but this passage is using the pronoun ‘she,’ and Jesus is clearly a ‘He,’ so we are justified in rejecting this passage as Inspired Scripture because it is a contradiction of the New Testament.”
But this line of argument would be problematic for the Protestant. The book of Proverbs, found in both the Protestant and Catholic canons, also refers to wisdom as a woman (Proverbs 8:1-36). In fact, Christian Music artists wrote a popular praise and worship song in the late 90s that was inspired by the following passage:
“Receive my instruction, and not silver, And knowledge rather than choice gold; For wisdom is better than rubies, And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.”
Proverbs 8:10-11 NKJV
The song was “Lord, you are more precious than silver. Lord, you are more costly than gold…and nothing I desire compares with you.”
I must have sung that song 50,000 times in my youth groups over the years, and I can distinctly remember asking my pastors and parents, “Why are they singing this song about Jesus, when the Bible clearly describes wisdom as a woman?” Today, my answer would be: “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”
But additional revelation does not invalidate the Old Testament. If that were the case, then the Christians would have gone back and changed Proverbs 8 to say “wisdom is a man, or a king shouting to the fools in the street,” or they would have just done away with the Old Testament altogether.
Mary is the greatest disciple who ever lived. She is the model for all of us. When we enter into the waters of Baptism, our souls become washed of original sin, and we, in some mysterious way, participate in her immaculate conception. We are “born-again.” In the same way that Christ sanctifies the water of Baptism by His Baptism, so His grace prevented original sin from ever taking root in the soul of Mary.
One might object and say, “Well, if God did that for Mary, then why wouldn’t He do that for us?” To which I say, because “His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are Higher than our thoughts.”
Wisdom is not necessarily taking the shortest path between two points; it’s taking the proper path. Wisdom is a mystery; Wisdom is a man; Wisdom has a Mother; and Wisdom only calls; He does not force us to do what He wills. The question for us today is, are we going to be like Mary and look into the mystery of God’s Wisdom, perplexing as it may be, and say, “Let it be done to me according to your word?”
Or will we join our voices with the agnostic Pilate who looked into the eyes of Wisdom and dared to ask Him, “What is truth?”