JESUS PRAISES THE WISDOM OF THE FATHER

466th Meditation

 

“I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes” (Mt 11:25).

In these words of Jesus we can perceive how much He rejoices in the wisdom of His Father. If we praise the Father for His wisdom as we come to know and love Him more and more each day, how much more will our Lord do so! As His beloved Son, He understands the Heavenly Father on another level. He knows the glory of the Father in all its fullness, without the limitations that we human beings have.

So He praises His Father and our Father, addressing Him as “Lord of heaven and earth”. Jesus invites us to join in His praise of the Father with the same attitude with which He praises Him. It is an invitation filled with love and affection. Indeed, who better than Jesus to show us the Father, to introduce us to the intimacy of His Heart, since He is “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (Jn 1:18)?

Our Father’s tenderness often has in view those who are worthless in the eyes of the world (cf. 1 Cor 1:28). It is to them, whose hearts He alone knows, that He communicates His wisdom. How often have I seen how the simplest people understand spiritual things much more quickly and directly than those who are caught up in complex constructs of thought and do not grasp the essential!

Jesus sees and knows. In view of this, praise flows from His heart to the Father for having done this, “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:29). Indeed, who would be able to know anything of God’s wisdom by his own merit, unless God reveals it to him?

What, then, is the difference between the truly wise and those who think they are? The former knows that everything comes to him from God; the latter, in his foolishness, attributes it to himself and considers himself intelligent.