Have you ever wondered what allows some people to believe, while others do not? What special trait or disposition of mind equips one person to participate in faith, while another continues in his own ways? Why do some souls readily see the deeper layers of reality, while others see only the surface? What sets them apart?
Sincerity of Heart
Today’s passage from the Book of Wisdom explores this question through a meditation upon the nature of that logic which holds everything in order. Only those who seek the Lord with sincere heart will find him, while those who “put him to the test” will never see him. Distrust obscures the lens of the mind, and in such a person wisdom will never dwell. The vital ingredient to a life of faith, and more largely the participation in wisdom, is sincerity of heart. This reading unveils an image of the Wisdom of God that radiates beauty and power; as we read these verses we are stirred with a profound sense of the mystery of God.
I am reminded here of the four children in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Among the four, only the youngest child, Lucy, a soul of pure and honest heart, is able to pass through the wardrobe into the world of Narnia. She is the only one small enough to believe. In contrast, her brother Edmund maintains a hard, skeptical heart and accuses her of imagining things. Later on, we see that when they encounter Aslan, the Christ-like lion, Edmund becomes unsettled by his voice, while Lucy in her childlike sincerity is immediately drawn to him.
Small Enough to Make Room for God
Similarly, the Wisdom of God, we are told, finds no place in the distrusting soul. There simply isn’t room for the divine wisdom, an awesome and eternal mystery, to settle within someone who proudly disbelieves. And what a loss that is! Consider the sublime reality to be known in Wisdom, as the passage reveals: “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the earth, and that which holds all things together knows what is said.” Because this Wisdom of God is what coheres all of reality, instilling the order of things, only the soul that walks in truth can know Him. The smaller and more earnest the soul, the more he will be able to receive the gift of wisdom.
And here we come to that strange, beguiling declaration of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading. He insists that if we have only “faith the size of a mustard seed,” we will be able to do impossible things like uprooting a mulberry tree. This image of the tiniest seed of faith makes us stop and wonder. What does this mean? Should we not desire a great, sweeping faith that can move mountains? Why does Jesus acclaim instead the tiny seed?
The Kneeling Heart
Only the smallest seed. That which is almost nothing on its own, can take in the splendor and majesty of God’s Wisdom. We cannot even regard faith as something we enlarge on our own. Rather, we must come with the very small seed of an earnest heart. Fully aware of how little we are. And in this awareness we may come kneeling before the beauty of God. The more humbly and sincerely we come before the Lord, the more fully can we receive Wisdom, the Word of God, in all His splendor.
