Eucharistic meditation

Proverbs 5:1-3: My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding. That you may observe discretion, and your lips may reserve knowledge. For the lips of the strange woman drop honey, and smoother than oil is her speech.

“The lips of the strange woman drip honey,” Solomon warns his son the prince. Her words are sweet and smooth, but “her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold on Sheol” (v. 5). Her sweet words don’t give life but entice to the grave.

But then Solomon says in the Song of Songs: “your lips, my bride, drop honey; honey and milk are under your tongue” (Song of Songs 4:11). The strange woman has honeyed lips, but then so does Solomon’s bride, Lady Wisdom. How can we tell the difference?

We need to pay attention to what the two women say. Lady Folly contradicts the instructions of the father; Lady Folly seduces the simple to join her in an adulteress bed. Wisdom on the other hand urges the naïve to seek wisdom and to choose life by renouncing the sexual and other enticements that lead to death. Sweet words can be life-giving, or deadly. It all depends on what’s said.

To gain discernment, we also need to develop our taste for true sweetness, and we do that by regularly feasting on Jesus, the living Wisdom of God. This is His table, given to us so that we can cultivate a taste for life. This is Wisdom’s table, where we come to know the difference between the deadly sweetness of an adulteress and the sweetness of a bride.