Easter 2026 - Reading #44 - Wisdom
Reading
Saint Augustine, in the Confessions, describes the moment of contemplative wisdom he shared with his mother Monica at Ostia: "We were alone, conversing most pleasantly. We were asking one another, in the presence of the Truth which You are, what the eternal life of the saints would be like. We ascended through all bodily things up to the very heaven from which the sun and the moon and the stars shine upon the earth. And we still ascended, by thinking inwardly, and speaking and wondering at Your works."
Augustine continues: "And we came to our own minds and went beyond them, to reach the region of unfailing plenty, where You feed Israel forever with the food of truth. And while we were speaking and panting for it, we just touched it, with the whole force of our hearts. And we sighed, and left the first-fruits of the Spirit bound there, and returned to the noise of our mouths, where a word has both beginning and ending."
For Augustine, this moment of shared wisdom was a foretaste of eternal life, a momentary touching of the reality that the gifts of the Spirit are designed to prepare us for. It came not through study or argument but through love, the love between a son and his mother, turned together toward the God who is the source and end of all love.
Reflection
Forty-five days into Easter, Augustine gives us the most beautiful description of the gift of wisdom in all of Western literature: the vision at Ostia, where he and his mother Monica ascended together through all created things to touch, for one breathtaking moment, the eternal reality of God. "We just touched it, with the whole force of our hearts."
Notice everything about this moment. It came not through solitary effort but through shared love. It was not generated by philosophical argument but by conversation, two people speaking and wondering together about God. It involved the whole person, mind, heart, body, relationship. And it did not last; they "returned to the noise of our mouths, where a word has both beginning and ending." The gift of wisdom gave them a taste, not a permanent possession. But that taste changed everything.
This is the nature of wisdom in this life. It comes in moments, in prayer, in beauty, in love, in the breaking of bread, in the face of a child, in the silence of a church. We touch it, and then we return to ordinary life. But ordinary life is never quite the same afterward, because we have tasted the reality that gives all of life its meaning. As Pentecost draws near, do not expect wisdom as a permanent state of illumination. Expect it as Augustine experienced it: a gift, a moment, a touch, shared with those we love, in the presence of the God who is Love. These moments are enough. They are more than enough. They are the foretaste of everything that is to come.