Please read the passage before the homily.
Language: We cannot live without it and we cannot live with it. Language unites and language divides. Hebrew and Greek, Greek and Latin, Latin and the vernacular. To the Jewish people late in their history, Hebrew was the language that set them apart from other ethnic groups and Greek was the language of paganism and Godlessness. At the time of the reformation, the vernacular separated Protestants from Catholics who used Latin. The early Church in Rome spoke Greek; Latin only came later.
What should we do with the book of Wisdom? To the Jewish people of Alexandria, it was a welcome addition to their lives as faithful Jewish people who could now hear Gpd’s word in their own language. To the faithful Jewish people in Jerusalem, who did not see the need for Greek, it w something of an insult. Despite the fact that the Christian scriptures were written in Greek, the controversy of the Jerusalem community remained. The early Church accepted the Hebrew scriptures along with the Greek Jewish scriptures.
At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Protestants opted to follow the practice of the Jerusalem Jewish people and rejected the Greek Old Testament. Hence we have a Catholic Bible with the Greek Old Testament and the Protestant Bible with only the Hebrew Old Testament.
Solomon had a reputation for wisdom in the history of Israel. He became the face of the ancient wise person who teaches us the Wisdom of God. Wisdom is the correct way of acting. A wise builder knows how to build. A wise athlete knows how to trin and participate. A wise faithful person knows how to follow God’s law.
Justice, goodness, and integrity of heart mark the wise person. Wisdom flows from the Spirit of the Lord. Wisdom is the fulness of God’s self, poured out upon the wise.. Wisdom makes a person God-like. Wisdom unites but does not divide..