SEAT OF WISDOM

(1) MARY, you are the Seat of Wisdom because the Son of God, the eternal Wisdom, assumed flesh from you, dwelt in your virginal womb, and as an Infant rested in your arms. As the Son of God, Jesus is called Wisdom. The Father thinks of Himself from eternity. This thought of the Father is a distinct person—the Word, the Wisdom of God.

But the Son of God is also called Wisdom because in the work of redemption divine wisdom shows itself in the highest degree. After becoming Man, Jesus taught us wisdom. He taught us that temporal goods are vain and possess true value only in so far as they are means for obtaining our final destiny. He has reminded us to be most earnest about saving our souls.

Seat of Wisdom, you bore in your womb Him who is the personal and eternal Wisdom of God, and whose words and teaching give evidence of wisdom in the highest degree. Obtain for me the grace to embrace wisdom with my whole soul as I see it in the doctrine of your divine Son.

(2) MARY, divine wisdom showed itself in you in a particular manner. Evil and ruin were brought upon the human race through a woman, Eve, our first mother. God's wisdom therefore ordained that salvation and grace should be brought to the whole human family through a woman. You are that woman, our second, better Mother. Eve permitted herself to be deceived by a spirit of bell, so that she became disobedient and ate of the forbidden fruit. God's wisdom ordained that you should be obedient to an angel of heaven who announced to you the will of God, and caused you to say, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." Eve's sin came from unbelief, for she no longer believed what God had told her and Adam; you placed all your faith in the words of the angel Gabriel and thus repaired the sin of Eve. Thus the wisdom of God knew how to create in you a woman who was like our first mother in all things, but who used the privileges and graces received, not as did Eve, for our harm, but for our eternal salvation.

The wisdom of God also showed itself in your marriage, that the birth of the Son of God might not become known before the time, that your reputation might remain free from reproach, and that the divine Child might have in Joseph a foster-father and a protector.

In His divine wisdom God fulfilled His prophecies through you. Though very poor, you were a descendant of the royal house of David; you lived at the very time when the sceptre had passed from the descendants of David into the bands of strangers; your home was at Nazareth, but in obedience to a decree of Caesar you went to Bethlehem and there brought forth your divine Child. After your return from Egypt, you went to Nazareth where Jesus lived with you up to His thirtieth year. For that reason He was called a Nazarene.

Divine Wisdom made you share in the poverty, the humiliation, and the persecution of Jesus. God kindled in you the fire of divine love, reared you in the school of suffering, bestowed upon you a heart full of compassion and mercy toward men—a heart which knew no greater delight than to comfort the afflicted, to save sinners, and to do good to all. He afforded you opportunities to acquire countless merits, and gave you the grace to attain the highest degree of holiness. Thus you became the Queen of heaven. "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!" (Rom. 11,33)

(3) MARY, you teach us true wisdom. The highest of all wisdom is to know how to live a good life. You possessed this wisdom more than anyone else, for you loved God above all things and sought His holy will in everything. You faithfully used every grace and means of salvation, in order to unite yourself more intimately with God and to become daily more like Him. Help me to imitate you that I may obtain that heavenly wisdom which makes me good and happy here and blessed forever in heaven. Let me be guided by divine Wisdom as willingly as you were. Everything tends to make me a devoted Christian and to lead me to eternal joy. Never let my wisdom oppose the wisdom of God. Whatever God wishes is always good.

Seat of Wisdom, do not let me be deceived by the false wisdom of the world which teaches me to consider this world as the final aim of man. Help me always to act according to Christian wisdom: to mortify all my inordinate inclinations, and never attach my heart to the vain, perishable goods of the world, to guard against sin, to practice virtue and good works, and to love God above all things and with my whole heart.

Confirm in our minds, we beg of You, O Lord, the mysteries of the true faith that we who believe Him who was conceived of a Virgin to be true God and Man, may deserve to arrive at eternal joy, by the power of His saving resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen. (Mass of the Blessed Virgin on Saturdays)