Wednesday of the
Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
(Sirach 4:11-19; Mark 9:38-40)
L’Chaim is the
Hebrew toast to life. Most everyone will
lift a glass to it. We all want to live
and to live well. To do the latter requires wisdom which looks beyond the
superficial. Wisdom peers into the
heart of reality informing us what is truly beneficial and what is
harmful. As Sirach says in today’s first
reading, “He who loves (wisdom) loves life.”
Sirach goes on to describe how wisdom may be a hard
taskmaster. It often tells us things
that are not of our liking. Wisdom
recommends that we do not try to manipulate human life by producing children
without the marriage act. For a
childless couple this seems unfair. The
husband and wife only want the good of raising a child like the majority of
families. Wisdom provides reasons,
however. In the case of procreation
wisdom speaks of the rights of the child.
She should know that she was conceived through an act of love between
her father and mother.
Many today embrace the “technological imperative.” This false axiom stipulates that what can be
done must be done. Pursuing it will lead
to the ambiguous identity of human clones, to the dangerous instability of
global nuclear weapons, and to a host of other threats to well-being. No, before saying it must be done, we must
ask if it is good to do it. Only
following wisdom in this way can we avoid disaster for ourselves and for the
world.
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