Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112911.cfm

A wonderland of flowers

I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.

As a nation we believe our leaders should be neither aristocratic nor wealthy but clever. If our businesses cannot be democracies they should be meritocracies, a “leadership of able and talented persons.” It’s an interesting experiment but it has its shortcomings, as we’re finding out. Some astonishingly bright banking leaders, confident of their abilities to negotiate the riskiest predicaments, have brought the world to a financial precipice. Europe and the US teeter on the edge and China, for all its wealth, inspires no confidence. 


Apparently, it takes more than cleverness to manage power. Overconfident whiz kids lack the experience and humility to appreciate what they do not know; and many of us wonder why they’re paid so much.

So if geniuses (the "wise and  the learned"), aristocrats, the wealthy and “the superior race” fail, to whom do we turn? In the gospels Jesus is not especially concerned about that problem. It will solve itself if we live by virtue. In the meanwhile, we have his promise: although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to children.