The Path to Wisdom

Homily of H.E. Most Rev. Charles John Brown D.D., Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines

Thanksgiving Mass, 50th Anniversary of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT) Asia-Pacific Region

July 16, 2025 | St. Gregory the Great Cathedral, Legazpi City, Albay

Your Excellency, the Most Rev. Joel Z. Baylon, D.D., Bishop of Legazpi;

Your Excellency, the Most Rev. Rex Andrew C. Alarcon, Archbishop of Caceres;

Dear brother bishops, who have come from near and far;

Priest here in great numbers, diocesan priests of Legaspi, priest of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), especially the Rev. Fr. Peter Marsalek, who is the General Priest Servant;

Dear sisters, especially the SOLT sisters here at the front rows of the cathedral,

Lay faithful, one and all:

For me as your apostolic nuncio, it gives me a lot of joy and a lot of happiness to be with you this morning, here in your beautiful cathedral, dedicated to St. Gregory the Great (a Pope), here in Legazpi City. It’s a great experience to be with all of you this morning, all the lay faithful, all the lay also of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity.

History of SOLT

Today we celebrate, as Bishop Joel said, a wonderful and momentous milestone: the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Society of Our Lady of Most Holy Trinity, here in the Philippines. Then, the spreading of your charism throughout this part of Asia.

Our thoughts go back even further this morning, back to July 16, 1958, when your founder, Fr. James Flanagan, inspired by the Holy Spirit, founded the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, the SOLT Community, within the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, in New Mexico. That was in 1958. Only 17 years later, a little bit less than 17 years later, Father Flanagan brought the community here to the Philippines. Arriving on February 3, 1975, the arrival the first missionaries of the SOLT Community here in the Philippines. 

As we've heard, they've done, you have done amazing missionary work here in this area, especially in the far-flung islands, which are only accessible by boat, and now perhaps by a bridge, but places on the peripheries of society, where the Society of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity has done beautiful missionary work.

Seeking Wisdom 

The first words that we heard in the First Reading (Sirach 51:13-22) this morning, I'd like to pause and reflect upon with you a bit, this morning. Let me repeat them. “When I was young and innocent, I sought wisdom. She came to me in her beauty, and until the end I will cultivate her.” “When I was young, I sought wisdom.” The psalmist says, traditionally, King David, “Teach us to number our days aright, so that we may gain wisdom of heart” (Psalm 90:12).

“Wisdom.” That's the theme, really of our liturgy this morning: wisdom. Wisdom is usually described as “the quality of having experience, having knowledge and good judgment.” In Greek, as all of us know, the word for wisdom is σοφία (Sophia), which is now a popular name for girls, “Sophie” or “Sophia”, that's wisdom. In Latin, the word is sapientia.

It's not an accident when we think about how when we were young, we sought wisdom, the desire for wisdom, seeking wisdom, thirsting for wisdom. The human beings, us, as a species, are named for wisdom. What are we? We're “homo sapiens”. What does that mean? It means persons who are wise (wise human). Seeking sapiens (wisdom). The big question for all of us, brothers and sisters, is where is this wisdom that we thirst for, that we want to have? Where is it to be found? How do we acquire wisdom?

We know that wisdom is connected to experience, but not all experiences make us wise. We know that wisdom is related to knowledge, but not all-knowing leads to true wisdom. For the ancient philosophers, wisdom was described as the “Ars Vivendi”, “the art of living”, “how to live”. We want to live. We want to live well. Wisdom is the quality that gives us the possibility to live well.

Where is this wisdom to be found? In our own time, in the world, when you look around us, we find many people who say there is no wisdom really, because all truth is relative. That there is really no truth that is beyond the individual. You have your truth. I have my truth. We just live in isolation. In such a view, wisdom is to be found for those people in the idea that all truth is relative, there is no absolute truth. There are even people who despair about seeking wisdom, and believe that human life has no meaning. We see that more and more in the Western world—people who live meaningless lives, and spend their lives in basically perpetual distraction. Because our lives, for them, are short, there is no real wisdom to be found, so let's just distract ourselves until we die. So, we find people who are fixated on their cell phones, constant distraction, constant superficiality, never really understanding, never going deeper. That's a powerful, and unfortunately, very common phenomenon in our world today.

Jesus Christ, the Wisdom from God

But for us as Christians, the situation is different. First of all, we realize that the values of this world are not enough to constitute, to make a wisdom that's worth living and dying for. For us, for Christians, the ars vivendi, the way of living cannot be completely identified with the way the world lives. Because in Christianity, as we know, “God chose the weak and the seemingly foolish people to shame those who seem to be wise” (cf. 1 Cor. 1:27). That God has created a new ars vivendi, a new wisdom, which is in the world, but is not of the world. “In the world, but not of the world.”

That wisdom, brothers and sisters, has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth. “God-made-man,” the wisdom of God. As Saint Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Jesus is the wisdom of God and the power of God” (cf. 1 Cor. 1:24).

When we live in Jesus, receiving His grace, His teaching, we live with a wisdom which is not of this world; a wisdom that is powerful, a wisdom that gives us joy, a wisdom that makes sense of our lives on this earth. Because it's a wisdom that points us towards the life of the world to come. It makes us realize that our lives on this earth are only the temporary preparation for the life of the world to come.

Saint Gregory, Saint Benedict, and the Wisdom

Your Cathedral is named for Saint Gregory, the Great, who was a great pope. He meditated on these themes of wisdom himself. He spoke and wrote about Saint Benedict, who lived before he did. In fact, Gregory, before he became pope, was a Benedictine monk. When he reflected about Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine monks, he had this very interesting phrase about Benedict, which involves wisdom. He says, “Benedict withdrew from the world knowingly unacquainted with its ways and wisely unlearned in its wisdom.”

So, he praises Saint Benedict for being “knowledgeably ignorant and wisely uneducated”. What is he praising? He's praising Benedict because Benedict understood and discovered the true wisdom, the face of Jesus, the wisdom of God, the power of God. That made Benedict, who maybe wasn't wise in the eyes of the world, and made him wisely uneducated in the things of the world. He was wise in the most important way. That beautiful wisdom, which is Jesus, which comes to us in the Catholic Church.

Mary, Seat of Wisdom

That wisdom comes to us in and through Our Lady, in and through Mary. Mary is the gateway through which Wisdom has entered the world. Mary is the mother of wisdom. Mary is, in Latin, the Sedes Sapientiae, the “Seat of Wisdom”. Because on Mary's lap, in the baby Jesus, we see God's wisdom for us, showing us how to live, showing us how to love, showing us how to hope. So, Mary is the one who brings us Wisdom. Mary is the one who gives us Wisdom.

Back to those words that we heard at the first reading this morning, “When I was young and innocent, I sought wisdom. She came to me in her beauty...” We can apply that to Mary, can't we? To Our Lady? Mary is the beautiful daughter of the Father. Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit. Mary is the mother of Jesus, the Wisdom of God. So, if we want a shortcut to that Wisdom, we find the shortcut in Mary, in Our Lady. 

The Path to Wisdom

This is at the heart of the charism of the SOLT priests, sisters, and lay people—to see Mary as the one who shows us Wisdom, who points us to Wisdom. Who says in the wedding feast of Cana, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). That's the path to Wisdom. Not the path of the world: distraction, superficiality, and even worse. The path to Wisdom is on the lap of Mary. Mary is the Sedes Sapientiae. “She came to me in her beauty…”

The SOLT fathers, sisters, and lay people are devotees of Our Lady. That's a beautiful truth, and that's what's made them such effective missionaries here in the Philippines, and in the other countries of Asia, to which they have gone and brought the Wisdom of God, the power of God in and through the Catholic Church, but always with that Marian aspect, that aspect of Mary, the Mother of God.

The saints, all of them, but especially Mary, are, we can say, “emblems” or “examples” of what it means to live with wisdom, true wisdom. We look at the saints, when we read their lives, when we're amazed by their virtues. All of this is like a textbook for us on how to live with true wisdom. That is what the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity has been doing—teaching that wisdom, bringing that wisdom, and showing us that a poor person with very little formal education, who may be a fisher person, or maybe a poor farmer, may be more wise, much more wise in the important wisdom of God, than the greatest philosopher, the greatest intellectual, the one who has the most degrees from universities.

That's what Christianity tells us. Jesus shows us, in Mary, how God “casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly” (Lk. 1:52), making them wise with a wisdom which is not of this world. 

Conclusion and Exhortations

So, for me, as the apostolic nuncio here in the Philippines, I want to congratulate all the members of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, the priests, the beautiful sisters, the wonderful lay people, all of you who have labored together here in the Philippines, and in the other countries, which are beautifully represented by the banners this morning, we say a massive thank you to you. We say a massive thank you to your founding father, Fr. James Flanagan, who had the inspiration to bring this wisdom of Mary, this Marian wisdom, into the world, and to diffuse that wisdom through the missionary work of your society.

Finally, as the Apostolic Nuncio in the Philippines, my responsibility and my joy is to remind you to pray for our new Holy Father, Pope Leo. He was only elected a little more than two months ago, and he's now taking a bit of a break away from the City of Rome, doing some homework and preparation as his pontificate begins, but he needs our prayers.

So, I know that you prayed very, very hard for Pope Francis for all those years, especially when he was sick, at the end, I ask you now also to pray for our beloved new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV.

In his name, in the name of Pope Leo, I salute and congratulate the members of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity on this 50th anniversary of their arrival in the Philippines. As they approach soon, the other anniversaries of their community: the anniversaries of their founding, and, of course, the 10th anniversary of the passing from this life of Father Flanagan, which, if I'm not mistaken, will happen next year.

So, God bless you, SOLT sisters, SOLT lay people, SOLT priests!

Thank you for your work in the Philippines.

Happy 50th anniversary!

Transcribed by Joel V. Ocampo