Be A Man Who Is Wise
These are my notes on the 7th Chapter of Fr. Larry Richards' book, Be A Man.
In the first part, Fr. Richards focuses on 2 Tim 1:7, and on the particular translation regarding having God's Spirit that makes us strong, loving and wise. I looked at it closer in the Greek, which is shown as follows:
οὐ γὰρ ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ θεὸς πνεῦμα δειλίας ἀλλὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀγάπης καὶ σωφρονισμοῦ.
This transliterates as:
ou gar edoken hemin ho Theos pneuma deilas alla dunameos kai agapes kai sophronismou.
(not for giving the God spirit cowardly but power and love and wisdom)
I added the interlinear of how the Greek words are presented in order of the words with their general interpretation. There are variations on how this has been translated, as Fr. Richards pointed out, and gave his favorite version from the 1970 New American Bible. The interpretation is adequate, and not all that different from how I would translate it as:
"For God has not given us a cowardly spirit, but one of power, love, and wisdom."
This is close to a direct translation, though adjusted for English grammar - that is, the arrangement of the beginning into an order that we understand and how we generally treat the exchange of a comparison/contrast statement, as well as how we don't generally repeat 'and'.
Outside the grammar differences between the Greek and English, it does seem important to consider the comparison and contrast that St. Paul is making between δειλίας (delias, 'cowardly') and σωφρονισμοῦ (sophronismou, 'wisdom'). Fr. Richards mentions the difference between worldly wisdom and that of the heart, or, more adequately speaking, "the type of wisdom that tells us the way to live" (BAM, pg. 129). That is the difference in ἔθος (ethos), which deals with customs and habits, or, in a general sense, a way of life, which is based on one's character. Related to ethos is ἔθνος (ethnos), which simply means a group of people accustomed to living together. These two words, ethos and ethnos, have more specific meanings that interrelate, but will be discussed further later. Back to delias and sophronismou, and their relation, it is important to know how these two affect us and our way of life, and how to come to a positive wisdom, rather than that of the cowardly sort.
First off, being wise in the positive sense does not mean one will never be afraid. However, the way in which we act when afraid will be different. St. John Paul II is a more recent example of the positive sense of wisdom. How so? By his latching onto the phrase, "Be not afraid." It became a guiding path in his Papal pastoral ministry because these words hearken back to Christ's own words in the Gospels, as well as many other divine interactions of God with men whom He called throughout salvation history in the Old Testament, and even among the saints. Christ our Lord does not want us to be afraid of Him. He wants us to follow him, and know that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the vale of tears, and many other times in our lives of pain, fright, trials, tribulation, that He will be there with us. Even when we do not feel Him, He is still there. It can be frightful, especially if we are not following the path He desires for us, and we are caught up in our own path and not thinking of God. It frightens us because we don't want to think of his presence ever before us, especially when we are within our sins and thinking only of the worldly ways of life. Yet God can enter into our lives, like He did with Abraham, Moses, David, Mary, and countless others of the Patriarchs, the prophets, and the saints. And remember that a good many of them were like St. Augustine, who were caught up in the world around them, and yet, God worked with and through them to do amazing things. To speak on wisdom and the way, let's recall what St. Augustine himself said:
Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.
The translation of this should sound familiar:
"You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." (Confessions Book I, also the Latin version.)
Note inquietum and requiescat both have the core (pardon the pun) root in them of 'quiet'. Thus, part of the difference between the wordly wisdom and that of God has to do with the heart being quiet, in a sense. While requiescat also has the sense of the eternal repose, and indeed a true euthanasia, or happy death is to die in the eternal rest of the Lord, the quiet and the mind of eternity does not start in eternity. It's what we are being prepared for in this life by the way in which we live our life. First and formost in this formation comes the main question in all of this: Do we listen to the clanging gongs in the world, or do we quiet our minds and hearts to seek out understanding God and what He desires for us and His desire for our eternal destiny to be with Him?
This is the essence of the relationship that God seeks with us. The world is often clamouring with noise that wants to drown that out. It is a vile and wretched noise of those ensared in misery and faint-heartedness (delias) that prevents us from the quiet heart that our Father, who is in Heaven, desires for us. He who's name is hallowed, who is Holy, to whom sent His Son to proclaim His Kingdom that is to come, whose will is to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. He who gives us our daily bread. He that we pray to lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The message is prevalent, and continues to pulse the Father's desire, and seeks to embolden us to take hold and cling onto that desire within ourselves.
The last part of the Our Father (Matt. 6:9-13) in Greek goes as follows:
μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,
ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
Transliterated:
me eisenenkes hemas eis peirasmon,
alla rhusai hemas apo tou ponerou.
A fairly direct translation would be something like:
"Do not bring us into temptation,
but rescue us from evil."
The Greek word πονηροῦ (ponerou) is translated most often as 'evil', and takes on the sense of baseness and cowardliness. It culminates the whole aspect of wickedness, vice, roguries, the archaic term knave, and the characteristic of being labourously wicked. Personified, it also means the evil one - that is, the devil himself, who indeed labors eternally in his wickedness and desire to bring souls to their destruction in damnation to eternal punishment in hell. This, my brethren, is certainly not the way in which we want to go. And yet, this is often the way we are led toward in the world and when we try to do things our way instead of God's way. When we realize this, then indeed we can understand and desire the deliverance, or to have God rescue us from our folly from being led astray and away from God's love.
Once in this understanding, or mind of God, or knowing that from God we may go astray, it recalls back to the notion that there is not only someone we stray from, but also a place from where He dwells that we seek to find rest in. Where we may have some idea of the ethos - the customs, the character, and the way in which God desires us to follow -, there is also the ethnos. That is the Kingdom of God, or Heaven - the eternal destination and rest we seek to follow our Lord into. Therefore, I find a particular intrugue in King Solomon's request to God:
"Give your servant threfore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this great people of Yours?" (I Kings 3:9)
Ethnos is the Greek term for the nations, or gentiles. As the Church is the House of God to both Jew and Gentile, she is therefore also the body of the nation, or the City of God. In this sense, the polity of the Church is certainly important to understanding the wisdom of God, who seeks to bring us into His kingdom, his Church. To better understand this, consider that ethnos has the meaning of a company or body of men. In that, let's also recall that the Church is called the Body of Christ. Who comprises the Church? You, me, and all else who are baptized into the Lord our God - namely with water and the Trinitarian form. These are specific general norms that the Church is compelled to follow by way of what is understood and inspired through Scripture and Tradition. We don't deny baptism of desire, but the baptism by water in the Trinitarian form is the general nomative way that God seeks to bring us into communion with Him and to enter into His house.
In similar manner, do we not in our own houses or apartments desire that, normally people ring the door bell, or knock on the door before entering? We are accustomed to people coming to our home to these particular ways to get our attention that someone is at the door and desires to come in. Under normal circumstances, we would no want someone breaking down the door to get in. That's generally the way in which a thief or someone that wishes us ill will would seek to break in. In like manner, we should consider that the normative way is generally the best way, so that we may enter God's house as welcome family. As much as it may feel like God barges into our lives, consider that the truth is that He created us and how He had been with us from the beginning. It is we who barged in as the thief - or, better put, our first parents in Adam and Eve did this when they ate the fruit God said not to eat. Granted, our first parents had help from the evil one, but the breach was made, and the loss of our innocence in that folly of our first parents brought about Original Sin. However, with Christ and Mary, the New Adam and the New Eve, what was undone by the folly Man straying from God is restored by the virtue of Man with God being united as one. Likewise, when we mend our ways with God in Confession, we restore the way to enter into communion with the Body of Christ and be united with Christ as one in His wisdom and understanding. This, in a not so short nutshell, is our economy of salvation.
This wisdom of God here spoken, I don't expect people to fully understand. Even as I write and contemplate these things while studying the Scripture and, at the same time, studying it through Fr. Richards' book, I cannot say that I live up to this understanding as I desire. But, even there, it is not what I desire, but what God seeks to show and help form me towards along this path with Him. Likewise, I hope the same for you all, my fellow G-Men brethren. I speak here on some archaic, and even high minded things, but I do not want them to be a stumbling block for anyone. We come to know and relate to God on our own paths and in our own time - or, better said, God enters our paths and our time as He wills and seeks to move us. He seeks to move us constantly with His call to us in each of our lives. Even as I write this, I am in awe of this, and seek to quiet my heart to listen and let Him be present. It's not always easy, just like it isn't always easy for us to relate to our earthly fathers, or our earthly sons, daughters, wives, brothers, sisters, etc. Family helps teach us certain things about our economy of salvation, particularly in what it means to seek God's order in our lives and in our houses, so that we each can be that temple of God St. Paul speaks about, and that each of our houses becomes a house of God. And further, this leads us to come together in the fullness of our faith, and the fullness of the Body of Christ as one in communion with He who is our Bread of Life.
One last thing I would like to leave in this post for you is not to have to read my heart, which i keep praying becomes ever more united to Christ's Sacred Heart, but to also hear the pulse of Fr. Mitch Pacwa's heart from his Journey Home interview. He goes through much the same things that Fr. Richards writes about in his book. So I hope you all, my G-Men brethren, enjoy his talk and may find something inspiring in it.
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