By Deacon Bill Masapollo • Posted November 12, 2015

We live our lives, day in and day out, with the implicit hope that we are living a wise life, a life filled with wisdom, riding at the crest of the wave of Christ’s teachings. We could look into the Book of Wisdom (7: 22b-8:1) and find Wisdom’s many attributes such as intelligent, holy, unique, certain, secure, all seeing, etc.

When I think about Wisdom, the characteristics that stand out to me are holy, agile and tranquil. Why? Because these three will help us deal with the vagaries of life that attach to ourselves, our families and friends and our world.

Why holy? Holy means “the good other.” We are sometimes called to do things that may not be mainstream. If we look around, we see many things that need understanding and action just as they did in Jesus’ days and how he dealt with his circumstances. In the Gospels Jesus, the ultimate teacher, surrounds us with love and hope in his personal actions and guidance.

There are what seem to be never-ending wars and threats of wars all around the world. Jesus would not join in battle with the Romans nor factions such as the Zealots. Christ always preached peace. Remember, he was a practicing Jew and said, “Render to Caesar….”

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Jesus does not want us to be overwhelmed. He wants us to understand the great gifts the world has and to be diligent and hopeful in dealing with distressing issues with respect to refugees, hunger and sickness, abusive capitalism and anarchy. Jesus told us that it does not behoove us to profit temporally but lose our immortal souls. Jesus fed the 5,000, cured many lepers and others, raised the dead, and told us about the Samaritans who in a sense were Jewish refugees ostracized from Israel because they married pagans.

Jesus taught us that we are all equal. The New Testament says a lot about how Jesus treated women and children. Remember he chose a human birth through Mary; he rewarded the faith of the woman at the well and Mary Magdalen who was the first to see the risen Lord. Jesus called on us to see the trust of children as our way in faith.

Why agile? Because Wisdom is God’s power overshadowing us with hope, no matter the circumstances. We must fight the things that Jesus fought in addition to planet deterioration and social justice issues such as protecting and settling millions of refugees. All of us must continue our crusade for life, human rights and our common salvation.

Why tranquility? Because believing and living the Wisdom of the Gospel that “the Kingdom of God is among us” (Luke 17: 20-25) is what will help us to focus on the peace and individual and communal love the Lord gives us, so that we might be right-thinking fervent, acting disciples.