In the Christian sense, wisdom is not merely an innate human quality but is a gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to see and to judge all things from God’s perspective, not just from a human point of view. It gives us the ability to order our lives in accord with the will of God, to make daily judgments about our own thoughts, words, and potential chosen actions that more closely align with divine truth and the eternal moral law. It enables us to make decisions out of a love that transcends ourselves. To put it another way, wisdom is the grace that gives us the ability to love God with our whole hearts, minds, and souls and our neighbors as ourselves. (Mk. 12:30-31, Lk. 10:27)

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The wisdom that the Scriptures speak about is the grace that is freely given to those who desire to be God’s good and faithful servants in this world that enables us to see the world and our fellow human beings with the eyes of God, rather than through the distorted lenses of personal biases or any forms of human prejudices that are so often rationalized as human “wisdom”. This wisdom is recognized best in the practical application of God’s love in our daily lives. It results from knowing what God wants us to do, not just from our own ego desires, and gives us the desire and the ability to do His will openly, courageously, even joyfully.

This sense and understanding of wisdom comes to us through the Scriptures. For example, Paul speaks of the gift of wisdom in his commentary on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in First Corinthians chapter 12:4-11, “To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the Spirit…” (1 Cor. 12:8-9). We can see here that this is a supernatural grace that proceeds from God, not from ourselves. It is not a matter of intelligence or human cleverness. Because it is such, it perfects our chosen acts of love and makes them powerfully effective.

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Understanding is the experience of intellectual insight that we are all capable of, but wisdom is more than that, for it is a matter of the heart, and it generates within us a capacity for acts of love that go far beyond what usual human reason and rationalization can grasp. This is why acts of love done out of the wisdom of the Spirit are often misunderstood, criticized, and even despised by those who are ‘wise’ in the ways of the world. Jesus is the visible, tangible example of what the wisdom of the Spirit looks like. His every word and deed are rooted in that divine wisdom through which all things were made. Everything he said and did revealed the very Nature of the Father. He was the perfect, visible, tangible expression of the love of God. He is the face of that Wisdom that we are all called to seek and to emulate in our own lives.

How can we seek and grow in this wisdom? We can actively go to God and ask him to increase this gift of wisdom, the seed of which was given to us in our Baptism. We can ask him for the graces we need to let go of our own perceptions and to help us see the world more and more as He sees it. We can read the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, with purpose, that is, a real desire to come to know and to deepen our understanding of God’s divine truths. In the end, there is the practical element as well. We need to practice the often difficult demands of God’s wisdom. We need to apply God’s wisdom in our daily choices and actions. We also need to remember that we are not alone in this effort. Jesus keeps his promises. He promised to be with us “to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20). The Spirit of God breathes in us and through us at all times. We just need to make room for the quiet spaces and the solitude necessary to hear Him speaking to us as we study, contemplate, and pray over the Scriptures in our daily efforts to come to know Him and to put His wisdom into practice.

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Prayer:

O God, restore in us the wisdom of seeing Your image in all people. You who are the light by which we “see”, shine your light on all of the paths that lie before us each day. You who are the truth that sets us free, give us the gift of true discernment in all that we say and do. Amen.
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