Jul 24: Divine Wisdom Given to All

Luca Giordano: The Dream of Solomon
Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1693

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I: 1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12

[O Lord], give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil (NRSV, 1 Kgs 3:9a).”

Father, your servant Solomon prayed for the gift of wisdom with which you then seemingly blessed him. In reality, Lord, you give to everyone who will accept and use it, even before our asking, this very gift for which Solomon pleaded. Your Word is present to all of us at every moment in every place. Through the Word, now made flesh in our Lord Jesus, you speak the fullness of your truth once and for all and you challenge us through him to accept and to grow constantly in your divine life.

May all of us, every human being in every time and place, be ever responsive to your gift of your own life which brings with it divine wisdom that we may judge rightly in all things, recognizing the truth and living it out in lives of love and service to one another.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.