Wisdom Chapter 6

You can find Wisdom Chapter 6 online here.

Keeping Wisdom's laws->Love-> desire of discipline-> Wisdom -> incorruptibly-> God

Of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Self-control is the seventh. By self-control of the desire of discipline, we control our tendencies toward sin and keep our desire for goodness pure. As it is explained n chapters 1 ad 4, Wisdom cones to those who are good and pure. It is by love that we persevere in disciplining ourselves, for out of love of God and of what is good and of other people, we restrain ourselves from doing thoughtless and reckless things. Restraining ourselves from doing stupid things, keeping our desires pure, and acting accordingly is nothing less than living by Wisdom's laws. Living thus is living virtuously, which leads to heaven. So by desiring discipline, and keeping that desire alive and pure with love, and living according to it we receive Wisdom, the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this way we reach heaven where we will be forever united with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of Wisdom can be found here.

Although verses 3-15 are told from the point of view of wicked people, it is very truthful. Two things I find particularly insightful:
1) The connection between understanding and God. The minds of the wicked were clouded with sin so that they could not understand why the good were living as they were. As chapter 1 says, sin separates us from God, leaving us without wisdom, for "wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul." (1:4) This makes sense especially if the definition of wisdom is "the taste for goodness" as st. Bernard of Clairveiux said. For if one is in love with sins, one's 'tastes' are so askew that one cannot recognize goodness, and if one did 'taste' goodness, it would seem putrid. Catholic Masses always begin with the confiteor so that we may understand the wisdom spoken to us in the readings and Gospel and the living wisdom within us that is the Eucharist.
2) The lack of legacy. The good people have a legacy without going to any special effort to make a legacy. For when good things are done, they are good because they are done in God who is eternal. The wicked, however, leave no legacy, for there is no life except in God. And God draws even greater good from evil, so that everything that is wicked is eclipsed by God's goodness.
This chapter concludes with the destruction of the unwise, for not only are they unwise, but they are unwise because they are sinful and have rejected God.

Ascent and Prostrate

While hiking through the mountains as orientation for TMC last week, I thought of how all people seem to have a deep desire to ascend. We desire to strive,to go beyond limits, to soar and be unbonded. Perhaps that's why we climb mountains. It's like the mentality of the Tower of Babel wasn't just those people at that time. It is all of us always. And we are constantly building little Towers of Babel in our lives to be like ladders to carry us up. I think God has implanted this desire in us, as something curiously human, something to take us up to heaven where all that is human will be fulfilled in His magnificent glory. This desire then is a good and pure passion, and it drives us to seek purification and ascention from all that is muddied with sin and evilness. If sin is the lack of good, then sinning is lacking goodness. And if we are made to BE good, then sinning is ceasing, to some degree, to BE. Every time we sin we die a little.

Then during Mass that evening, kneeling on rock, it occured to me that it is when we lower ourselves that we become most human. It is when we cast ourselves down that we are entirely human, for it is then that everything in us in univocally in accord with what we are: lowly, helpless creatures before our awesome God. I think of when the priest prostrates himself at the Tres Ores on Good Friday- that is the true image of humanity. And every Tridentine Mass begins with the priest kneeling and begging God for forgiveness and to accept his prayers. And when we confess out sins, and when we recieve Christ in the Eucharist, we kneel.

It is when we cast ourselves down, accepting the patheticness of our fallen human state that God can elevate us. Only Christ could ascend, for He is God. Even the sinless Virgin Mary was carried into heaven- assumed. We cannot take ourselves up, but we can humble ourselves to accept God's help. So when we truly and sincerely cast ourselves down before God, kneel with all our hearts, and admit of the burden of our sins and our flaws- then God can lift our flaws and carry us up to Himself.

The next day I was really tired, and it was an even bigger mountain we were climbing, and then we had to climb all the way back down again, so my prayer was, "Lord what strength I have is in You. Carry me up, then help me back down again."

Wisdom Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Wisdom can be found here.

I find it very interesting that it is in matters of chastity that the good prove their goodness and in death that the good are blessed. Humans have a spectacularly deep longing for union, given to us by God so that we will thirst for Him and seek Him. The ultimate union is between God and us in heaven. God gives us Himself to unite us to Himself on earth in the Eucharist.
And He gives union with friends, parents, sibling, and primarily with one's spouse to be like peices of heaven on earth so that we can help each other get to heaven. It is in living virtuously in these unions that we attain to the Ultimate Union, so that our passage to God - death - becomes a blessed thing. But those who distort and pervert the God-given unions with family and spouse defile themselves so that they cannot enter into the Ultimate Union with God forever in heaven. So it is very imprtant to be chaste; for as verse 11 and 12 say, perversion changes one's understanding so taht one's mind is twisted. Jesus said, "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God." (St. Matthew 5:8)

A good bye post

For many years she has been my sister. But she still is, but she is going of to college. I will be missing her. It is kinda cool that I get her room; I won't be sleeping in the living room any more. But on the other hand I won't have some one to pick on (only for fun). Elisabeth is awesome because of her points on everything. She looks on all sides of thing and is a big help. Life for me will be a bit more boring without her because of the positive attitude (usually). The logic I must say is a little annoying, but it is cool that she is so smart. When summer break comes around again, life will feel a bit more whole, I guess. That's the best way I can put it.



christopher

Playlists galore!

OK. So I'm leaving in two days. And I have been working on compiling two more playlists. The first is the one I promised about a bazillion years ago of all the music I was dancing and writing to that I could find on playlist.com. The other is this insane conglomeration of insanity. Please don't define me by what you hear on it. Just enjoy it, laugh at me, and fast forward the songs you don't like. Neither of these two new playlists are on autostart, but the original cogito et scribo list is. So if you want to change, scroll down, turn off cogito et scribo and turn on the list you want.

Packing

This is driving me insane; I am really really busy, and as much as I love it, it's driving me nuts. But it's still kind of adventurous, I guess. I can't figure out what my emotions are, or should be, except for sadness at leaving my friends- the two dearest most wondrous people in the universe.

And my thoughts are so overwhelmed trying to comprehend what it means to be going out of state for college that sometimes I find my brain freezing up with simple questions like 'how many wash cloths did I just put in my suitcase ten seconds ago?'


It's all so crazy. I feel like maybe I should be ecstatic about this. But I'm not really...


Honestly, I can only take so much. Packing just wears me out because of all it means. I don't know. Just pray for me.

But underneath all that, I am truly very happy. I love finding the truth, and I know this is what is good for me, what God wants for me. I've prayed about this a lot. Please keep me in your prayers.

Wisdom Chaper 3

Here are my thoughts on the 3rd chapter of Wisdom, which can be found here.

Picking up where the last chapter left off with speaking of the good man's martyrdom, this chapter begins by showing that death is not a miserable thing for good people. While chapter 2 begins with evil people's despair at death, chapter 3 begins with how the good need not fear death at all; in fact, for the good, death is good.

Tolkien writes of death in the Silmarillion, chapter 1:
"It is one with this gift of freedom that t he children of Men dwell only a short space int eh world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon [...] But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world [...]. Death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar [...] But Melkor (the most evil god) has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope."

Verse 9 is very insightful of human nature and how humans react to God. There is a definite connection between understanding truth and trusting God; the more one trusts what God has revealed and trusts Him rather than questioning everything, the more one can learn and discover the answers to the questions we all naturally have about what God has revealed to us. And loyalty in love definitely leads to rest, not just in love of God but in all relationships. For the more and the longer one loves, the more that love becomes a habit and part of one's essence. Such love is stable and persevering; the loved one can rest in its certainty.

The wicked shall be punished by their own devices. For sin involves a selfish turning inward of one's focus; so the consequences of sin fall like a poorly built structure collapsing in on itself. Those who believe in abortion and contraception will probably be defeated, if by nothing else, than by there eventually being no one left alive to continue their side of the war.

The rest of the chapter states the consequences of rejecting wisdom. Basically, without wisdom, you're life will be pathetic. Wisdom, with discipline, gives happiness. It makes your hope worthwhile, your labors fruitful, and your words profitable. So with wisdom, your thoughts, words and actions have merit.