Rooted in the Beginnings

 

Remember Weekends with Chesterton, hosted by Sarah?    That's what came up on the randomizer today, and it will have to do, since this has been an eventful week.   My husband is out of town on business, I sprained my foot, and my son with seizure disorder had an episode last night -- not as scary as some, but I'm keeping an extra eye on him today.     And keeping the prayers for everyone's intentions going.     And the prayers for Pope Francis.      Last night was his (the Holy Father's) 14th in the hospital, as of this writing.  

I do have a Chesterton quote at hand, though!  I'm not sure why I clipped it a couple of days ago, but here it is.    I like the tie-in with wisdom and origins of things.    

The Fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom, and therefore belongs to the beginnings, and is felt in the first cold hours before the dawn of civilisation; the power that comes out of the wilderness and rides on the whirlwind and breaks the gods of stone; the power before which the eastern nations are prostrate like a pavement; the power before which the primitive prophets run naked and shouting, at once proclaiming and escaping from their god; the fear that is rightly rooted in the beginnings of every religion, true or false: the fear of the Lord, that is the beginning of wisdom; but not the end.

 The sunset is from last fall.

The 7 gifts of the Holy Ghost include both wisdom and fear of the Lord.     Since "fear" doesn't always sound like a good thing, here's an explanation:

Fear of the Lord is akin to wonder (or awe). With the gift of fear of the Lord, one is made aware of the glory and majesty of God. At a June 2014 general audience Pope Francis said that it “is no servile fear, but rather a joyful awareness of God’s grandeur and a grateful realization that only in him do our hearts find true peace”.  A person with wonder and awe knows that God is the perfection of all one’s desires. This gift is described by Aquinas as a fear of separating oneself from God. He describes the gift as a "filial fear," like a child's fear of offending his father, rather than a "servile fear," that is, a fear of punishment. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is the perfection of the theological virtue of hope.