My Dear People, 

Today Paul’s message to the Corinthians parallels the message of the Gospel. The Jewish people after seeing Jesus overthrow the money changers in the temple, were seeking a sign, to show by whose authority Jesus did this. Jesus did not give them a sign but said, instead: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” He was not speaking, of course, of the actual temple in Jerusalem but of the temple of His body. 

In its place, Paul stresses the message of the cross and Jesus Crucified which is a stumbling block for the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. After stressing the importance of the message of the cross, St. Paul now contrasts the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. 

By wisdom of the world Paul means the attitude of man when he is not pursuing his proper goal. The term “world” has various meanings in Sacred Scripture. Paul uses the pejorative meaning of “all sinful men,” people estranged from God. This human wisdom cannot attain knowledge of God (cf. Rm. 1:19-25) either because it demands external signs or because it accepts only rational arguments. 

For the Jews, only signs will do—miracles which prove God’s presence (cf. Mt 12:38ff; Lk 11:29).  They want to base their faith on things the senses can perceive. For people with this attitude, the cross of Christ is a scandal, that is, a stumbling block, which makes it impossible for them to gain access to divine things, only because they have in some way imposed limits as to how God may reveal Himself and how He may not. 

The Greeks, (St. Paul is referring to the Rationalists of his time) think they are arbiters of truth, and anything which cannot be proved by logical argument is nonsense.  “For the  prudent of the world,” their wisdom turned into blindness, and could not lead them to see God. Therefore, since the world had become puffed up by the vanity of its dogmas, the Lord set in place “the faith” whereby believers would be saved. What seemed unworthy and foolish, and, all human conjecture being of no avail, it is noted only through the grace of God it might reveal what the human mind cannot take in” (St. Leo the Great, Fifth Nativity Sermon).

Christians, whom God called out from among the Jews and the Gentiles, do attain the wisdom of God, which consists in faith, “a supernatural virtue.”  By that faith, with the inspiration and help of God’s grace, we believe that what he has revealed is true—not because it is intrinsic truth seen by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God who reveals it, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.” (Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap 3)  The same council goes on to teach that faith is in conformity with reason (cf Rom 12:1) and that, in addition to God’s help, external signs—miracles and prophecies—and rational argument do act as supporting faith. 

“In the wisdom of God” this has been interpreted in two ways (which complement one another.) Roughly, the first interpretation is this: according to God’s most wise design, since the world could not attain knowledge of God by its own effort, through philosophy, or through those elaborate systems of thought the Greeks were so proud of, God decided to save believers through the preaching of the Cross, which to humans’ eyes seemed to be foolishness and a stumbling block.

The second interpretation, favored by many Fathers and by St. Thomas Aquinas, contrasts divine wisdom—as manifested in creation and in the Old Testament—with human wisdom. It runs on these lines: since the world, because of its distorted view of things, failed to attain knowledge of God, despite the way He manifested Himself in creation and Holy Scripture, God has decided to save man in a remarkable, paradoxical way which better reflects divine wisdom—the preaching of the Cross. 

In both interpretations it is clear that the Apostle is trying to squeeze into one expression a number of truths—that God’s salvific plans are eternal; that human wisdom, which is capable, on its own, of discovering God through His works, has become darkened; that the cross is the climax of the all-wise plan of God; and man cannot be truly wise unless he accepts the “wisdom of the cross,” no matter how paradoxical it may seem. 

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente

Penance Service.  We will have the Lenten Confessions on March 15th, this Wednesday. Confessions will begin after the Mission talk. There will be a number of priests to hear confessions. This is a great opportunity to make Lent more profitable by participating in a Lenten penance service, and an opportunity to clear your conscience.