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Lent with the Wisdom Literature (Day 26)

March 30, 2025

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Wisdom Ch 4 (Fourth Sunday of Lent)

Better than this is childlessness with virtue, for in the memory of virtue is immortality, because it is known both by God and by mortals.
When it is present, people imitate it, and they long for it when it has gone; throughout all time it marches, crowned in triumph, victor in the contest for prizes that are undefiled.
But the prolific brood of the ungodly will be of no use, and none of their illegitimate seedlings will strike a deep root
or take a firm hold.
For even if they put forth boughs for a while, standing insecurely they will be shaken by the wind, and by the violence of the winds they will be uprooted.
The branches will be broken off before they come to maturity, and their fruit will be useless, not ripe enough to eat, and good for nothing.
For children born of unlawful unions are witnesses of evil against their parents when God examines them.
But the righteous, though they die early, will be at rest.
For old age is not honoured for length of time, or measured by number of years;
but understanding is grey hair for anyone, and a blameless life is ripe old age.

There were some who pleased God and were loved by him, and while living among sinners were taken up.
They were caught up so that evil might not change their understanding or guile deceive their souls.
For the fascination of wickedness obscures what is good, and roving desire perverts the innocent mind.
Being perfected in a short time, they fulfilled long years; for their souls were pleasing to the Lord,
therefore he took them quickly from the midst of wickedness.
Yet the peoples saw and did not understand, or take such a thing to heart,
that God’s grace and mercy are with his elect, and that he watches over his holy ones.

The righteous who have died will condemn the ungodly who are living, and youth that is quickly perfected will condemn the prolonged old age of the unrighteous.
For they will see the end of the wise, and will not understand what the Lord purposed for them, and for what he kept them safe.
The unrighteous will see, and will have contempt for them, but the Lord will laugh them to scorn.
After this they will become dishonoured corpses, and an outrage among the dead for ever;
because he will dash them speechless to the ground, and shake them from the foundations;
they will be left utterly dry and barren, and they will suffer anguish, and the memory of them will perish.

They will come with dread when their sins are reckoned up, and their lawless deeds will convict them to their face.

Commentary

Be my helper, do not abandon me; and do not despise me, God, my Saviour. For you help those you have created; you do not forsake them. For my father and my mother have abandoned me. The psalmist made himself God’s child, he made God his father and God his mother. God is his father because he created him, because he calls, commands, and directs him; God is his mother because she cherishes, feeds, takes care of him, and keeps him safe. My father and my mother have abandoned me; but the Lord has taken me to himself, both to direct and nourish him. Mortal parents produce children, their children succeed them, mortal from mortal; and they were born to succeed them so that their parents might pass away. He who has created me will not pass away, nor shall I leave him. My father and my mother have abandoned me; but the Lord has taken me to himself. Even apart from those two parents to whom we owe our birth in the flesh, a male father and a female mother, Adam and Eve as it were, apart from those two parents we have another father and another mother on earth, or rather we have had. Our worldly father is the devil, and he was our father when we were unbelievers; for it was to unbelievers that the Lord said: Your father is the devil. If he who is at work in the children of unbelief is the father of all the godless, who is their mother? It is a city called Babylon; that city is a community of all the lost from east to west; it has an earthly kingdom. There is a city like this one, called a republic, which you now see growing old and declining; this was our first mother, here we were born. We know a different father, God; we have left the devil. For does he ever dare to come near those whom he who surpasses all things has taken to himself? We know a different mother, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the holy Church, part of which sojourns on earth; we have left Babylon. My father and my mother have abandoned me. They have nothing now to give me; for even when they seemed to give me a gift, it was yours, and I ascribed it to them. For who, even in this world, gives us anything, if not God? Or who takes anything away from us, without the command or permission of him who gave it? So let our father and our mother abandon us, let the devil and the city of Babylon abandon us; let the Lord take us to himself, to comfort us with temporal things and bless us with eternal ones. For my father and my mother have abandoned me; but the Lord has taken me to himself. (St. Augustine of Hippo)

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