Our Lady has long been referred to as the “Seat of Wisdom” because she bore in her womb the Son of God, who St. Paul calls the “wisdom of God.”
“But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God…He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Cor 1:24, 30).
Christ fulfills the Old Testament tradition of the primordial Wisdom of the Lord, and St. John used the concept when he identified Christ as the Divine Word or Logos of God (John 1:1-13). When depicted as Wisdom Incarnate, Christ is often shown seated on the lap of His Blessed Mother. Mary is the throne from which Christ rules the universe.
Our Lady is also referred to as the seat of wisdom because she is thought to be the human fulfillment of “Lady Wisdom” as presented in the Wisdom books. In his treatise, True Devotion to Mary, the great Marian saint, St. Louis de Montfort, lists sixty explicit references to Mary in the Old Testament with more than three-fourths coming from the Wisdom books and the Psalms. Most of his wisdom references come from Sirach 24 and Proverbs 8, both prominent texts of “Lady Wisdom.”
Various Popes have also referred to her as the Seat of Wisdom, such as Blessed Pius IX’s 1854 papal bull Innefabilis Deus (which solemnly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception) in which he cited wisdom literature when he wrote: “The fathers and writers of the Church, well-versed in the heavenly scriptures,…celebrated the august Virgin as the spotless dove, as the holy Jerusalem, as the exalted throne of God, as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built…”
The Catechism recognizes the “Seat of Wisdom” title of the Blessed Mother as well as the application of wisdom literature to Our Lady by saying in paragraph 721:
“Mary, the all-holy ever-virgin Mother of God, is the masterwork of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time. For the first time in the plan of salvation and because his Spirit had prepared her, the Father found the dwelling place where his Son and his Spirit could dwell among men. In this sense the Church’s Tradition has often read the most beautiful texts on wisdom in relation to Mary. Mary is acclaimed and represented in the liturgy as the ‘Seat of Wisdom.’ In her, the ‘wonder of God’ that the Spirit was to fulfill in Christ and the Church began to be manifested.”
For Reflection:
Mary – “ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built.” Mary – “the masterwork of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time.” Along with any other statements made in today’s GraceLine, what do these words communicate to you about Our Lady? How do they increase your understanding of this one also called “fullness of grace?” How do you seek to emulate her?
