Thursday 16 November 2023

Today is Thursday 16 November, in the 32nd week of Ordinary time.

Bifrost Arts sing, ‘Wisdom and Grace’.

Teach us to number our days
That we may apply our hearts to Your ways
O! Teach us to number our days
With wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace.
Wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace
You've been our home and our dwelling
Our place in all generations.
Before the earth or the mountains were formed,
Lord, You were God.
Teach us to number our days
That we may apply our hearts to Your ways
O! Teach us to number our days
With wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace.
Wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace
Now the span of our lives,
It is made of sorrow and labor
As the days pass away like the grass
How soon we are gone.
Teach us to number our days
That we may apply our hearts to Your ways
O! Teach us to number our days
With wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace.
Wisdom and grace
Let the work of our hands bring you praise,
Set Your favor upon us.
O establish the work of our hands,
May Your kingdom come!
Teach us to number our days
That we may apply our hearts to Your ways
O! Teach us to number our days
With wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace.
Wisdom and grace, wisdom and grace




Today’s reading is from the book of Wisdom.


Wisdom 7:22-8:1

For wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.
There is in her a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible, beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail.
She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
and she orders all things well.

Some have suggested that what the world needs most is not more love, but more wisdom. What do you think about this?

Perhaps there is no dichotomy though. The kind of wisdom in today’s passage sounds full of love . . .

Take a moment to pray for wisdom in the world around you… in our leaders . . .in yourself…

As you listen again, you may notice the feminine pronoun. Notice too, the variety of qualities possessed by Wisdom. Which of these qualities are you most drawn to?


In the New Testament Jesus is said to be the embodiment of God’s Wisdom. You might like to talk with Jesus now about anything that has stirred in you during this time of prayer.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.