Incline my heart to your decrees

Today, September 17, as our Church celebrates the Memorial of Charles Borromeo, bishop, we are invited to read and reflect on a passage from the book of Sirach (39:3-10), entitled "The wisdom of the man who is learned in Scriptures". Our treasure, which follows, is from On the ascent of the Mind to God, by Saint Robert Bellarmine, bishop. Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) was an Italian Jesuit priest, theologian, cardinal, and Archbishop of Capua who became one of the Catholic Church's most important teachers during the period following the Protestant Reformation. He is best known for his Disputations on the Controversies of the Christian Faith, a systematic explanation and defense of Catholic teaching on Scripture and Tradition, the Church, the papacy, the sacraments, grace, justification, and salvation, written in response to Protestant objections. Canonized in 1930 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931, he remains important because his writings helped the Church explain her faith more clearly during a period of profound division, while his life reminds Catholics that the purpose of knowing and defending the truth is ultimately to know Christ more deeply, live the Gospel more faithfully, and help lead souls into communion with God. The Ascent of the Mind to God by Saint Robert Bellarmine is a spiritual work written as a guide for Christians who desire to rise from contemplation of created things to deeper knowledge and love of their Creator. His fundamental message is simple but demanding, use the things of this world as gifts that lead you toward God rather than attachments that hold you back from Him, because the purpose of the Christian life is ultimately to raise the whole mind and heart toward loving union with God. Ezekiel was an Old Testament priest and prophet who ministered among the Jewish exiles in Babylon during the sixth century BC, beginning around 593 BC, after many people of Judah had been deported from Jerusalem. The central teaching of the Book of Ezekiel is that God is holy, each person is responsible for responding to Him with repentance and obedience, and God desires not the sinner's destruction but conversion and new life. God does not merely repair our external circumstances; He desires to transform us from within, replacing hearts hardened by sin with hearts capable of knowing, loving, and faithfully following Him. Taken together, today's two readings teach that true Christian wisdom is not merely knowing God's Word but allowing it to change our hearts, desires, and way of life so that everything within us becomes directed toward God. In our first reading from Sirach, the person learned in Scripture prayerfully studies God's law, seeks wisdom from Him, and then shares that wisdom for the benefit of others; in our "treasure" from The Ascent of the Mind to God, Robert Bellarmine prays, "Incline my heart to your decrees," recognizing that intellectual knowledge alone is insufficient unless God turns the heart away from selfish desires and passing worldly attachments toward Himself. Together these readings teach that Scripture should move us from knowledge to prayer, from prayer to conversion, and from conversion to a transformed life: the truly wise person does not simply understand what God teaches but increasingly desires what God desires, lives according to His will, and uses that wisdom to help lead others toward Him.