“The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10)
In the Catholic worldview, there is an inseparable link between our beliefs about God and how we are to live. The quote from Proverbs above captures this connection.
The original sin was a failure to trust in Divine Providence and the decision to pursue our own will rather than that of God. The sin was also foolishness because it involved willful self-deception, convincing ourselves that we mortal creatures might somehow become the masters of our own fate. And the foolishness become dangerous as our delusion lead inevitably to violence. The original sin produced the original fratricidal murder as Cain slew his brother Abel (Gen 4:1-18). Genesis relates how the terror of violence only increased as human selfishness and depravity abounded.
The Holy Scriptures and the Prophets within them summon human beings to recognize our dependence upon God. They counsel humility about our own capacities and the call to give glory and honor to the true and only God – to “fear the Lord.” The scriptures recognize that human sin along with violence, suffering, and injustice all result from the rupture that has taken place between us and God through sin. When we forget God, we forget who we are. This is why the fear of the Lord becomes wisdom. It is a kind of truth-telling about our need for God.
When we return to the proper worship of the Lord, we find then that our stance towards one another shifts. The Scriptures also remind us that Almighty God is just and merciful. In the person of the Lord Jesus we see the truth of His reconciling love and in this way our wisdom becomes compassion. We see each other with new eyes as fellow travelers and brothers and sisters. We recognize that mortal and sinful though we may be, we have a God-given dignity as creatures made in the Lord’s Own likeness and image.
The link between our worship of God and the call to compassion finds concrete expression in the witness of two extraordinary saints celebrated this week. St. Therese of Lisieux and Saint Francis of Assisi have “bookend” our workweek with feasts respectively on Tuesday and Friday. Both of these saints learned to live a radical humility before the majesty of God. While St. Francis lived centuries earlier, I can imagine his smiling understanding of the brilliance of Therese’s “little way.” Both lived the wisdom of God by loving others generously and unselfishly. They did not wield earthly authority, they did not enjoy material comfort or security, and they loved even those who wished or did them harm. Their faith and their compassion were two sides of the same truth.
I will be invoking the prayers of both of these Saints for our troubled world. The “mark of Cain” is all too obvious in the spreading of hatred and horrific violence that continue to stalk communities around the globe. God’s gift of life is rejected and ideologues celebrate. One of the more troubling elements of the spreading darkness is that some people invoke a divine mandate for their violence and injustice. On October 7th, we will mark the first anniversary of that kind of blasphemous violence. War is always terrible and the wars that have erupted since that date have seen terrible death and destruction. Still, there is something all the more horrifying and reprehensible about the brutality, murderous rage, and sexual violence inflicted upon Jews because they were Jews. We can only pray with and for our Jewish brothers and sisters as they endure such a terrible memory.
As dark as our times may be, recall that God did not give up on Cain. The Lord marked Cain to protect him from the very kind of violence that Cain had committed. The compassion of God is infinitely greater than the sin and foolishness of people. When human beings return to the Lord, wisdom enlightens the heart. Look to those bright lights of Therese and Francis and see how the fear of the Lord is wisdom indeed!
