How One Saint Describes Encountering the Wisdom of God

St Lawrence Justinian, whose Feast is today, was the First Patriarch of Venice, one of only four Patriarchates in the Latin Church. The others are Lisbon, the East Indies, and Jerusalem, which has several Eastern Catholic Patriarchs.

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

Wisdom is often personified as a woman, and St. Lawrence Justinian describes his encounter with her in a very poetic manner.

Many saints use poetic language in their writings, often trying to put in words a mystical experience they had during prayer.

For example, wisdom is often personified in the writings of saints as a woman, "Lady Wisdom."

Part of this comes from the book of Proverbs, which describes wisdom as a woman:

Does not wisdom call,
does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights beside the way,
    in the paths she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
    at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud

Proverbs 8:1-3

Encountering Lady Wisdom

St. Lawrence Justinian, a bishop of the 15th century, tries to describe an experience he had in one of his writings. Dom Prosper Guéranger quotes from this passage in his Liturgical Year:

But, by the divine grace, which fed my anguish, at length she, whose name I then knew not, appeared to me, more beautiful than the sun, sweeter than balm. As she approached, how gentle was her countenance, how peace-inspiring her voice.

St. Lawrence was won over with her beauty and expressed a deep longing to be united to her.

I acknowledge that...my heart failed, my soul was all pierced with the dart of her love. As I wished to know her name, her dignity, her origin, she told me she was called the Wisdom of God; and that, at first invisible in the bosom of the Father, she had taken of a mother a visible nature, in order to be more easily loved. Then, with great delight, I gave my consent; and she, kissing me, departed full of joy.

The encounter left a lasting impact on St. Lawrence, who sought to keep himself united to Wisdom as his bride:

Ever since then, the flame of her love has been growing within me, absorbing all my thoughts. Her delights endure for ever; she is my well-beloved bride, my inseparable companion.

St. Lawrence's heart burned with the love of God through his encounter with Lady Wisdom. It reminds us that our hearts need to desire God with a similar passion, like a bride awaiting her Bridegroom, looking forward to the wedding feast of Heaven.