Chapter XV — Means of Acquiring Divine Wisdom: First Means, an Ardent Desire; Second Means, Continual Prayer

First Means: An Ardent Desire

1. The Necessity of Desiring Wisdom

181. How long, children of men, will you have heavy hearts turned toward the earth? How long will you love vanity and seek falsehood? Why do you not turn your eyes and your hearts toward divine Wisdom, who, of all the things that can be desired, is the most desirable; who, to make herself loved by men, reveals her origin, shows her beauty, displays her treasures, and shows them in a thousand ways the desire she has that they desire and seek her? "Concupiscite ergo sermones meos, Wis 6: Desire therefore," she says, "to hear my words." [Wis 6:12] She goes to meet those who desire her: Praeoccupat qui se concupiscunt, Wis 6. The desire for Wisdom leads to the eternal kingdom: Concupiscentia itaque Sapientiae deducit ad regnum aeternum, Wis 6. [Wis 6:21]

2. Qualities Required of This Desire

182. This desire for Wisdom must be a great gift of God, since it is the reward of the faithful observance of the commandments of God: Fili, concupiscens Sapientiam, conserva justitiam, et Deus praebebit illam tibi, Ecclus 1. Cogitatum tuum habe in praeceptis Dei, et in mandatis illius maxime assiduus esto, et ipse dabit tibi cor, et concupiscentia Sapientiae dabitur tibi. My son, if you desire Wisdom as you ought, keep justice, observe the commandments, and God will give her to you. Apply all your thought to what God commands you, and meditate unceasingly on his commandments, and he himself will give you a heart, and the desire of Wisdom will be given to you. [Sir 1:33; 6:37].

For Wisdom will not enter a malicious soul, nor will she dwell in a body subject to sin: quoniam in malevolam animam non introibit Sapientia, nec habitabit in corpore subdito peccatis, Wis 1. [Wis 1:4].

The desire for Wisdom must be holy and sincere, accompanied by the faithful observance of the commandments of God; for there is an infinity of foolish and lazy persons who have a thousand desires, or rather a thousand vague wishes for good, but who, since these do not lead them to give up sin or to do themselves violence, are false and deceptive desires that kill and damn them: Desideria occidunt pigrum, Prov 22. [Prov 21:25] For the Holy Spirit, who is the Master of Knowledge, flees from disguise and withdraws from thoughts that are without understanding; and iniquity, coming upon the soul, drives him away: Spiritus enim sanctus disciplinae effugiet fictum, et auferet se a cogitationibus quae sunt sine intellectu, et corripietur a superveniente iniquitate, Wis 1. [Wis 1:5].

3. Examples of This Desire

183. Solomon, who is the model that the Holy Spirit has given us for acquiring Wisdom, received her only after having long desired, sought, and asked for her: "Optavi, he says, et datus est mihi sensus: et invocavi, et venit in me spiritus Sapientiae: I desired, and the spirit of Wisdom came upon me. Hanc amavi et exquisivi a juventute mea, et quaesivi sponsam mihi eam assumere... Circuibam quaerens ut mihi illam assumerem, Wis 8: I loved her and sought her from my youth, and in order to have her for my bride and companion, I went about on every side to find her." [Wis 8:2, 18].

One must be, like Solomon and Daniel, a man of desires, to possess this great treasure of Wisdom.

Second Means: Continual Prayer

1. The Necessity of Continual Prayer

184. The greater a gift of God is, the harder it is to obtain. What prayers, then, what labors are required for the gift of Wisdom, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God!

Listen to what Wisdom herself says: "Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you; ask, and you shall receive." As if she said: If you wish to find me, you must seek me; if you wish to enter my palace, you must knock at my door; if you wish to receive me, you must ask for me. No one finds me who does not seek me; no one enters my dwelling who does not knock at my door; no one obtains me who does not ask for me; and all is done by prayer.

Prayer is the ordinary channel through which God communicates his graces, especially his Wisdom. The world spent four thousand years asking for the incarnation of divine Wisdom. Mary spent fourteen years preparing herself by prayer to receive her in her womb. Solomon received her only after having asked for her for a long time and with a marvelous ardor: Adii Dominum, he says, et deprecatus sum illum, et dixi ex totis praecordiis meis:... Da mihi (Domine) sedium tuarum assistricem sapientiam, Wis 9: I went to the Lord, I made my prayer to him, and I said with all my heart: Give me that Wisdom who sits beside you on your throne!" Si quis autem vestrum indiget sapientia, postulet a Deo, qui dat omnibus affluenter, et non improperat; et dabitur ei, Jas 1: If any of you needs Wisdom, let him ask it of God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach for his gifts, and it shall be given to him. Note, in passing, that the Holy Spirit does not say: If anyone needs charity, humility, patience, etc., which are such excellent virtues, but: If anyone needs Wisdom... For in asking for her, one asks for all the virtues that are contained in her.

2. Qualities Required of Prayer

185. To have her, one must ask for her, postulet; but how should one ask?

First, one must ask with a firm and lively faith, without hesitating: postulet autem ex fide, nihil haesitans; for he who has only a wavering faith must not expect to obtain her: Non ergo aestimet homo ille quod accipiat aliquid a Domino, ibid. [Jas 1:6-7].

186. Second, one must ask with a pure faith, without relying one's prayer upon sensible consolations, visions, or particular revelations. Although all these things can be good and true, as they have been in some saints, it is always dangerous to rely on them; and faith is all the less pure and meritorious when it rests upon such extraordinary and sensible graces. What the Holy Spirit declares to us of the grandeurs and beauties of Wisdom, of the desires that God has to give her to us, and of the need we have of her, are motives powerful enough to make us desire and ask her of God with every kind of faith and eagerness.

187. Pure faith is the principle and the effect of Wisdom in our soul: the more faith one has, the more wisdom one has; the more wisdom one has, the more faith one has. The just man, or the wise man, lives only by faith, without seeing, without feeling, without tasting, and without wavering. "God has said it or promised it" — that is the foundation of all his prayers and all his actions, even though it may seem to him naturally that God has no eyes to see his misery, no ears to listen to his requests, no arms to crush his enemies, and no hands to give him help; even though he is assailed by distractions, doubts, and darkness in his mind, illusions in his imagination, distaste and weariness in his heart, sadness and agonies in his soul.

The wise man does not ask to see extraordinary things as the saints have seen, nor to taste sensible sweetness in his prayers and devotions. He asks in faith, ex fide, for divine Wisdom: et dabitur ei. And he must be more certain that she will be given to him than if an angel had descended from heaven to assure him, because God has said: "Omnis qui petit, accipit: all who ask God rightly receive what they ask. Si ergo vos, cum sitis mali, nostis bona data dare filiis vestris, quanto magis Pater vester de caelo dabit spiritum bonum petentibus se, Lk 11: If then you, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the good spirit of Wisdom to those who ask him for it." [Lk 11:13].

188. Third, one must ask for Wisdom with perseverance. It is for the acquisition of this precious pearl and this infinite treasure that one must use a holy importunity with God, without which one will never obtain her. One must not do as most people do who ask God for some grace. When they have prayed for a considerable time, even for whole years, and do not see God answering their prayers, they become discouraged and cease praying, believing that God does not wish to hear them; and by this they lose the fruit of their prayers and insult God, who loves only to give, and who always answers well-made prayers, in one way or another.

Whoever therefore wishes to obtain Wisdom must ask for her day and night, without growing weary or discouraged. A thousand times blessed will he be if he obtains her after ten, twenty, or thirty years of prayer, or even an hour before death. And if he receives her after having spent his whole life seeking, asking for, and meriting her by every kind of labor and cross, let him be well persuaded that she is not given to him as a matter of justice, as a reward, but out of pure mercy, as an alms.

189. No, no, it is not those negligent and inconstant souls in their prayers and their seeking who will obtain Wisdom; it will be those who are like that friend who goes in distress to knock at the door of one of his friends to borrow three loaves. Note that it is Wisdom herself who, in this parable or story, shows us the manner in which we must ask for her in order to obtain her. This friend knocks and redoubles his knocking and his pleading, although it is at an unreasonable hour, near midnight; although his friend is in bed; although he has been rebuffed and sent away two or three times, as an impudent and importunate fellow. At last the friend in bed, seeing himself so besieged by his friend's pleas, gets up, opens his door, and gives him everything he asked for. [cf. Lk 11:5-8]

190. This is the way one must pray to obtain Wisdom. And infallibly, sooner or later, God, who wants to be importuned, will rise, open the door of his mercy, and give us the three loaves of Wisdom: the bread of life, the bread of understanding, and the bread of Angels.

Here are some prayers composed by the Holy Spirit for asking for Wisdom:

Prayer of Solomon to Obtain Divine Wisdom

191. God of my fathers, God of mercy, who made all things by your word; who formed man by your Wisdom, that he might have dominion over the creatures you made, that he might govern the world with equity and justice and pronounce judgments with an upright heart, give me that Wisdom who sits beside you on your throne.

Do not reject me from the number of your children, because I am your servant and the son of your handmaid, a weak man who must live but a short time and who has little capacity to understand the laws and to judge rightly. For even though someone may appear perfect among the children of men, he will nevertheless be considered as nothing if your Wisdom is not in him.

192. Your Wisdom is she who knows your works, who was present when you formed the world, and who knows what is pleasing in your eyes and what is the rectitude of your precepts.

Send her therefore from your sanctuary in heaven and from the throne of your majesty, that she may be and work with me and that I may know what is pleasing to you; for she has the knowledge and the understanding of all things; she will lead me in all my works with an exact circumspection, and she will protect me by her power. Thus my actions will be pleasing to you. I shall govern your people with justice and be worthy of the throne of my Father; for who is the man who can know the designs of God, or who can fathom what God desires?

The thoughts of men are timid and our foresight is uncertain, because the body which is corrupting weighs down the soul, and this earthly dwelling oppresses the mind with the multitude of cares that assail it. We understand with difficulty what happens on earth, and we discern only with trouble what is before our eyes; but who can discover what happens in heaven, and who can know your thought, unless you yourself give Wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from the highest heavens, that he may straighten the paths of those who are on earth and that men may learn what is pleasing to you. For it is through Wisdom, O Lord, that all those who have pleased you from the beginning have been healed. [Wis 9:1-6, 9-19]

193. To vocal prayer one must add mental prayer, which enlightens the mind, inflames the heart, and renders the soul capable of hearing the voice of Wisdom, of tasting her sweetness, and of possessing her treasures.

For my part, I find nothing more powerful for attracting the Kingdom of God, Eternal Wisdom, within us, than joining vocal and mental prayer by reciting the holy Rosary and meditating on the fifteen mysteries it contains.