25th week of Ordinary Time, Thursday, Sept.28, 2006

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11. Psalm 90:3-6,12-14,17bc. Luke 9:1-6

We continue looking at Wisdom through another book of the Bible, perhaps, one that could be considered extremely human because of its straightforward honesty. It may even be sarcastic in evaluating the fleeting breath of life that we all enjoy. Vanity of vanity is the way it starts and it means breath of breath or the highest form of breath that is fleeting and nothing more than a passing cloud. You get the point. But let me take this in another direction. Elie Wiesel, the great Jewish literary genius and outstanding speaker and one of the best tellers of stories, entitled his autobiography in the German edition under the following lines from Ecclesiastes (meaning the preacher of the congregation or Qoheleth in Hebrew) "All rivers run to the sea" (Vol.1); but the sea is never full to the place where the rivers flow..." (Eccl. 1:7). Elie Wiesel lost his family, that is, his parents in the concentration camp of the Nazis; he himself escaped and has written about this horrible experience also in his book called Night.I think he chose these lines for the two volume autobiography in order to give us an insight into our human lives and the mysterious events that happen to us as we pass through our limited years. Surely, we live it out as the first volume suggests "all rivers run to the sea"; we never know the fullness of life, however, as "but the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers flow, there they continue to flow." Wiesel won the peace prize many years ago and he continues to write and speak for world peace as his years move on. I have had the privilege of meeting him on two occasions and he is a brilliant, humble, and challenging person.

The Psalm for today helped me to continue thinking about both human and divine wisdom and maybe that is what Wiesel is saying in the titles he chose for his autobiography. The following verse of the Psalm really struck home as I pondered over God's wisdom: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart." Psalm 90:12. My study bible for this Psalm has the caption: God's eternity and human frailty.

The Gospel story about the curiosity of Herod the tetrarch (the son of Herod the Great). He is the one who had John the Baptist put to death and was the ruler of Galilee and the villages and cities of that territory where Jesus began his ministry. He was desirous to see Jesus work some sort of magic miracle, but his envy, his lust and greed led him to think about killing Jesus. The episode later in Luke shows this was his intention (Luke 13:31). Herod is a an example of stupidity and false wisdom gained through political power. Jesus, on the other hand, is an example of true wisdom who teaches us the value of wholesome human wisdom so that we may be led to taste and experience divine wisdom. But that is yet to come..."Into the sea go all the rivers, and yet the sea is never filled, and still to their goal the rivers go." Amen. The last translation is from the New Jerusalem Bible.