 Can you hear me? Okay, well, it's a problem if you can for the next 60 minutes. Is that it? Okay, there we are. Okay, so there's an old tradition you know between the Franciscans and the Dominicans that for the Feast of Saint Dominic we invite a Franciscan to come and preach to us and he comes and preaches on Saint Francis. It happens every single time but on the Feast of Saint Francis they invite a professional and the Dominican comes and the order of preacher. So I'm very pleased with this ecumenical invitation to speak here at Franciscan University. I'm even more pleased that they put me in the circus tent. So I was supposed to be in the field house so this is your last warning if you came for a trapeze act or at least an elephant on a ball or something like that. I haven't prepared anything of this sort. So you're coming here today to this tent is an act of faith and you're staying till the end of my talk will be an act of charity but we have open doors on all sides so feel free to take a breath of air far away if you need to. Solomon the wise man says that there is a way that seems good to man but its end is death. There are five types of fool in the book of Proverbs and what type of a fool would choose the way that leads to death? Well this is why you disguise the way that leads to death as a way that leads to life. It's a way that looks good. Well what type of a fool follows the road that leads to death? Well examine yourselves and ask why you're sitting here in front of me right now. Syrac 27. Four. When a sieve is shaken the refuse appears. So do a man's faults when he speaks. Or in Mark Twain's aphoristic version better to keep your mouth silent and appear like an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt. Which would make a very good Episcopal motto. When I am made a bishop I will choose Acts 26-24 Festus words to St. Paul. Your great learning is driving you mad. So St. James tells us be quick to hear and slow to speak so now it is my job to speak and your job to listen and I ask you not to finish your job before I finish mine. That's all the extended Captazio Benvolensie which I capture your good will and now I will squander it for the rest of our time together. But as we get serious here a little bit I want to maybe review some of these ideas that have been laid on the table it's good to let them sink in because you get hit with a lot when you come to one of these conferences. So I want to do a little rapid review of this notion of wisdom literature and we heard a little bit about this from Dr. Han. So he spoke about wisdom literature and these three books of Solomon which are kind of a curriculum in wisdom and you start with the book of Proverbs which is this is Ben Franklin Wisdom this is the farmer's almanac. It's aphoristic kind of wisdom. This rudimentary moral training that we go through in which the character, the virtues are built he connected this with this first stage in the spiritual life which is the purgative way. Then there's another type of wisdom which is the second book which is in the three volume corpus of Solomon is the book of Kohlet. I forgot to mention one of your penances here is they don't in fact have that magic timer in front of me. So this may end very quickly and mercifully or be unending. So someone needs to give me signals. Ah, the other thing about this. Ah, is this? You'll stand here? Okay, good. I have a companion. Do you have a watch? Can we talk? Does anyone here have a watch? Okay, someone... Okay, we'll do the best we can. How about you? You have a watch? No, you have a watch? Okay, thank you. We're professionals here. Okay, that's for your sake. So the second book of wisdom or type of wisdom we're really talking about types of wisdom because the Protestants think they like the Bible but the Catholics have even more Bible than the Protestants and we have even more wisdom books than the Protestants. And we have not just Proverbs but the book of Sirach which is a kind of development. It's a reflection on the book of Proverbs. Centuries later we have another scribe transforming these same types of wisdom and giving us another type of aphoristic proverbial wisdom and the second genre, okay, literary genre of wisdom is the book of Kohelet or Atheziastes. And this is the point when you start to ask critical questions and the world doesn't look so simple as it does with these little proverbs that our mother and father taught us that we hang on to but you start to have a kind of critical questioning spirit and the book of Job is also associated with this type of reflection. Is the world really that simple that if you do good good things will happen to you? No, there's a problem of innocent suffering. We start to mature a little bit and ask why is the world so inscrutable? Why is wisdom so inscrutable? And then this third, this pinnacle of wisdom is we heard beautifully today and if anywhere was at the dazzling talk of Dr. Herrmann the song of songs is the unitive way in which we pass them to a kind of love relationship with God. We pass beyond this struggle and this suffering. Another thing that's just kind of a global view and this is meant to be a workshop I'm told. I said that Dominicans have habitual and perverse predilection for being useless and in the high sense of doing things as an end in themselves but we'll try to be useful here and run this as a workshop so I'm going to talk about testing and discipline and trial as a way to wisdom so I'll make this entire hour a trial for you so that we'll all emerge on the other side a little bit wiser. Solomon himself gives us these different varieties of wisdom and St. Paul has a beautiful line in the letter to the Ephesians in which he coins a term, it doesn't exist in Greek until he writes it, polypoichelos. The multi-manifold shape of wisdom. There's this variety to wisdom which can't be reduced to a single type, a single manner of thinking or engaging with the world. It's rich in the same way that we have all of these books that show us different types of wisdom. Another point and this is just a review and to put it into perspective what we're going to go is we made a distinction last night, and Dr. Hahn did, between the gift of wisdom and the virtue of wisdom. This is an important distinction, it's a very important distinction because it has everything to do with wisdom from above which is the title I took here from the letter of St. James. The wisdom from above is the gift of wisdom which is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. There's a human wisdom which is something cultivated in the intellect by philosophers but also by the Ben Franklin's of the world, a kind of more homespun type of wisdom. The gift and the virtue are distinguished between human effort and something that is given by God. St. Thomas Aquinas gives a magnificent image between a boat where you row by your own power and a boat that is blown by the wind, a sailboat. And this is the difference between wisdom that comes from above. It's the breath of the Holy Spirit that moves us. So we can struggle along in our little row boats trying to understand the world, trying to penetrate the world and we can sharpen our minds in different ways and we can ask questions like philosophers ask as you do when you take philosophy classes in your college. This can only get us so far, it can only get us as far as our own native powers. When the breath of God begins to move us, we begin to move fast and far. God can act in a way that's proportionate to his own power. This is the remarkable thing and this is why saints are no longer simply having an effect in a little time and place but can reach out and touch the whole universal church and not just the universal church in the time when they live but pass through the centuries. This is someone being moved by God, proportionate to God and to his spirit that permeates all things. So there's a progression in the spiritual life that takes us from these virtues that we acquire by sweat, by hard work, by study, but that have a threshold. And this crowning gift and each of the seven virtues is crowned by a particular gift. So there's a relationship between the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues and these seven gifts of the spirit in which God's spirit comes within our human spirit and expands that strength, those muscles that we've built up by our own exercise and gives us an agency adequate to his own plan. We're tiny little things, we're hobbits. We can't do a whole lot on our own and we can't understand a whole lot on our own which is actually very consoling that there's a wisdom deeper than the tiny imagination of our own minds. So understanding the dimensions, the height and the depth of this gift of wisdom is what brings us to the supernatural level. When we start to do supernatural things, we start to do things that exceed the comprehension of a human mind. So this, for instance, in the gift of counsel which is closely related to the gift of wisdom, the gift of counsel perfects the virtue of prudence by which I govern my actions. I'm a politician, I try to be prudent, I weigh the different possibilities and I determine this is the most circumspect and promising path to follow. The gift of counsel makes us do stupid things that are wise in the eyes of God. There's a famous story of St. Dominic when he's founding the Dominican Order that when he only had a handful of brothers and the order wasn't founded at all, he sent them out to the four corners of the world. And all those brothers told him, this is a stupid idea. You need to consolidate and build a firm foundation. What he's doing here is he's acting according to a higher gift of counsel which is to say he's attuned to the providence of God. He does things that will succeed because he is in harmony with this divine plan in an intuitive way. It's a kind of supernatural animal instinct. Animals do things that are proper to the plan for their prosperity in the same way when these gifts infuse us, we act in ways that grease the machinery of God's providence. And this is what happens when the gift of wisdom enters into us. And there's two types of knowledge, two types of wisdom, two ways of knowing things. Not just these levels. The agency is proportionate to my own human will and strength. There's also a difference between that knowledge which is known by cognition, by thinking, by reason, and that which is known by conaturality because I share an innate sympathy, a relationship with something. So the distinction is between a moral philosopher who can speak about the virtues of chastity, for instance, and what's the right thing to do in this or that situation, and asking someone who's chaste. This is the lived wisdom of conaturality that's been incarnated somehow. So this movement towards a carnal wisdom is also part of the gift of wisdom that it's no longer at the level of reflection. It's not a theory, but it's something that has inhabited me so that I instinctively choose the good. How do you know what the good is? You watch the good man, the man who instinctively, like a virtuoso, does the right thing. So doing the good, living the good life, is like learning an instrument. We train our fingers, we play intervals over and over until it's conatural, it's part of us, it becomes a second nature, and then the second nature carries us. And then, when the Holy Spirit begins to blow within us, then we begin to perform with a virtuosity which is proper to God. So these capacities of human understanding, these capacities for practical intelligence are about the direction of human acts. So wisdom is about directing human action. It's about directing our lives. It's about directing the world. And the wisdom of God is that which, in a practical way, like a good politician, orders the affairs of men, orders the affairs of the world in a sweet way with a sweet disposition. So there are degrees of this practical intelligence. There's this moral philosophy, there's the intermediate practical knowledge and there's this level of prudence, the level of the one who's imbibed the virtues. And this is the difference between, to give you an example, a chemist who thinks about the structure of the world and thinks about elements and compound reactions and a biologist, and then researchers at a drug company who start to ask, well, how can we combine these things in a respectful way to cure cancer, to cure some disease? That's like moral philosophy when we start to have a practical application of this purely speculative knowledge, but now it's ordered to something. But this is completely different than the doctor who knows how to recognize the problem and prescribe the right drug. And so when we descend down to this level, and it's no longer pure speculation and it's no longer speculation ordered towards the practical, but it's the actual diagnosis of a situation. This is the medicine. This is when wisdom has descended into our hearts. This is when the gift has begun to become the motor and the animating force of all our actions. When we recognize what the medicine of God's wisdom has prescribed. So there are degrees of wisdom then. And everyone by their baptism has been given this gift. Everyone has this. You all have this. It's a kind of spiritual GPS that leads you on the right path. I said there's a way that leads to, that looks good to man, that leads to death. Okay, what kind of a fool chooses that path? Moses stands up and he says, I lay before you today, life and death, a blessing and a curse. This in the wisdom literature is called the two ways. The world is very, very simple in the vision of biblical wisdom. It's black and white. There are two ways. There's the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death. So why does it get confusing? Why do we have to have a book like Ecclesiastes or Job? Because no fool will choose the way that leads to death, unless it looks like the way that leads to life. And conversely, the way that leads to life has been disguised by those who wish to lead us down the way of death as the way of death. Okay, and this is why the wisdom of the beatitudes, which turns on its head the wisdom of the world, tells us to rejoice in suffering. It tells us to rejoice in suffering. Okay, and this is the joy of the cross. This is the medicine of the cross that Dr. Shree spoke about this morning. So to have the eyes to penetrate beyond this disguise, which would divert us down one way or the other, this is the gift of every Christian. Okay, this mystical gift. It comes with sanctifying grace. But there is a further gift of wisdom, which is what we call a gift given freely, a grazia gratis data, which these are the charismatic gifts of the spirit. And there's a still higher wisdom that has been granted on top of that, which allows us not simply to organize and order my life so that I follow the way to life, but which allows me to diffuse wisdom in the world, to clear the eyes of those around us, those who deceived by the way of death are plotting on what they think is the way to life. This gift of wisdom, which opens the eyes of others, is a gift that God gives to his church, gives to special individuals in his church to lead all men to salvation. So this is the gift of wisdom. This is the wisdom literature. This is the way that the gifts of the spirit work within our lives. And so what I want to talk about is this way of life that looks like the way of death, okay? Trial, testing. And in particular, testing in prayer. So I don't know if you have yet received your July issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. Okay? But if you have, you've seen a ridiculous article entitled The Emerging Empirical Science of Wisdom, Neurobiology, Longevity, and Intervention. Now this is very interesting. The psychiatric establishment has created a research sector that is pursuing wisdom. This is not a bad thing in itself. At the University of Chicago, there is an enormous center for practical wisdom. In this article on The Emerging Empirical Science of Wisdom, we are informed about the neurocircuitry of wisdom. Okay? So we've attempted to quantify wisdom, okay? To name all of the characteristics of wisdom and the parts of the brain that fire when people are wise. Now this is an interesting project. What they've done is read the great wisdom traditions of the world. Okay? So there's this kind of secular dimension, as I said, to the intellectual virtue of wisdom. We have philosophers and we have human natural religions. Okay? So they read the Bhagavad Gita. Okay? They read the Koran. They read the wisdom literature. And they asked themselves, what are the traits, the characteristics of wisdom? And then they did surveys about people who they think they're wise. And they came up with five qualities, that cluster around this characteristic, this possession of wisdom. One has prosocial behaviors. Okay? Which is to say you're not asocial. You're somehow well integrated into society. Perhaps even a leader of some sort. One is gifted with self-reflection. There is an acceptance of uncertainty. There is decisiveness, which sounds like a lack of acceptance of uncertainty. But nevertheless, there's this ability to be decisive and also to live with uncertainty. And there is a very amorphous notion called spirituality. Okay? So these are the characteristics. And then they ask, well, how can we get people to imbibe these qualities, to manifest these qualities in their life? And they offer a series of wisdom-related interventions. Okay? So this is how we're going to acquire wisdom. We're going to go to a series of camps. Okay? This is what they propose. So here you're at wisdom camp. Okay? This is what you signed up for. And hopefully it does something. Hopefully when we reflect on these texts, we do imbibe something. Okay? They suggest, go figure, psychiatric counseling. Okay? So the industry has affirmed its own utility for the world. Okay? There's something in this whole project appropriate and also incongruously irrelevant. Okay? In the empirical approach. To search for this is like searching for the soul. Okay? With a flashlight or a shovel. Okay? We're trying to render palpable and put under a microscope something that's much more mysterious. Nevertheless, there is something wise in this effort of the psychiatric establishment and it's a question that begins the wisdom tradition. Where is wisdom to be found? So in the 28th chapter of Job, in all of these cycles of speeches that Job's unhelpful friends foist upon him, we hear this magnificent poem. There is indeed a mine for silver and a place for gold which men refine. Iron is taken from the earth and copper is melted out of stone. The earth, though out of it comes forth bread, is in fiery upheaval underneath. Its stones are the source of sapphires and there is gold in its dust. But whence can wisdom be attained? And where is the place of understanding? Man knows nothing to equal it nor is it to be had in the land of the living. The poem goes on. This question, where is wisdom to be found? Surely there is a mine for silver. We're digging in the depths of the earth and we can find these riches. We can find these riches that are hidden in the very bosom of creation. But where is wisdom to be found? The digging for wisdom can be a digging beneath the personal order. We heard something very important in several of these talks, that wisdom is personal. The type of knowledge that we're seeking is personal. Which is to say, we want a synthesis of all the wisdom, of all the mathematics, of all the truth that we can know, of all the science that we can know, of all the psychological reflection and yet this higher wisdom that comes down from above. And where is the synthesis of all of this? It's met in someone whose mind, whose person is filled with all of this wisdom, who pours forth this wisdom, in whose presence we experience this wisdom. We're searching for a person. But we can search beneath the personal level. Which is to say, we can search under a microscope. We can search in the earth. We can search in biology. We can search in chemistry. We can dig into these sub-personal places trying to find wisdom to understand how does the world work. So in the chemical, in the biological, in the psychological still, or the sociological, and try to find the laws that govern all things. We're searching for a wisdom that is imminent to the world, to the created order. What we're searching for is a law. This is what the chemists are searching for. This is what the mathematicians, physicists are searching for. We want a law. We want something that explains, that in a formula renders intelligible. The mysteries that we see around us. Why do things fall? Why do apples fall off of trees? Why do strange things happen? We're seeking to penetrate that and to find the law. C.S. Lewis in a famous book that you probably know, The Abolition of Man, speaks of the Dao. This is the natural law, this kind of common possession of all religions that have been seeking for order at all levels. Also a moral order. Why do things happen in the moral order, the way that they do? The moral laws that we discover that if you do bad things, then there will be consequences. I had a little niece who was allowed to run out in the snow in her shorts. Why? So that she'll learn a lesson. This is what we do. This is how you train people in wisdom. You let them learn a lesson because there are consequences. There are often consequences, but sometimes there aren't. Psalm 73 is a magnificent reflection on the fact that all the wicked seem to prosper. It seems like they get away with it. Look around. We had another nice reflection on the church as the corpse of the body of Christ or something. Why is the world flourishing and why are the churches empty? Why are things the way they are? There's a mystery here, and we're searching for the law. This question, where is wisdom to be found becomes a topos. It becomes a motif, a theme that recurs through the wisdom literature. It shows up again in the book of Baruch in chapter 3 in another wonderful poem. And here, we get an answer to this question. It's not just a question that's posed. Where is wisdom to be found? We're given an answer. Don't dig in the depths of the earth. The law that you're seeking is the law, the Torah of God. This is the place in which the synthesis, the order, the laws by which all things are governed can be discovered. This is the same theme that we find in the book of Sirach. It's an exclusive law, however. It's a law that's not given to everyone. So just as only high-powered physicists can understand the equations that give them access to the physical laws of the universe, the laws of God are only given to his people. They're only given to his people, and Baruch actually talks about the way that the sons of Ishmael don't have the law. They're lost in ignorance. So this possession of the law isn't a universal possession. It's an exclusive possession. It's a gift. It's a gift that's been given. And it's a gift that's been given, which is to say in this chapter, the third chapter of Baruch, it's no longer we who are searching wisdom, but it's wisdom who finds us. Wisdom comes and finds us because we're lost. We're searching for the way. We don't know whether this is the right way or not. And in this way, the law is handed to us as a map. As a way to follow. Wisdom finds us because wisdom becomes incarnate. Wisdom has to take on flesh in Jerusalem, in Israel, and ultimately in the flesh of Christ. Now, if wisdom is given to us, there's no need to pray for it. There's no need to pray for the gift of the law. It's in the Bible. And so, we have this verse that Dr. Hahn mentioned in the letter to James. Pray for wisdom, okay? If any of you are lacking wisdom, pray for it, and it shall surely be given. We're commanded to pray for wisdom, and yet wisdom is in our hands. Now, it's very, very interesting that this effort to acquire wisdom through study, through searching, okay? Which, incidentally, is the word midrash, okay? So the word to search for wisdom is the word for interpretation of the Bible, midrash in Judaism. We're searching, and yet we don't have to pray, and there's no tradition of prayer for wisdom in the Old Testament. This is very, very strange, except for the gift of Solomon. There's only one prayer of wisdom in the Old Testament, and this is in 1 Kings 3. Solomon, in this nighttime vigil, as we heard when he makes this massive sacrifice, prays for this gift of wisdom. There's something very strange about this prayer. What do you notice about this prayer? How does the prayer start? God starts the prayer. What does God do to set Solomon going? He asks a question. Solomon is responding to a question. And what does God ask him? He asks him to ask him something. God shows up as a genie in a bottle. And he says to Solomon, ask whatever you wish. This is how the prayer to wisdom makes its appearance in the Bible, is the divine genie appears and offers to Solomon anything that he wishes. Now, what does this make of prayer and prayer for wisdom from the very beginning? It's a test. It's a test of Solomon. It's a test of Solomon, this we see in the very character of the prayer. What can he ask for? Well, there's anything in the world. There's a number of saints who have passed this test. St. Thomas Aquinas, famously, on the Feast of St. Nicholas, the cross started to speak to him. The cross spoke to St. Francis. And he said, you've written well of me, Thomas. What do you wish? This is a scary thing if God says what do you wish? You better get this right. Okay? And what did St. Thomas say? Nisi non te domine. Nothing if not you, Lord. He passed. He's a good student, St. Thomas. No surprise here. There's other students who got it wrong. St. Gertrude got the same test. Ask what you wish, Gertrude. What did she ask for? That she could read Latin better. That's a dumb response. And she had buyer's remorse and then backed up and said, you, Lord. This is the danger. And this is the danger, in fact, of every such test when Ahaz, the king and the fourth age of the world is asked to ask for a sign. Okay? What does he do? Well, thank goodness he doesn't ask for a sign because if he did, he would have asked for something stupid. The son to spin. Okay? But he wouldn't have asked for the incarnate Lord to be born of a virgin. This is the wisdom of God. Okay? Which has answered its own test. Okay? Ask for a sign. Ask for what you will. The Lord comes to Solomon and puts him to the test. This is very like what I had a Korean friend when I was in high school who told me that when a Korean child is born, they lay three things in front of the infant. There are other cultures who do something similar. They put a pencil and a noodle and a coin. Okay? And the child is meant to reach for one of them. Okay? So if you choose the coin, you will be rich. If you choose the pencil, you will be intelligent. And if you choose the noodle, you will like pasta. You will be wise. Why the noodle is the symbol of wisdom? I do not know. He chose a roll of paper towels as a matter of fact. I also do not know. The Lord puts us to a test. The Lord puts us to a test in the very act of prayer. Now, have you ever been asked this? Have you stumbled upon the genie bottle? Well, as a matter of fact, you have. As a matter of fact, you have. How does the Lord present the task of praying in the Christian life? What does he say in the Gospel of John? Ask anything in my name and you shall have it. Prayer itself is a test. What we ask for is a test. It's a test that's given to us. Now, Solomon is tested. Okay? Solomon is put to the test. Will he grab the noodle? Will we grab the noodle when Jesus offers to us infallible prayer? This is an incredible gift. Jesus has offered to us infallible prayer. Ask for whatever you wish in my name and you will receive it. I don't know if there are other saints in the history of the church that have had this Charism, but Saint Dominic once confessed to a Cistercian that he had never asked for anything in prayer that he was not granted. And then he told him to hush this up until he died, but then word got out. He had never asked for anything in prayer that was denied. Now, what can this possibly mean? How can we render our prayer infallible? When our prayer is perfectly attuned to the mind of God, when our prayer is perfectly attuned to the wisdom that disposes all things sweetly, when our prayer is perfectly animated by charity, our prayer is infallible. Our prayer becomes the very expression of God's wisdom in the world. This is the test that we're put to in prayer, is to conform ourselves so perfectly to this ordering of all things that we become agents of God's wisdom in the world. Solomon is put to the test and he's already given the ability to answer. He's given the wisdom to choose wisdom. The wisdom itself is given to him to grab for the noodle and not the paper towels. Solomon has a monopoly in the Old Testament on prayers for wisdom. I said we don't have prayers for wisdom. There's lots and lots of prayers in the Old Testament. Make no mistake, there's an old book of it in the book of Psalms. But you won't find these prayers for wisdom to ask specifically for wisdom. Solomon has a monopoly on prayer and we start to develop these prayers of Solomon. So the prayer of this story in 1 Kings 3 becomes an entire tradition in itself as Israel reflects and thinks about this more and more and we get a beautiful it's compact when Solomon chooses wisdom and in choosing wisdom of course he passes the test because like the one who chooses first the kingdom of God all things are given to him besides that little narrative we don't hear the prayer itself. In the book of the wisdom of Solomon in chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 we get a magnificent expansion of what this prayer actually is and in chapter 9 itself we get a magnificent poetic rendering of the prayer of Solomon for wisdom. This prayer belongs uniquely to Solomon. This prayer for wisdom is uniquely to the king. This is important to understand again if you are at Dr. Harriman's talk you heard a little bit about this relationship between the king and wisdom. Wisdom belongs to God and in the ancient world it was unique to the king to be the possessor of wisdom because it belonged to the king to order the world which is why we reserve this prayer for wisdom only to the king. There's only one who can have this dignity to order all things like God on earth and the prayer for wisdom in fact in the book of wisdom is ordered to the signal act the most important act of Solomon. What's the most important thing that Solomon does? He builds the temple. What does this mean in the ancient world? The temple that which instantiates and incarnates and makes present God's presence which is to say his wisdom his prosperity and his order in the chaos of the world. You make a home for God and to do this you require wisdom to build a place where God can dwell within the chaos of the world requires wisdom. This is why the builders that Solomon has to incorporate the gift of wisdom. Hiram from Tyre like Bezalal who built the Tabernacle is filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge in all manner of workmanship. How can we possibly bring God down into the world? It's uniquely the task of the king in the ancient world which is leading us towards that messianic king who will more perfectly render a temple and a wisdom in the world to the royal dignity to ask for wisdom which in fact is why in the book of Sirach in chapter 51 we have another prayer. The book of Sirach ends with a wonderful prayer and in the Hebrew text it says before I traveled much I cried out for wisdom. But in the Greek text this figure has been changed. It's no longer I who traveled much before he, Solomon traveled much. He cried out for wisdom which is to say the translators of the Greek Bible were so convinced that only the king could utter this prayer that they had to change the text because this dignity of bringing wisdom into the world is uniquely the gift of the king. Jesus never prays for wisdom. Jesus utters no prayer for wisdom. He doesn't cry out for wisdom. He's not put to the test. He rather puts us to the test because there is something greater than Solomon here. Jesus calls out like wisdom in the words of wisdom. So Solomon's prayer in chapter 9 of the book of wisdom is a response to the word of wisdom. First Kings 3 God initiates the prayer and Solomon responds to the test. So in the book of wisdom wisdom itself first speaks a word which elicits the prayer of Solomon. And this is the same way and the same words which wisdom speaks in the book of wisdom are in the mouth of Jesus when he says, come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened and I will give you rest from my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart. This is a reference to this call of wisdom which appears both in the book of wisdom and in Sirach. This is the call which is meant to elicit this response of wisdom for us. Jesus doesn't pray for wisdom but he teaches us how to pray. He teaches us how to pray by teaching us this prayer of the our father. This turn to the father okay this turn to the father is what leads us ultimately to this question of the prayer as a test, as a discipline. What is the role of the father in wisdom literature? Okay, he's the one who disciplines, who chastises his child. Prayer is a test okay, prayer is a test that is put to us by the father. Why is prayer a test? Well, prayer is difficult. You've wondered why after you committed some ridiculous mortal sin okay, I fathered I'm guilty of sabotage I don't know, you confess something and then you get three Hail Marys okay, no matter what you've done. Why do you always get prayer as your penance? Because prayer is hard prayer is very very hard prayer is a test of what we are and what are we? I'll tell you what we are we are spiritual whales okay, the whale is a funny animal it's a giant bulk of blubber okay, that's floating in the ocean but breathes the air above but breathes the air above it's an animal, it's a sea mammal okay, this is what we are we're rational animals okay, we're animals we scratch ourselves, we make funny noises okay, we grow hair in funny places we're animals, but we're rational animals and we breathe the air above we breathe this air of the angels but we're weighted down by this blubber of the flesh which heaves upon us okay, with a force and a gravity that makes it hard to mount to the skies above and we can grasp for a breath okay, and reach for this air which is the the Empyrean angelic heavens but then we sink back down again okay, the the test of prayer is a test to live on a supernatural food there's something very very interesting we just had this this gospel the day before yesterday the gift of the mana the gift of the mana is is a supernatural food the the Israelites are grumbling because they're hungry they want the flesh pots of Egypt and so what does God send them he sends them something they can't understand at all the word mana is in fact just the Hebrew word for the question that they pose what is this this is often what I pose in the Hebrew where we have Polish sisters cooking Palestinian food for Frenchmen okay and when I go to dinner I say what is this okay, this is what the Israelites say they say what is this, this is the mana but this is a very mysterious thing that God does he responds to the hungers of these people by giving something that doesn't correspond to their hungers it's not the flesh pots of Egypt and it's not the bread that they knew there it's not a supernatural with supernatural food this is as though we are these dogs at the foot of the table we just we don't know the difference between dog chow and trout Wellington some magnificent meal God raises us up and feeds us with something that's supernatural to elevate our appetites and this is what it is this elevation of our appetites we understand and this is the way that the father tests us, eat this it's good for you this is the way that we test our children you don't understand this simply follow me and trust me and he puts his children to the test he puts his children to the test to accept a wisdom that they can't attain that's beyond them it's a meal prepared with a love with a meaning but it's good for them and he gives it to them and it's the test that they shall eat it this is a wisdom to live that which leaves us only with questions this is the magnificent moment in the book of Job God's questions are more satisfying than Job's answers God gives questions he leaves us with questions and in this way we're opened to follow his wisdom he puts us to the test in our own person because we're forced to live in a way beyond our own powers to live on his own wisdom which is a wisdom higher than we are he puts us to the test by distractions this is something that we all experience in prayer our mind is everywhere else it's everywhere else but on God this is the law of spiritual which is pulling us back down it's very difficult to think these rarefied thoughts now one of the tests of prayer is the temptation to judge our prayer by our experience of prayer and to judge the quality of my prayer based on what I sensibly feel that was a good prayer hour I was somehow deeply engaged with God the exclusive judge of our prayer is not found in our experience of prayer it's not found in our prayer hour it's found in the growth in charity the quality of our prayer is measured by the growth of charity in our life this is why I said this gift of infallible prayer this gift of infallible prayer is that moment when we have been perfectly moved by charity so when God is moving us more and more to charity and we see in these other dimensions of our life that we're growing in charity then our prayer is good then our prayer is good even though it's dry in the same way in fact the Israelites started to complain about this manna but it's good for them I always blamed the Israelites for complaining about manna until I went to Moshe's famous falafel on 54th and Lexington manna tasted anything like this they had every reason to complain ok so they complain but it's good for them because it gets them where they're going and this is the same way with us God is moving us to charity he's testing us to bring us to charity and this in fact is very interesting in the tests of those great individuals who are tested in the book of James Job and Abraham what is the test of Job the test of Job it's quite interesting where it brings him the book is framed by Job praying and Job praying and Job suffering like an animal there's a transformation in Job's prayer from the beginning of the book to the end there's a transformation in his ministry of intercession in which he is rendered like a Christ figure whose intercession is efficacious for his friends he's given the mission at the end of the book to pray for all of those who told him that he was in sin in the midst of all of this and we're told that Job's prayers are heard prayers are perfected on the other end of this test the tradition about Job actually gives us a text called the Testament of Job in which the test of Job changes the test of Job in fact comes in the form of a poor man a poor man comes to Job okay and he is tested to show charity will he offer him alms this is the test and in fact the rabbis came up with ways to avoid to make sure that you didn't see the poor man lest you fail the test okay every time that you confront the poor man you'll be confronted with the test to manifest charity in your life this in fact is what's at work in the second chapter of James when we move into this test of the assembly if a poor man comes into your midst clothed in rags okay the poor man in our midst is the test of our charity okay which is the test of our wisdom and our prayer prayer is a test that we are equipped to win just as Solomon was equipped to win you do not know what a pray as you ought says St. Paul which is actually very very good news okay you don't know how to do this at all but the spirit himself makes intercession okay with unutterable groanings the spirit prays for us just as Solomon is put to the test and is given the wisdom to respond so we are given the spirit to pray Jesus himself invites us to pray for anything in his name and then he gives us another advocate he gives us the spirit who will intercede within us the spirit himself makes this intercession and we are told by St. James that we must ask without without doubting so St. James in the beginning of his letter here he says consider it all joy my brothers when you encounter various trials these trials are for our benefit for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and let perseverance be perfect so that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing but if any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God who gives all generously and ungrudgingly and he will be given it but he should ask in faith not doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord since he is a man of two minds unstable in all his ways prayer is a test of our faith prayer is put to us as a test of our faith to try our faith and the failure has this shape you will be a man of two minds a person of two souls in fact James coins a Greek word here that never appeared before deep sukkos you have two souls within you you have two masters within you and you are blown like a wave of the sea and he goes on to explain this that these are the passions that move us what is the thing that we ask for when God gives us the ability to ask for anything whatsoever like the waves of the sea the wind comes over us and we want now this we want now this or do we want the one thing necessary do we want the one thing necessary seek first the kingdom of God what is the one thing necessary Jesus the answer to every question in Sunday school yes Jesus the one thing necessary is always changing the one thing necessary is what is necessary right now where does God want to meet me right now how does God want me to bring charity and wisdom into the world right now this is the one thing necessary and this is the test of the one who has one soul one desire one prayer one demand of God one thing I've asked of the Lord this alone I seek this is the test that's put to us not to be blown by the winds of our passions and by the confusion of our passions because our minds are confused by our passions by these desires we heard about ordered loves I love too many things I love all of my books I love my 73 yellow Plymouth convertible I love all of these things the one thing necessary organizes brings order to all of these loves in my heart the test of our faith which is given to us in prayer isn't simply I know you're going to give this to me so much I'm confident that it's going to come this is a dimension of faith that perfects our prayer but the faith that perfects our prayer is especially the faith of perseverance when Jesus teaches us to pray what does he teach? knock and it shall be answered in fact this is what James has quoted and what James has fused together the prayer of Solomon with this teaching of Jesus knock and it shall be answered ask and it shall be given to you knock and knock and knock like the persistent widow so this is the test of faith not that I ask once and I was so certain that I'd get it and the fairy god mother came and it came the test of faith trying the probing of our desires it's meant to purify our desires so I start to pray God give me a new pontoon boat okay that's probably a bad prayer maybe it fits in the wisdom of God but maybe it's just my desire okay and then I start to say God give me a good family vacation God give me repose God help me to bring repose to my family slowly slowly as the pontoon boat doesn't come if we're persevering in prayer our prayer changes our request changes our desire changes and as our desire changes we conform ourselves to the wisdom of God and it's in this act of faith it's in this act of perseverance that the test of faith has been brought to perfection now I begin to pray with the charity and the wisdom of God so the father is the one who disciplines us the father is the one who invites us to undergo this test because the father disciplines every child whom he loves the image of wisdom as a woman is a very beautiful image but the wisdom of wisdom the image of wisdom as a father brings a very different kind of perspective God is paternal and not paternalistic and where do these tests all bring us they elevate us and bring us to this dignity just like raising us to the table paternalism is the father who wants to keep his children infants who doesn't want to raise them who's failed in the work of fatherhood and bringing them up to his level what God wants to do with us as a good father isn't to keep us forever infantilized this would be paternalistic and he wants to raise us to his level and this is why in this prayer of Solomon in wisdom 7 we are told that the gifts of wisdom the father has given the gift of wisdom and the friendship through whom of discipline commend them the gifts that come through discipline render us friends equals with God the wisdom of the philosopher who is Aristotle said that it's impossible to be friends with God because it's impossible for a friendship between non-equals if there's a hierarchy like this and we don't have a friendship in the same way between a little child and his parent but when the child has been raised and becomes one level with his father then there's a new dimension of this relationship and this is the fatherhood this is the friendship of this paternal fatherhood that elevates us this is the design of the testing of God and the discipline of God is to bring us to the dignity of friendship so the trial of prayer is a part of the trial of every Christian life but it's a trial that the father gives us equipping us to succeed so that we can be his agents of wisdom in the world these gifts of wisdom can flow through us and penetrate the world so there's no better way I suppose to end than to pray with this magnificent prayer of Solomon and to ask Solomon and on his behalf that wisdom might enter our hearts God of my father's Lord of mercy you who have made all things by your word and in your wisdom have established man to rule the creatures produced by you to govern the world in holiness and justice and to render judgment and integrity of heart give me wisdom the attendant at your throne and reject me not from among your children for I am your servant the son of your hand man a man weak and short lived and lacking in comprehension of judgment and of laws indeed though one be perfect among the sons of men if wisdom who comes from you be not with him he shall be held in no esteem Lord God we pray that you would fill our hearts with wisdom for with you is wisdom who knows your works we pray that you would fill our minds with the light of your charity so that we might be agents of peace in the world send her forth from your holy heavens and from your glorious throne dispatcher that she may be with us and work with us and that we may know what is your pleasure in the name of the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit. Amen