Today’s first reading from the book of Sirach tells us about the wisdom of the Lord.
“The root of wisdom—to whom has it been revealed?
Her subtleties—who knows them?
There is but one who is wise, greatly to be feared,
seated upon his throne—the Lord.”
Then in today’s Gospel reading we read that the disciples couldn’t drive the deaf and mute demon from the young boy that was brought to them for healing. Jesus gets a little frustrated with them for their inability to do so when he says “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?” Then Jesus asks for the boy to be brought to him and He healed him.The disciples asked Jesus why he was able to heal him and they weren’t? The disciples had been given powers to heal too, but their powers did not work for this boy.
The Lord said “This kind can only come out through prayer.” What could Jesus have meant when he said this? Couldn’t the disciples have simply prayed and the boy would have been healed too?
It’s possible that what this passage in the bible means, is that even though the disciples had been given the gift of healing, it took more than simply possessing this gift in order to use it well. They had the gift, but not the full understanding of it. Prayer and the gifts they had received from the Lord needed to be used together, not solely relying on the gift itself to do the healing.
That is what the first reading for mass today is talking about too. “The root of wisdom – to whom has it been revealed? Her subtleties – who knows them?” No human being knows everything or uses their gifts to their fullest potential without God’s help. “There is but one who is wise, greatly to be feared, seated upon his throne – the Lord.”
We will never realize the full potential of our talents, gifts and abilities without a good prayer life. Prayer seems to be the last resort for some of us rather than the first place we turn to. It takes a major difficulty, sorrow or heartache that we can’t solve before many of us turn to God in prayer. We neglect prayer and neglect God until we really need him.
Sometimes we can’t solve things or heal situations in our lives and it is often because we do not have the wisdom to do so. Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would be our advocate and would teach us all that we need to know and remember what he taught us. And this really is true, even for us today. The Holy Spirit gives us a wisdom and understanding of things that we can not possess on our own.
The Holy Spirit can give us the insight and understanding that we need to solve difficult problems, develop our talents and abilities more deeply, or to bring a new perspective into the situations in our lives that need healing. But the Holy Spirit does not “come and make his home with us” in an unfamiliar or dirty house. We need to pray regularly and develop a genuine relationship with God and remain in a state of grace, or restore a state of grace to our soul through the sacrament of confession. This will sweep the debris out of our hearts and prepare our hearts for the Holy Spirit to have a proper dwelling place. Much in the same way that we prepare for a family member to come for a visit too, by cleaning things up in preparation for their visit.
A clean heart, prayer and frequent reception of communion help to prepare an excellent dwelling place in our hearts for this most holy visitor, who will come and teach us wisdom and teach us to love more deeply than we ever thought possible.
