Jesus, eternal Wisdom, have mercy on us.
Proverbs 8 offers an intriguing reflection on wisdom. Personified as a woman (because the word for “wisdom” is feminine in gender), wisdom is mysteriously described as both eternal, existing before creation, and somehow also created. This points toward the Incarnation when the eternal Son of God took on a created human body and human soul.
In Proverbs, wisdom is a “master workman,” intimately involved in the creation of the world, delighting and rejoicing in all its wonder and especially in human beings. Wisdom also teaches those human beings how to please God, and these instructions are far better than gold or silver because they lead to true wealth: to righteousness and justice and life with God.
We can see how wisdom, as portrayed here, is a type of Christ, the Word of God, the Logos, through Whom the world was made and Who became incarnate to lead us to true wealth, eternal life with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus, infinite Goodness, have mercy on us.
Infinite goodness. Just reflect on that for a moment. Because Jesus is God, His is all-good, perfectly good, infinitely good. In Luke 18:18, an official asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus immediately pounces on the adjective “good.” He asks the man, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone.” Exactly. Jesus is nudging the man (and us) to identify Him correctly. We call Him good because recognize His deep, flawless goodness, but when we do so, we are implicitly recognizing something else as well: Jesus is God.
Jesus, our way and our life, have mercy on us.
In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by Me.” Jesus is our goal and our way to our goal. He is true life and the path that gets us to true life. He is our home and our way home. He is the destination and the journey. He is our all in all.
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