Spirit of Wisdom

Ironically,the commentary of Dick Hauser, S.J.on the texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary, which tell of the stoning and martyrdom of Stephen, is centered around the idea that through the presence of the Holy Spirit we are truly alive. Friar Jude Winkler explains that the defense of Stephen to the action of the members of the Synagogue of Freedmen is a strong defense wherein he declares that those following these leaders of the Jewish people are as stiff necked as their ancestors who failed to see the work of God in the Prophets. The assertion that Jesus is with the Father and is the agent of the Will of the Father is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Stephen is empowered to be in harmony with the refrain of the psalmist today and speak the prayer that his spirit be commended to the Lord. In the Gospel from John, Friar Jude comments that Jesus identifies Himself with Jewish religious tradition which Robert Balgarnie Young Scott concludes is that wisdom comes to man only as a divine gift, and that it belongs to the very nature of God himself. Wisdom literature pictures One who feeds the people with bread and wine. Jesus in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John declares Himself as Wisdom Incarnate that those who eat His bread and drink His wine will never hunger or thirst. The satisfaction seen by Stephen, through the Holy Spirit, is the satisfaction of hunger and thirst for return to intimate union with God which is through our life in the Body of Christ.