Wisdom from St. Teresa of Avila: Know Thyself

"I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very crystal in which there are many rooms just as in Heaven there are many mansions[...]Now if this is so –and it is– there is no point in our fatiguing ourselves in attempting to comprehend the beauty of this castle; for, though it is His creature, and there is therefore as much difference between it and God as between creature and Creator, the very fact that His Majesty says it is made in His image means that we can hardly form any conception of the soul’s great dignity and beauty. It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or his mother was, or form what he came? Though that is great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies, and have a vague idea, because we have heard it and because our Faith tells us, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells within them , or how precious they are –those are things which we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul’s beauty." St. Theresa's Interior Castle Page 41-42
Hat tip to St. Peter's List!

Pope Francis: Wisdom is seeing with God’s eyes

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis embarked on a new cycle of catechesis this Wednesday, dedicated to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This week the Holy Father spoke to the tens of thousands present in St Peter’s Square about the gift of wisdom. He warned them not to confuse wisdom with knowledge, for wisdom is not born of intelligence, instead it is being able to see with the eyes of God.

Below please find a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s general audience catechesis:

Dear Brothers and Sisters ,
Today we begin a series of reflections on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the soul, the lifeblood of the Church and of every Christian: He is God’s Love, who makes our hearts his home and enters into communion with us. The Holy Spirit is always with us, always in us, in our hearts.

The Spirit himself is "God's gift" par excellence (cf. Jn 4:10) a gift from God, and in turn communicates different spiritual gifts to those who welcome him. The Church identifies seven, a number that symbolically speaks of fullness, completeness; we learn these when preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation and we invoke them in the ancient prayer called the "Sequence of the Holy Spirit" the gifts of the Holy Spirit are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude , knowledge, piety and fear of God.

1 . The first gift of the Holy Spirit , according to this traditional list, is wisdom. It is not merely human wisdom, no, the fruit of knowledge and experience. In the Bible we are told that, at the time of his coronation as king of Israel , God asked Solomon what gift he wanted to receive. Solomon did not ask for wealth, success, fame , or a long and happy life, instead he asked for “an understanding heart that knows how to distinguish good from evil" ( 1 Kings 3:9). This is wisdom: it is the grace of being able to see everything with the eyes of God. It is simply this: Seeing the world…situations, conjunctures, problems, everything with God’s eyes. This is wisdom. Often we see things as we want to see them or according to our heart, with love, with hate, with envy… no this is not God’s eyes. Wisdom is what the Holy Spirit does within us so that we can see everything with God’s eyes. This is the gift of wisdom. 

2 . Obviously this gift comes from intimacy with God. For our intimate relationship with God. From our relationship as children with a Father. And the Holy Spirit – when we have this relationship – gives us the gift of wisdom. When we are in communion with the Lord , it is as if the Spirit transfigures our heart and helps it to perceive all his warmth and predilection. 

3 . The Holy Spirit also makes the Christian "wise". This is, however , not in the sense that he or she has an answer for everything, or knows everything, but in the sense that he or she "knows" of God, how God acts, they know when something is of God and when it is not. They know this, they have this wisdom that God gives our heart. The heart of the wise man has this taste of God. It is so important that our communities have Christians such as these! Everything about them speaks of God and becomes a beautiful and vital sign of His presence and His love. And it is something we cannot improvise, something we cannot obtain by our own merits: it is a gift that God gives to those who are docile to His Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit in our hearts we can listen to him or not. If we listen to him he teaches us this path of wisdom, he gifts us wisdom which is seeing with God’s eyes, listening with God’s ears, loving with God’s heart, judging things with Gods’ judgment. These are the things that Holy Spirit gifts us and we can all have this. We just have to ask the Holy Spirit.

Think of a mother at home with her children. One does something and the other thinks otherwise and the poor mother is torn between the two with the children’s problems; when the mother is tired and she shouts at her children, is that wisdom? I ask you is that wisdom – what do you say? No! Instead when the mother takes her child to one side and gently rebukes him, and explains this is God’s wisdom! Yes! And this is what the Holy Spirit gives us in life.

In a marriage for example, the couple argue, then they won’t look at one another, or if they do it is with anger…Is that God’s wisdom? No! Instead when they say let the storm pass, let’s make peace! That’s wisdom, that’s the gift of wisdom, that comes to our homes, to children, to all of us! And it cannot be learned, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit! This is why we must ask the Lord to gift us the Holy Spirit and the gift of wisdom that teaches us to see with God’s eyes, to feel with God’s heart to speak with God’s words! And with this wisdom we can move forward, build the family, the Church and we can all be sanctified.
Let us ask for this grace of wisdom today. Let us ask Our Lady, who is the Seat of Wisdom, for this gift.

Thank you

Pope Benedict: True wisdom gives meaning to life amid darkness

The following comes from the CNA:

The "true wisdom" on Earth can be spread by Christ's disciples to eliminate the "darkness," said Pope Benedict XVI during the Sunday Angelus.

The Pope was joined by a crowd of pilgrims who covered much of St. Peter's Square on Feb. 6 for the Sunday Angelus prayer. Many of those in attendance were members of different Catholic associations for the defense of life and the family. Some had brought large green balloons that flew overhead to mark Italy's national "Day for Life."

In his address before the prayer, the Pope spoke about Christ's words from the day's Gospel which he refers to the disciples as the "salt of the Earth" and "the light of the world."

Christ sought to transmit a sense of mission and witness to the disciples through this image, he explained. In their culture, salt evoked values such as alliance, solidarity, life and wisdom.

Light, on the other hand, was "the first work of God the Creator and the source of life. The very Word of God is compared to light, as proclaimed by the psalmist: 'Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path'," said the Pope.

Sunday's first reading from the Book of Isaiah also refers to light rising up from the darkness when one assists the hungry and satisfies "the afflicted soul."

"Wisdom," said Pope Benedict "sums itself up in the beneficial effects of salt and light. In fact, the disciples of the Lord are called to donate new 'flavor' to the world, and to preserve it from corruption, with the wisdom of God, who shines fully on the face of his Son, because He is the 'true light, which enlightens everyone'."

"United to Him, Christians can spread the light of the love of God, the true wisdom that gives meaning to the existence and action of men, in the midst of the darkness of indifference and selfishness."

The Pope made an appeal for the dignity of sick persons as the World Day for the Sick approaches. "The Lord takes care of man in every situation, he shares in suffering and opens hearts to hope," he said.

He exhorted all who work in health care to see the sick "not only a body marked by fragility, but first of all a person, to which to give all solidarity and offer adequate and competent answers."

The day for the sick is celebrated worldwide on Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

For the Italian Day for Life, the Pope also called every person to "put at the center, in every circumstance, the value of the human being."

He concluded with the prayer that “parents, grandparents, teachers, priests and all who are dedicated to education might form the young generations to wisdom of heart, so that they might reach the fullness of life.”