Wisdom is a person, Jesus Christ and a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus, Wisdom himself, is the creator, through whom and for whom all things were made. He who created the world and all that is in it claims for himself all that bears his image especially human beings whom he adopts as his own.
Wisdom gives as a gift, discernment and insight into what is truly real and good. If we are open to him through Faith we believe in him and all that he said and did. From our Faith comes Hope, the desire for an eternal life of happiness to live forever and place our trust in him.
Through his grace - his spiritual help - we strive for temperance, moderation or self-restraint in the use of all things. We try to gain self-restraint so that we do not become slaves to material things like money, power, sexual desire, drugs, etc. Through the virtue of prudence we try to be prudent, to be wise and cautious in the choices we make, learning from past choices what is truly good and leads us to peace, joy, and lasting happiness rather than to a very temporary thrill or high and lasting emptiness and destruction. With fortitude (perseverance) we gradually move to a deeper relationship with wisdom - we learn to be wise, merciful and just.
Faith and Hope lead us to love God above all things for his own sake especially as we grow in our realization of what he has done for us. Love (charity) also leads to love of neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
Wisdom is the teacher of the wise if we listen and learn. He gives us practical knowledge through guiding our study of what is truly real and in the Academic and Practical Disciplines (crafts).
A reading of the entire Book of Wisdom in the Bible gives us a wealth of knowledge of Wisdom in all its dimensions and it points to Christ without mentioning him by name because the Book is part of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, particularly in the writings of St. Paul, the connections are made from various parts of the Book of Wisdom to Christ.
These closing words taken from Chapter 7 of the Book of Wisdom speak directly to the role of wisdom in our Conversion Journey. In Wisdom is a spirit, clear, unstained, certain....all powerful, all-seeing, and pervading all spirits....by reason of her purity.
Bernard J. Fleury, B.A. History and Classical Languages, Ed.D. Philosophy, Government, and Administration, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Educational Administration. His administrative/teaching career spans more than five decades and three United States and Caribbean Colleges. Dr. Fleury's lifelong interest in history from the perspective of the people who lived it, is evident in A Bee in His Bonnet (website: http://greatgeneration.net) that is his grandfather Frank King's Great Generation story as he recorded it, and told it to his daughter and grandchildren.
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