Dear Parishioner,

‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.’ Many people will recognize these words and most Americans will know them to be a quote from the inaugural address of John F Kennedy, the first Catholic President of the USA. The speech was also an understated acknowledgement of the responsibility he faced as leader of probably the most powerful nation in the world. Probably not as many people know that he ended his speech with the words, ‘asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.’ 

King Solomon knew the responsibility he had been given. At a young age he had been given leadership of a powerful nation in the Near East. As John F Kennedy would do nearly three thousand years later, he knew that he needed God’s help for the task. When God offered him anything he wanted, he asked for wisdom. Yet he did not want wisdom for his own possession but as a tool to enable him to lead God’s people.

The Book of Proverbs, at least part of which may have been written by Solomon, describes wisdom as more precious than jewels (Prov 3:15; 10:11) and as a person, existing before the beginning of the earth (Prov 8:23), and Job says ‘the price of wisdom is above pearls’ (Job 28:18). The Carmelite scholar Roland E Murphy identified wisdom with the Lord. When Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a pearl of great price He was saying that He, Wisdom, was worth more than anything in the world. We are called to avoid being trapped by worldly desires, and instead serve God.

Fr Bede