It is common for persons who dedicate themselves to ministry to speak of having a “calling.” Occasionally this is described in terms of a vision or an epiphany, other times as a feeling of a deep warmth or inner peace. In Laurence Justinian’s case, his calling came in the form of “a damsel, shining brighter than the sun”–and he recognized her as the personification of “eternal wisdom.”
Particularly in the book of Proverbs, Wisdom–a word that is feminine in both Hebrew (חוכמה) and Greek (σοφία)–is personified as a Female who was present from the very first with YHWH-God. Here, Wisdom herself speaks:
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.
[Proverbs 8:22-31, NRSV]
And what did Damsel Wisdom say to young Laurence Justinian? According to Butler’s account, she called:
“Why seekest thou rest to thy mind out of thyself, sometimes in this object, and sometimes in that? What thou desirest is to be found only with me: behold, it is in my hands. Seek it in me who am the wisdom of God. By taking me for thy spouse and thy portion, thou shalt be possessed of its inestimable treasure.”
Butler continues, describing Laurence’s response:
That instant he found his soul so pierced with the charms, incomparable honour, and advantages of this invitation of divine grace, that he felt himself inflamed with new ardour to give himself up entirely to the search of the holy knowledge and love of God.
Not long after entering into his religious order, an “intimate friend” of Laurence’s past–a young man of great wealth–paid him a visit. Try as this heart’s friend might, he could not flatter, cajole, nor browbeat Laurence into giving up this religious mania (as it initially seemed to him). So affecting, then, were Laurence’s responses that his friend ended up divesting himself of his worldly goods and joining Laurence under the same holy rule!
Reread the words Damsel Wisdom spoke to Laurence–even translated and transmitted through the centuries, after initially being orally shared from someone describing an extraordinary vision he had: these are compelling. Wisdom calls!