Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/083112.cfm

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Saint Benedict
greets visitors at
Saint Meinrad Archabbey

Like many things in our Christian tradition, our approach to “human wisdom” is ambivalent. The church insists we have no real quarrel with legitimate science. We can work with the theory of evolution, for instance, without fear of contradicting the scriptures. We encourage study of ancient and contemporary philosophies and find much wisdom there, even as we discover great beauty and esthetic pleasure in the art, architecture and literature of every nation.

But we also challenge human wisdom, especially where it discounts the presence of God. Economics, for instance, is taught as a science, using principles of physics, fluidity, systems and so forth; but it’s about human beings, their contributions, effort, creativity, needs and worth. A science that purports to predict human behavior but ignores the reality of Original Sin will add little to human wisdom and much to the history of human folly.

The wisdom of post-2008 hindsight as opposed to that of pre-2008 foresight might be comical if it were not so painful. In retrospect we can watch the “housing bubble” grow to critical proportions before it bursts. We recall how banks made bad loans to desperately poor people and flipped those loans to other institutions. That should have been a crime and indeed, some people called it such at the time. They predicted the inevitable collapse; but they were “doomsayers” and there are always doomsayers.

Perhaps even more disconcerting and depressing is that we have learned so little from the experience. No one has gone to jail for making bad loans or gambling with other people’s money; banks that were “too large to fail” have merged and are bigger yet; and the legal systems remains essentially unchanged. Soon another generation of money managers will take their stations and they will suppose the crisis of 2008 is ancient history and the experience, irrelevant.

So here we are today -- the people who don't deal in millions of dollars or "large scale economies" -- still burdened with “human wisdom” which boasts like Ozymandias of its power and strength even as it lies in the dust of the earth. Billions of people search for guidance in this treacherous world and have nothing more to trust than the advice of others.

Speaking to his own disciples, a select group, Saint Paul urges us to ponder the wisdom of the cross. Though it appears to many as the foolishness and weakness of God, we see its shining brilliance as God’s wisdom and strength. We are nearly blinded by this light that gleams in darkness.

God’s wisdom and strength illuminate the foolishness, greed and cowardice that led to the fall; and, more importantly, help us to see those vices within our own hearts. After we have done penance, expunging those impulses from our hearts, the cross teaches us how to handle our money. In all humility we realize the worth of this world’s treasure and its use in the service of our own and others’ needs. Like rain water, fresh air and the blood of Jesus, no one owns it; money is only a trust given to some for a while.

With our gifts of “time, talent and treasure” in hand, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in the footsteps of Jesus on the way of the cross.